Monks and Managers

It seems that the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century, works as well for managers as it does for monks.

This will be the subject of a seminar on Sunday at Abbazia di Praglia, an abbey on the Euganean Hills, just outside Padua, northeastern Italy. The title of the meeting is "L'organizzazione perfetta: la Regola di San Benedetto, una saggezza antica al servizio dell'impresa moderna" (The Perfect Organization: the Rule of St Benedict, An Ancient Wisdom at the Service of Modern Firm).

If you don't believe it, read the following excerpt from the Rule:

Artifices si sunt in monasterio cum omni humilitate faciant ipsas artes, si permiserit abbas. Quod si aliquis ex eis extollitur pro scientia artis suae, eo quod videatur aliquid conferre monasterio, hic talis erigatur ab ipsa arte et denuo per eam non transeat, nisi forte humiliato ei iterum abbas iubeat.

Si quid vero ex operibus artificum venumdandum est, videant ipsi per quorum manus transigenda sint ne aliquam fraudem praesumant. Memorentur semper Ananiae et Saphirae, ne forte mortem quam illi in corpore pertulerunt, hanc isti vel omnes qui aliquam fraudem de rebus monasterii fecerint in anima patiantur.

In ipsis autem pretiis non surripiat avaritiae malum, sed semper aliquantulum vilius detur quam ab aliis saecularibus dari potest, ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus.

(Regula Sancti Benedicti, LVII)

If there be skilled workmen in the monastery, let them work at their art in all humility, if the Abbot giveth his permission. But if anyone of them should grow proud by reason of his art, in that he seemeth to confer a benefit on the monastery, let him be removed from that work and not return to it, unless after he hath humbled himself, the Abbot again ordereth him to do so.

But if any of the work of the artists is to be sold, let them, through whose hands the transaction must pass, see to it, that they do not presume to practice any fraud on the monastery. Let them always be mindful of Ananias and Saphira, lest, perhaps, the death which these suffered in the body, they and all who practice any fraud in things belonging to the monastery suffer in the soul.

On the other hand, as regards the prices of these things, let not the vice of avarice creep in, but let it always be given a little cheaper than it can be given by seculars, That God May Be Glorified in All Things.

(The Holy Rule of St Benedict, The 1949 Edition Translated by Rev. Boniface Verheyen, OSB of St Benedict's Abbey, Atchison, Kansas, Chapter 57).