The New Spirit of Work

"I was young, successful, and extremely well paid," he says. "But the stress was causing the blood vessels in my eyes to burst. I could not find creative expression in what I did. I began to work on my own as a consultant. I found that my sense of meaning changed. It was no longer about money or status. It was about giving to other people. Giving, not getting. The more I did a good job in serving my clients, the less I needed publicity. The phone was constantly ringing."

One call was from the World Bank, a Washington, DC-based institution that finances development in the Third World. The bank wanted to hire him as a consultant. For five years, he worked as an independent adviser, traveling the globe and evaluating transportation investments for their economic-development potential. Eventually he moved to the United States and joined the organization full-time.

Once again, Barrett proved himself a success: His work took him to Nigeria and Kenya, to Korea, China, and Indonesia. He became one of the world's leading experts on urban transportation. And once again, he grew restless. For years, Barrett had been studying spirituality, science, and psychology, and what he really wanted was to write a book on the interconnections between those three disciplines. In 1989, he began writing A Guide to Liberating Your Soul (Fulfilling Books, 1995). It was five years in the making.

In the meantime, his work for the World Bank continued - and continued to go well. In 1992, he was promoted and given a new title: assistant to Ismail Serageldin, the vice president for environmentally sustainable development. At about the same time, he set up a series of meetings on spirituality at the World Bank. When this series of six brown-bag lunches ended, several people asked him to create an ongoing program.

"I wasn't sure that this was what I was supposed to do," Barrett says. "I was hoping for a sign. A few days later, I got a phone call from someone else at the World Bank, someone who hadn't been to the meetings on spirituality but who had seen my picture in a publication devoted to the subject. I was going to do a spirituality seminar in South Africa, and she'd seen the notice. She asked me if I would organize a spiritual study group at the World Bank."

Barrett began the World Bank Spiritual Unfoldment Society. Within a couple of months, the Washington Post wrote a favorable article about the fledgling group. "The World Bank, 'an institutional pillar in the Washington power structure, is gaining a reputation for enlightenment.' That's how they put it, I think," Barrett says. "But I began to realize that my own values were no longer in alignment with those of the organization. I began to side more with the outside critics than with the people in control of the bank. It turned out that our little group was taking upon itself the responsibility for shifting the values of this organization."

In 1995, Barrett urged the bank to form a permanent advisory group that would promote spirituality and values in the organization's daily activities. His proposal languished. Then, less than a year later, the bank underwent a dramatic change. A new president arrived. Sensing an opportunity, Barrett took his proposal off the shelf - and this time, he found support. He was given a budget to organize a major kickoff symposium that would put spiritual values on the bank's agenda. That October, more than 30 speakers appeared at a two-day conference on spirituality at the World Bank.

"It created a whole new energy. I felt, when it was over, that it would change things immediately," he says. Yet a month went by, and then another. The conference was fading into memory - with no sign that the ideas presented there would become a part of the bank's agenda. "We were into the third month, and I wasn't hearing about spirituality from anybody in our group," Barrett says.

He had reached the kind of moment that he now challenges others to embrace: a time to face personal fears. Barrett composed a confrontational email and sent it to several World Bank VPs. "I told them that we were missing the boat on spirituality," Barrett says. "We missed the boat on the environment, and we were criticized. Now we're missing the boat on this. It was one of those emails where your finger hovers over the Send button. Finally my finger went down, and off went the message, a week before Christmas."

Two days later, Mark Malloch-Brown, the vice president for external relations, sent back an email to Barrett. "You'd better come see me," it read.

It was a moment of truth for Barrett. What would Malloch-Brown say? Did Barrett have his support? Did he still have a job? What Barrett learned was that the bank needed a new image - and that spirituality might provide the key to creating one. "I agree with you," Malloch-Brown said. "But how do we get this on the agenda?" Barrett was overjoyed. "I know how to do it," he replied. "Let me write out a plan for you."