Getting fired with a smileSpirituality

As a leader in business, we sometimes hold ourselves back from actively contributing to others at work, out of the fear that our actions would not be accepted.

Have you ever met a business leader who was so authentic and “down to earth” that you just had to like him or her? That’s been our experience with Kenny Moore, a former Catholic monk who became Corporate Ombudsman and Human Resource Director at KeySpan, the largest distributor of natural gas in the Northeast area of the USA, with 13,000 employees.

Kenny has co-authored a book with the CEO of his company, Robert Catell, called The CEO and the Monk: One Company's Journey to Profit and Purpose. “Business Week India ” fittingly summarised it with this review:
“This is a corporate Akbar-Birbal story. Here, Akbar is a corporate emperor, Birbal a wise, retired Catholic priest. They combine to convert a gas company into an enterprise with warm soul and commitment. The most important lesson of this story is an ancient one: a court jester is necessary to provide wise inputs to an emperor and to keep him from straying onto the path of short-lived glory."

Kenny says, “The Divine's will is often revealed in the context of community with others, and in using our God-given talents to make the world better. Bosses, co-workers, and the economy will provide us with more than ample opportunities to practice kindness, forgiveness, and a note of hope to a sometimes beleaguered world.” He often comes up with creative ways to find and act upon those opportunities.

For example, in one article, “How to get fired with Pizzazz ”, Kenny reflected on the possibility of winning a large amount of money in a lottery. He mused that he might delay cashing in on his good fortune and “spend the next twelve months showing up at work the way I always wanted to, but was too afraid.”

Here are some things he would do “that would be both fun and meaningful” – for which he also speculated, “By the end of the year, the company in its infinite wisdom would surely terminate me. But not without a smile on my face.”

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