Woodstock Process & Ignation Spirituality

WHAT UNDERLIES THE WOODSTOCK PROCESS?

There are two aspects to the Process. The first is the method, an approach that the people appropriate over time. The second aspect concerns the topics or cases for the discussion. We talk about the topics later. What underlies the Woodstock process or approach is a conviction about who we humans are, how we are loved into being, how we work, and what we are called to do and be. The way of proceeding moves as follows:

A. Start with experience

We start and continually stay with the concrete experience of actual everyday issues or dilemmas, situations we have faced and resolved (or failed to resolve). Staying with the concrete and the tangible, avoids head trips or flights of fancy. The starting point is not instruction or lecturing about leadership, ethics, or moral decision making in the abstract. This is not a top-down approach.

The reason for starting with experience is the belief that doing the right thing is not a subject to be memorized or understood intellectually, but a way of actually doing things. This way of doing stems from some very basic feelings and beliefs: one’s beliefs about life, its meaning and purpose; one’s image and hopes for oneself; one’s relations to and regard of others; and, the role of business and the economy in promoting the good of human beings and society. It involves much more than numbers, ideas, or purely intellectual conjecture. Therefore, the Woodstock approach is concerned with the person who decides more than with ethical principles per se, important as they are. Good business men and women, individuals who are attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible, will invariably make better business decisions.

B.  Find the pattern in good decisions and actions

Often in the process participants will focus on what happened when the job was done well, when good decisions were made and carried into action. The initial task is to describe the facts of the situation, to describe the experience and all its relevant details.

The next step is to find the pattern. Specifically, as we walk through the process and name what we were doing, we come to see how each step relates with the others. Drawing out the patterns from sound decisions and good action helps us to see what was at stake, what was considered or taken into account, what was ultimately decided, how it was carried out, and what was learned as a result. By reflecting on the pattern, we find in our own life experience and behaviour a pattern of steps whereby we behave well and ethically. We all do this spontaneously when acting well. In Genesis, God said his creation and creatures were good — even though we mar it with our sinfulness, inattention, bias, and timidity. Therefore, if we honestly strive to do as well as possible in the struggle to make good business decisions, we will find a pattern that is written into us by God Himself as he created and redeemed us.

Finding the pattern helps us to be faithful to our basic vocation or calling in life. Finding the pattern for coming to do the right thing is the self-correcting process that enhances our ability to decide and act ethically and morally. Moreover, since this pattern of sound decision making is the way by which people grow to maturity, responsibility, and full human freedom, we are all called to follow this way. It is who we are as humans and how we operate when we are at our best.

C. Name the values

What values are we trying to preserve or promote in the particular decision or action? Were some values in tension or conflict with others (e.g., corporate competitiveness and compassion for employees)? How were values prioritized in the actual decision reached? Most business decisions are not about good and bad, but about good and better. The challenge is to determine which is better. In concrete cases this judgment call depends on all the circumstances, the question of motivations, and how the decisions are implemented.

D. Identify the blockages

Woodstock Business Conference members learn to assess what might block their efforts to make good ethical decisions. It may be inattention, untested assumptions, biases, and forces inside us or our businesses. Or, it may be factors external to the organization (e.g., government regulations, corruption, the unethical behaviour of competitors, disregard of the health and well-being of individuals, or systems that sabotage the possibility of ethical business efforts). We look to see what can be done to promote a more ethical climate, not only within our firms, but in the larger social environment within which the firms operate.

Thus, over time attention may shift, moving from one's particular organization to noticing the impact of the broader social environment on our business decisions. WBC members try to understand the relationship and interaction between the political and social order and the firm’s decisions. From such inquiries comes better understanding of our responsibility to contribute to the health of the social order within which we live and work.

 E. The relevance of the Gospel

The step of reading and reflecting on Scripture at the beginning of each meeting surfaces the crucial question of the relevance of the Gospel and the tradition in analyzing and knowing the right thing to do. More concretely, we explore how the Gospel motivates us to choose and do what is ethical and moral. How it helps us to see and understand our role in the world as a business leader or professional. How it enables us to evaluate specific business action plans, a well as social policies.

Remember, the WBC process is not an answer book. This process leads to deeper understanding which, of necessity, aids us to make more informed, appropriate decisions. In this way of proceeding we keep using all we have learned in each new situation. By reflecting on how we have handled ourselves in making past decisions, we see how we can improve both the process of decision making and concrete business determinations themselves. Our lives grow in a spiral of cumulative behaviour. Business life is no exception. This cumulative dynamic has the potential for improvement as well as decline. We progress to the extent that we make the effort necessary to pay attention to all the relevant data and ask the necessary questions. We progress if, on the basis of our questioning, we make the commitments to judge what is true and do what is good. What we are doing is who we are patterned and called to be. We are simply fulfilling our vocation by responding to the calling which is built right into us.

IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY

Seven Principal Elements

1. God in All Things. God is present in all of human existence. The world and all it contains reveals God to us. It was out of this conviction that Ignatius became known as an “incarnational mystic,” a “contemplative in action.”
    
2. The Consciousness Examen. If God indeed can be found in all things, then human beings can discern God’s presence in the world. The examen is a prayerful reflection on one’s day in order to notice where God was present in one’s behaviour, thoughts, feelings, actions, relationships, work, play, etc, so that one may respond with grateful generosity.
    
3. Two Standards: The Standard of Christ and the standard of Satan. We ought not to be naïve about the presence of evil in the world. We are called to discern and reject what is evil and to do battle against evil, serving Christ under the standard of the cross.
    
4. AMDG, Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam. For the Greater Glory of God; and Magis, more. For most people decisions involve a choice from among various goods. AMDG reminds us that we are called to seek that which will give greater glory, i.e. what is most especially conducive to the praise, worship, and service of God?
   
   The magis is not a question of doing more, but of carefully discerning what is especially fitting in the service of God.
    
5. The Call of the King. Christ calls each one of us to offer our unique talents and gifts in the service of God and God’s kingdom. This call is personal. Each person has a unique mission; each is summoned by God by name.
    
6. Ignatian Discernment. God’s voice can be discerned most clearly by a careful examination of one’s deepest, most authentic desires. God’s voice can also be discerned in a group setting: prayerful consideration of the movements of the Spirit in the groups’ ongoing work, conversation, prayer, etc.
    
7. Cura Personalis. This term can be paraphrased with: “The person in front of me is the most important person in the world.” Cura Personalis is the attentive concern given to each individual, taking into consideration that person’s whole self, body, mind, and soul. No aspect of what it means to be human ought to be neglected. This principle also implies that a human being must never be treated as a means to an end, but is always to be treated with respect as an individual man or woman, made in God’s image and likeness.