You've Got to Have Faith

(With apologies in memoriam to George Michael.)

I've been working through a consultancy firm recently where the CEO (I'll call him John) wanted to create a Christian organisation because he felt most comfortable dealing with people with whom he had some basis of understanding in how to go about doing business - a set of ethics, if you like.
John & I would have great discussions about everything - even work. Most importantly, though, because of our shared beliefs & the trust that we could easily build from that, the conversations were often more open than one might usually have with a colleague because "I would like to talk about something that must remain between us" actually meant something to both of us.

This is not a mutual understanding of dissembling, but trust based on acceptance of who we were as co-practitioners of a religion with a set of values we both understood & believed in. This is not a matter of two people of the same cultural background (which we may be for one generation) seeing eye to eye, but a conscious decision on both our parts to recognise the commonality & embrace the faith within ourselves for the other.

This is empowering. It is an uplifting experience. It meant that we could bring up topics that skirted "taboo" in a professional relationship & find our way through them. Then, we would each feel good about the conversation afterward - no awkwardness.

While on the client site, one of my closest working relationships was with Ali, a practicing Muslim (some of my relatives are Muslim, but they don't practice, so I know the difference).  Ali & I may not have discussed much beyond work, but we instantly understood each other to be ethically equivalent as people who had a faith & could be trusted to follow a set of moral guidelines.
We got along very well. We may not have always agreed in some of the procedures each of us had to follow, but we would trust each other to do so without question - or else apologise profusely for the oversight.

This is how people with an ethical code work together. They don't need to second guess. They don't fear upsetting someone accidentally. They don't hide their own failures or highlight other's. They don't undermine or expect praise. People who trust each other in the workplace get the job done together out of joy, out of commitment to each other & their shared cause, out of a belief that everyone else is doing their best to get the job done - which is different from not letting the side down.

This post may seem to be far too religious for the workplace, & it may not be easy to implement ethics in a workplace where people are antagonistic towards religion in general, but the simple fact remains that trust - between co-workers or between managers & their reports - is fundamental to both a healthy workplace & delivering projects.
Religion - the existence of any religion - is a relatively easy basis for trust, as long as it encompasses everyone. Otherwise, you have to build up another ethical construct that is inclusive, easily embraced & understood, & consistently applied. That's a tough ask.