Atlantic Book Review:

Reviewed by Mike Smith for the Atlantic Book Review
 

People often struggle with knowing the difference between religion and spirituality. Nancy R. Smith's Workplace Spirituality: A Complete Guide for Business Leaders not only offers a clear distinction between the two terms, but is built around that distinction, providing spiritual readers with a new way to live from nine to five. The book offers readers a history of the workplace spirituality movement and its importance now, instructing the reader on how to bring spirituality to the workplace, how ethics are involved in this process, and what's ahead for the future.

"Well, 'bye Jesus; see you at five o'clock," is one of my favorite lines from the book, and it's part of one of the stories at the beginning of chapter two as Tom is obviously going to work without his spirituality. Each chapter begins with a short anecdote like that one. The fact that it's organized like a college textbook is my favorite part of the book. Aside from the anecdotes, it includes chapter previews, statistics, exercises, resource lists, and even questions for reflections at the end of each chapter. I was pleasantly surprised by the way the book discusses real life companies such as Office Depot and Enron. These case studies keep the reader interested at all times.

Workplace Spirituality tells you what to do, when to do it, and what to avoid. It's organized so that you can live your new spiritual life at work according to this book. Organized like a college textbook, you will feel like you're taking a class and it will force you to be disciplined. It's easy to see this book fitting into college curriculum and at the same time, sitting on the shelves of not only your bookshelf at home, but also at your new spiritual workplace.