Do you believe in miracles?
25/10/2010: Do you believe in miracles? Last week we saw Australia's first saint canonised. There is nothing like a good miracle to take you out of the mundane and make you think of a bigger picture, the meaning of life and the inspiring "do-gooders" in the workplace and beyond. Even those who are anti-religion or who want to bag the media coverage have got to give Saint Mary of the Cross her due; she was an inspirational leader with a strong entrepreneurial flair.
Personally the story's given me a little lift in my step this week and made me take a look at where my business and I are creating "good". I met a prospect last week who was giving a percentage of all their profits to charity. We do our fair share, but it has made me rethink our philanthropy activity.
Mary MacKillop's story has something for everyone. She was a renegade, a strong personality, an educator, an entrepreneur, a teenage rebel and a female pioneer. She was ahead of her time, held strong beliefs that she refused to back down on, was excommunicated and then accepted back. It has all the elements of a good story and she was definitely a good egg!
Born in Melbourne in 1842 — go the Victorians — she started work at 14 years of age, and then opened her first free Catholic school around 1866 near Adelaide. She started her own order, The Sisters of St Joseph, with Catholic priest Father Julian Woods and took a vow of poverty, which meant she and her followers had to beg for money and food.
In 1867 she moved to Adelaide and opened another school, and before long 17 schools were under her care, which annoyed Church leaders. Yes, successful women were putting the establishment's noses out of joint even back then! The bishop of the time became irritated and excommunicated her. Mary stuck by her faith and was accepted back by the bishop a year later.
When Mary died in 1909 there were St Joseph schools all over Australia. It's a great story of entrepreneurial expansion by a woman way ahead of her time.
Mary has been canonised a saint because she was evidently responsible for two healing miracles during the 1990s. Go Mary, I say. That's the great thing about great leaders. She continued to inspire and make a difference long after her death. It made me rethink what I am going to be remembered for.
Reading about faith this week in newspapers made me think of the values of tolerance and encouragement in the workplace. Although I am an Anglican Christian, I like to call myself a "failed" Christian, because it is a continual journey as a Christian to measure up. But I do try and incorporate the values of my faith in how I operate at work, in the office, as part of our culture, with customers and suppliers and in my parenting.
I find faith, or one's personal core values, a great leveller to assist you on an ethical path as a leader. For example, patience, integrity, acceptance, goodness and tolerance are not bad traits to work towards into the work place. None of us are perfect but we can keep trying!
We talk about faith fairly regularly in the office, because we've worked on some religious PR campaigns and this week we met with the Seventh Day Adventists to help them with their marketing campaigns. In the last year, my staff of mixed faiths (including Sikhs, Greek Orthodox, spiritualists, Christians, Catholics) and non-believers came together in tolerance to deliver an award-winning campaign for the Bible Society (we won both the marketing institute and the PRIA state awards last month for our work). In doing so, we've learnt a lot about each other's faiths, different religions and the core values and beliefs of each other. They are good conversations to have.
In our office, we've seen what a team, with differing faiths could do when united. It's been inspirational for me to watch. All the better, to have our own work recognised by our professional bodies.
So I reckon it's a good time to create some of your own miracles in the workplace: magic moments for customers and magic moments for suppliers and your teams. That could be as simple as buying brownies for afternoon tea, taking your shoes off as a tradesperson before you walk into your customer's house, or complimenting someone on their work. I reckon it's worth a brainstorm to work out how we can best make magic moments part of our business and our lives in general.
Many of the best brands have captured these magic moments and made them part of normal procedure so they become the "way to do things". From McDonald's, "have a nice day" to the "thank you" I got from a Qantas staff member the other day as I disembarked. I think everyone could do with a little of Saint Mary's magic now and again. Make magic moments part of your every day.
