More Spark, Less Snark: Quaker Teachings for Modern Workplaces

Over the past 400 years, Quakers (the Religious Society of Friends) have promoted freedom and peace, opposed slavery and violence, defended women’s rights, and distilled over time the perfect ingredients for the modern business era: compassion, collaboration, and social responsibility.

Tenets of the Quaker faith — the existence of a Divine Spark within each of us, participative worship, low barriers to inclusion and participation, and the lack of formal hierarchy — can show modern managers and employees a way to reshape workplaces that often lack that “essential something” we seek — that spark of interest, an ability to contribute, and an organization that makes us feel valued.

Spark in the dark (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Bauer_1915.jpg)

In this post, we explore how Quaker ideals might apply to the modern business context and consider that if Quakerism had found greater traction in religious, social, and business contexts over the past 400 years — our modern workplaces would likely look quite different.

Instead, we have built educational, social, and corporate organizations that resemble the Catholic Church or the military: layered hierarchies, top-down rule setting and enforcement, rites of access (credentials, tests, hazing), regalia (uniforms, business attire, corporate floors), highly choreographed meetings, and on and on.

Younger generations no longer want to follow these rites and play by these rules. There is a mass exodus from strict religions, and people are looking for meaning but finding very little — not in society and not at work, either, where 70% of us are not engaged.

In other words, we have “broken up” with work and all its benefits—structure, access to a social network, the ability to contribute, and challenges to define ourselves and improve our skill sets.

In romance, when we want to break up, we say, “It is me, not you.” But at work, it is always “them.” We demand a more diverse, harmonious, respectful, and supportive workplace. Yet, to achieve this, we only very reluctantly give up transient desires (i.e., power, prestige, security, ego, etc.). We do not make it a priority to pursue causes nobler than a “corner office” or who is “top dog” in office culture wars.

We seem stuck — as bosses and employees — and unwilling to take action and responsibility. Making sure that all parties can be heard and take responsibility is hard work. Yet knowing that with effort and commitment good times will return encourages us to make the best of hard times and to do what we can to shorten them.

With work, as with long-term romantic relationships, it is often difficult to regain the spark that originally drew us together.

Seeking solutions to some of these problems, we explore the world of the Quakers. Their concepts of a “Divine Spark” and “Inner Light” remind us of our power to foster a vibrant inner world, help others to do the same, and influence collective decision-making.

We consider Quaker teachings on a three-dimensional plane: the personal (how an organization sees a person), the structural (how individuals interact to get work done in a community), and the cultural (how the individual and the organization come together in mutually reinforcing ways). For each we consider workplace implications and include reflection questions.

Sparking the Divine — the Individual Dimension

A central tenet of Quaker philosophy is that of the “Divine Spark”: each individual’s inner light. The Quakers do not believe this light is merely religious in nature — rather, it governs the totality of our being, from our conscience to our personal values. Caroline Stephen’s 1891 Quaker Strongholds described the Divine Spark thusly:

That individual and immediate guidance, in which we recognize that “the finger of God is come unto us,” seems to come in, as it were, to complete and perfect the work rough-hewn by morality and conscience. […]. And that Divine guidance of which I am speaking could be typified only by the pressure of a hand upon ours, leading us gently to step to the right or the left, to pause or to go forward, in a manner intended for and understood by ourselves alone.

So, for the Quaker, the experience of the Divine is very much a matter of personal experience — and if we consider that carefully, any “daily personal experience of the Divine” is really beyond the ability of any religion to handle. This is an interesting (and very modern) notion — that there is this vibrant inner world within each of us, yet the needs of that vibrant inner world are difficult for any organization (religious or otherwise) to meet.

How often do we bring our “authentic self” to work? Very rarely. Usually our Divine Spark is not only “hidden under a bushel” — but hidden under a series of bushels like a Matryoshka doll — layer upon layer of armor through which not even a glimmer of a Divine Spark can shine through.

For a Quaker, the “daily experience of the Divine” is comprised of the internal promptings of which we are all aware — and which are unique to our own experience, environment, relationships, and a hundred other factors too numerous to mention.

What is interesting about the Quakers is that they integrate this internal experience into the daily practice of religion so that, in a sense, each moment of a life becomes “Divine.”

Similarly, stepping beyond the bounds of our own life to interfere with or direct the lives of others is a very serious transgression because, in doing so, we interfere with someone else’s Divine experience or cause them to ignore their own relationship with the Divine.

Reconciling our internal world with the world around us is primarily accomplished by Quakers through what we might loosely call “Right Action”: following the text of the Bible but filtered through the lens of the “Internal” pillar. “Right Action” may sometimes be the heavier, more burdensome way of doing things — but almost invariably the “right” thing.

Food for workplace thoughts

• Once we accept that each person has something unique to offer, we open the door to full employee engagement and a wider range of creative contributions. That includes taking a longer-term and more lateral view of individual contribution and impact. For example, investing in well-being and education might have little immediate, visible benefit to the business. This means that, even in an ideal environment, a person’s unique contribution(s) might not appear for years, or those contributions (over the very long term) might only end up benefitting another company and/or society. In this frame, caring for others takes on an entirely new level of importance.
• Leaders who understand the “Divine Spark” part of the equation can create the conditions for everyone to shine. The key is recognizing that everyone has a Divine Spark — regardless of position. That is a very simple idea — but a powerful one. Because almost instantaneously, each individual in an organization becomes inherently valuable.
• Firms can also understand that individuals have many expressions of that “Divine Spark”—in their families, friendships, communities, hobbies, and other types of personal and professional connections far outside the scope of the business.
• This means that while the employee is at work — the organization can encourage each employee’s Divine Spark to shine as brightly as possible during working hours. But at the same time, the organization can ALSO encourage the employee to fully engage with those other “expressions of self” — because those other expressions of self create long-term benefits for the business (happier employees) and also humanity as a whole (happy people who are fully engaged wherever they go).
• Rather than imposing rigid structures and protocols, businesses should embrace the full range of perspectives and experiences that each individual brings to the table. By fostering an environment where employees feel valued and respected for their unique contributions and Divine Spark and ensuring that employees respect the Divine Spark of others (the “we” and the “me”), companies can unlock the full potential of their workforce.

Reflection questions

1. Do you acknowledge your own inner light?
2. Where do you feel most comfortable letting it shine? Is one of those places where you work? If not, what would you need to change about your workplace to make that true? How do you fit in the overall constellation of the workplace?
3. When you are upset with someone at work, can you take a moment, see their inner light, and acknowledge that there may be something you are missing or need to hear? Are they following “Right Action” in that case? Are you?
4. Are you shining too brightly at work? Have you forgotten the other places in your life where your light is also needed?
5. In times of hardship, when your own light has nearly gone out, have you reached out to others for support and love so that they can help you recover, rebuild your “internal lighthouse” if it is damaged, and remember that you are incredibly valuable to a wide range of people? If you ask, there are many people who will come to your aid.

Access and inquiry — the Organizational architecture

“Affiliates regard the Quaker church as a liberal and permissive church organization. It is seen as supportive of an individualized religious perspective. [. . .] Religious truths, from this Quaker perspective, are not fixed nor, significantly, can religious truths be fully defined for individual participants by church institutions. Ergo, the interviewees suggest that the organizational structures of traditional mainstream churches are inimical to this fundamental and highly individualized view of religious belief. Religious truth is elusive in this stratified and organizational sense.”

The workplace typically requires a series of “compromises and practical accommodations,” but increasingly, an attractive workplace is one in which workers find a good fit for their values. This gives them a long-term time horizon for a job — as the good fit for personal values can help them transit minor problems, which in an environment that is inimical to their personal values would be more likely to be considered “major” problems.

The main line of Quakerism is that personal experience of the “inner light,” which usually (in most other religions) gets filtered down through institutions and a series of intermediaries and protocols.

The organizational scaffolding of Quakerism sidestepped the trap of a top-down hierarchy with a Meeting House (usually held in a simple domestic setting that encourages exchange, as shown below), Regional Meetings, National Meetings, and International Meetings.

Old school meeting house (source: https://heritagecalling.com/2020/11/02/a-brief-introduction-to-quakers/)

This may sound similar to the structure of most corporations or religions, but in Quakerism there are no corporate “permanent” officers. “Power” flows from each individual’s experience of their internal Divine Spark and that Spark’s interaction with the outside world. The one-hour service usually starts with silence to quiet the mind, and there are no set hymns, prayers, or sermons. The silence becomes a place of connection — to the self, the other, and the Divine.

In a Quaker meeting, someone might be prompted internally to speak and will stand up and do so. Anyone, including visitors, can “minister” — or talk.

That contribution becomes part of the “total context” of the community, creating a living “Brain Trust” that doesn’t arbitrarily dismiss anyone’s opinion because of their position, age, or social standing — but takes “all comers” and integrates everything. One never knows when a piece of information (or someone’s particular viewpoint) will become invaluable.

Organizationally, from the Meeting House to larger annual meetings, there are no rule books or textbooks. Instead, questions are posed. But no one really “decides” what to do about the questions authoritatively. Questions remain open for the organization to ponder — sometimes advice is given, but no advice is ever deemed “definitive” (in the spirit of the “Internal” pillar — i.e., one person’s voice doesn’t define everything for everyone).

The result is that most questions are never definitively answered authoritatively as they are in a typical business or religion — where there is a Boss (or clergy), and the Boss decides what is going to happen, and then everyone has to “go along to get along” — because the Boss said so.

In Quaker meetings, all participants have an equal voice, and the hierarchy is flat. There are no requirements, rites of passage, or expectations about confirmations and communions as there are in the Catholic Church, the Church of England, or Eastern Orthodox Church.

Participation is welcomed, encouraged, and respected — ensuring that everyone who wants to be seen and heard can be. It also makes it clear that decisions made jointly bring responsibilities jointly borne.

Finally, elders and those who command respect also bear a responsibility. To build such organizations, we might all need to be more like George Fox, the English dissenter who founded the Religious Society of Friends:

I was plain, and would have all things done plainly; for I did not seek any outward advantage to myself.

Food for workplace thoughts

• Flatter hierarchies help ensure that employee questions/concerns are addressed on a real- or near-real-time basis — both personally and organizationally. If employees can see that others are treated well in real-time by the business, this becomes a feedback loop where active participation in the business becomes self-reinforcing. As a result, the organization is more fluid and less static in its structure. Meaning it can adapt more easily to external pressures.
• Because disagreement is increasingly difficult in civic society, we also find it harder to engage at work and not only be moved to speak but dare to do so. Leaders, therefore, need to consider how to use techniques such as Red Teams and assigning Devil’s Advocates to surface productive dissent.
• By empowering employees to voice their opinions and contribute to strategic discussions, businesses open the door to a wider range of ideas and perspectives. This collaborative approach not only fosters innovation but also cultivates a sense of ownership and accountability among team members.
• This requires patience, however. In some conversations and teams, individuals might contribute experience or just enthusiasm. They might learn or teach, or sometimes both simultaneously. Sometimes, an individual can contribute something no one can really see coming, which is the result of a hobby, an obscure bit of knowledge they alone possess, or some other random “alignment of the stars,” which ends up being a truly valuable addition to the business. But you can’t get those kinds of contributions from employees unless that employee is fully engaged. And it isn’t easy to get that level of engagement unless the business is open to a) promoting and respecting each person’s Divine Spark and b) being flexible enough to concede that good ideas can come from anywhere.

If we consider an individual as a bat, a Quaker-to-Quaker interaction is like two bats flying in tandem — coordinated and connected, but neither individual is subservient or dominant. Taking the analogy one step further, the Quaker organizational structure functions via a process similar to that of echolocation in a cave that is FULL of bats — each having a place, yet not running into each other’s internal world. “Right action” (echolocation) guides each person’s flight.

Reflection questions

1. Reflect on when you felt your values were aligned (or misaligned) with your workplace's. How did this impact your overall sense of well-being and engagement?
2. Is the structure and hierarchy of your current workplace more Catholic Church or Quaker meeting house? Who benefits from the rite and regalia? To what extent do we all buy into structure and hierarchy because of conditioning and familiarity?
3. Next time you are in a meeting when a Powerpoint presentation is the hymn book, consider what is happening in the space. Do you enjoy being able to disconnect and just pretend to be listening?
4. How might adopting a flatter hierarchy or more open meetings, similar to the Quaker organizational model, influence communication, decision-making, and employee empowerment? And what would that mean for you as a leader, colleague, and employee? It might mean more work and risk because more engagement requires more emotional and mental connection to others.
5. Do you make space for silence as a tool for connection?

Embracing Participation, Flexibility, and Adaptability — the Cultural Glue

“Ultimately, what counts as Quaker is subject to a process of compromise and practical accommodation within the mundane world: claims to religious horizons are circumscribed in the workaday and pragmatism rather than radicalism is typical.”

Treat others with kindness, integrity, and empathy.

By prioritizing employees' well-being and personal development, businesses can foster a sense of belonging and loyalty that transcends monetary incentives. However, companies that address the internal needs of employees at such a high level should also expect and/or demand a certain level of behavior from employees in how they treat others. Managers should also coach those who don’t.

In other words, going back to the “echolocation and no collisions” metaphor — employees (if their internal worlds are respected) can see that they are part of a functioning organic whole (the business) and that its leaders and managers are doing their best to support that mission (resulting in increased creativity, engagement, happiness, self- and lateral support of others, better mental and physical health, and so on). This means role models aren’t necessarily “strong, powerful, and authoritative” but rather “kind, empathetic, and having unshakeable integrity.”

Live in accordance with the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit.

By offering support for mental health, work-life balance, and personal development, regardless of whether it benefits the firm directly, businesses can create an environment where employees thrive professionally and personally. By succeeding in these areas, employees are more likely to remain engaged at work and provide their maximum creative output to the business. This is also related to purpose-driven organizations. Companies can build trust with employees, customers, and the broader community by integrating ethical considerations into their operations.

Reflection questions

1. How do you, your colleagues, and your organization prioritize kindness, integrity, and empathy in daily operations and interactions? What is hard about doing so and why?
2. What do you do that makes it harder for others to live in accordance with their own Divine Spark?
3. If you are a leader and role model, how much formal power are you willing to give up? How would you assess whether this makes you a more empathetic leader rather than just a weaker one?
4. What is the payoff of radicalism? When we become more pragmatic, does it feel like we are settling? How can “practical accommodations with the mundane world” feel liberating and not disheartening?
5. How do we adapt these teachings while avoiding what Quakers have been criticized for, such as letting others fight “their” wars, being too passive, and not being explicit about their beliefs?

Or, to return to the bat metaphor — if each bat’s voice can ring out clearly and is heard (and respected) by others, the organization (the bat colony) is more or less ideally formed due to each bat’s echolocation being more-or-less perfect, leading to instant adaptation by the business to problems both internally and externally.

A Divine Spark for an Industrious Society of Workers

What the Quakers believe should inspire us to change how we run organizations and help us win the current battle with employee disillusionment and engagement.

The Quaker solution is surprisingly simple and is founded in something we all know to be true: we each have a rich and vital inner world. None of us know where that comes from—only that it is there, and when it is disrespected or belittled, a part of us dies. But when that inner world is celebrated, valued, and encouraged, our inner world blazes out brightly, and we find that we are at our best and most creative.

When organizations can understand this very simple dynamic — something which the Quakers live daily as a matter of course — it wins basically all battles currently facing modern businesses: diversity and inclusion (everyone has a Divine Spark and is deserving of respect), workplace engagement (if all Divine Sparks are respected and encouraged, everyone wants to be there), employee mental and physical health (if an employee’s Divine Spark is engaged, and respected, it leads to fewer negative work-related outcomes), and the organization’s overall contribution to the world (if you have hundreds or thousands of Divine Sparks working in concert — you truly can change the world).

In other words, when we feel “at home,” as we do with friends and beloved family, we shine our brightest. So organizations that encourage and nurture that Divine Spark and sense of “home” create a truly beautiful thing—not just a few bright individual sparks but entire constellations blazing brightly.

In Blackett’s War, Stephen Budianski described how “From 1941 to 1943, a small group of British and American scientists, almost entirely without military experience or knowledge, revolutionized the way wars are run and won.”

All of us can be scientists of the spark who revolutionize how companies are run and can provoke enormous change first at the individual then organizational and cultural levels.

Matthew Vernon Hanson, PhD, and I are not Quakers, but we learned about ourselves and our organizations from them. We hope you did, too. Also, we want to correct our errors, so please point them out.