Being Careful and Exact In Our Work Will Contribute Greatly to Stability in the Workplace

We discussed the importance of kitchen service in a monastery last time. That first pass focused on the "what" of kitchen service. We derived some lessons we could apply as non-monks working in the world. Our examples illustrated benefits that accrued to our mental, physical, and spiritual lives. The positive effects on us as individuals bolstered stability in our workplace. Simply put, healthy workers are in a decent position to contribute to that stability - a stability that results from performing our work in a careful and exact manner, similar to the care and exactness monks were expected to apply to their service in the kitchen.

Now we switch from the "what" to the "how" of kitchen service. Here's St. Benedict's description of how monks perform their kitchen service. 

"Let the weekly servers, an hour before the meal, receive each of them, over and above the regular allowance, a drink and some bread, in order that at the meal time they may serve their brethren without murmuring and undue hardship...On Sunday, immediately after Lauds, the incoming and outgoing servers shall prostrate themselves before all the brethren in the oratory and ask fo their prayers. Let the server who is ending his week say this verse: Benedictus es Domine Deus, quie adjuvasti me et consolatus es me. When this has been said three times and the outgoing server has received his blessing, then let the incoming server follow and say: Deus in adjutorium meum intende, Domine ad adjuvandum me festina. Let this too be repeated thrice by all the brethren, and having received his blessing let him enter on his week."

Notice first the care for the workers themselves. They're given something to eat and drink. Notice also the expectation that, being treated well, they will perform their work well with a good attitude. The bread and wine they're given before serving provide physical sustenance to execute the tasks at hand. It provides emotional sustenance as well - which allows St. Benedict to instruct that their service be performed without murmuring and undue hardship. 

If, as business owners and managers we treat our workers with similar consideration, we can expect high quality work done without complaint or negative attitude. On the flip side, If, as workers, we are treated with consideration, we should perform our work without complaint with a good attitude. When both boss and worker are on the same page here, the expectations and the results should be outstanding. And there's no reason both boss and worker can't work with each other here.

So we expect people to perform their tasks with care and exactness. But that expectation depends on how the people are treated in the first place.

Of course, there's a style of management that uses fear to get the job done properly. I've worked at times under that hammer of fear. But that's not how we Catholic men at work want to manage our business. And it's not how we Catholic men at work want to perform our work.

St. Benedict manages to seamlessly combine: an insistence on being careful and exact in how tasks are performed; care for the person and specific direction clearly establish what needs to be done. 

There's no reason we, in either our management of people or in performing our job, cannot do the same.

With the combination of management providing care and sufficient explicit direction, with workers performing their tasks with care and exactness, we can almost certainly establish and reinforce stability in the workplace.