First, some additional information


HR.com recently interviewed Professor Ian Mitroff to discuss the role of "spirituality" in HR and the workplace and how it impacts upon the organization's culture and the workforce. One degree of "spirituality" could be considered the presence of socially responsible values within a firm's culture. However, to be most effective, firms cannot actively attempt to implement this philosophy but must show to its employees and customers through its actions that these basic values are innately ingrained into their culture and mission. The basic argument is that when organizations take action and make doing the "right thing" a priority, financial success can often follow.

Therefore, I've decided to take a look at a "spiritual" product for those who are more interested in tapping into their own organization's spirituality. However, I don't think this is exactly what Professor Mitroff had in mind.

What are are these Tools?

These tools mefan to help the organizations with:

Stress management and relief, self development

Team alignment and development, and leadership development

Enhancing creativity, mastering uncertainty and change, developing decision-making ability in the face of flux, and developing better relationships with others

Shifting mind-sets to assist in achieving change, and purpose-formulation

1) Stress Manager
2) TeamAware
This system uses exercises to help you pinpoint the things and actions that are inhibiting your productivity. It also gives you tips on how to specifically deal with resolving your inhibitors. By relating specific work-related actions to pre-defined inhibitors, such as laziness, selfishness, or doubt, and rating the intensity of the inhibitor and the duration, users can track their identified weaknesses and attempt to improve their performance.
3) iAware - Self development
4) Within - Leadership building tool

Using an integration of Eastern and Western philosophy, Awareness Tools have a fundamental spiritual essence that is apparent throughout their website and their values. The belief of the company, Aurosoorya, is that there are many constraints, whether socially or self-imposed, that do not allow the full potential of an individual to manifest. Therefore, these "limiting patterns" must be "unblocked" in order to experience the full possibilities of life. Aurosoorya, which stands for The Golden Sun, is derived from the Latin word 'Auro' (Gold) and the Sanskrit word 'Soorya' (Sun). Their goal is to bring into "manifestation insights, tools, and companies that will accelerate the Flowering of Management, Business, Organization, and Industry." The advice and messages are based on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Born in Calcutta in 1872, Sri Aurobindo grew up to be, what people consider, a scholar, a literary critic, a philosopher, a revolutionary, a poet, and a Yogi.

Are thse tools for your organization?

The only stipulation that Aurosoorya suggests when deciding to use their software is that your organization is open-minded enough to "transcend" your limitations. They intend that their products and software will help you to accelerate your journey towards Wholeness, and unlimited Love, Knowledge, and Power.

How do these tools work?

1) Using TeamAware
Managers may scoff at using this software considering its "spiritual" connotations and seemingly flighty foundations. Nevertheless, managers with personality and insight will see beyond its surface level fluff to realize that Aurosoorya provides a valuable tracking tool.

There are four actionable tabs in TeamAware:

1) Limiting States
2) Manifestation by design
3) Team Exercise
4) Administrative

Clicking on Limiting States opens up a window where users choose the emotions that are limiting their potential such as anxiety, doubt, selfishness, haste, and fear. You can then rate each State by intensity of emotion and duration. TeamAware will keep track of this data by date. Therefore, your team members will be able to look at their scores over time and note the fluctuations in team dynamics. Throughout the module, you always have access to the built-in dictionary called "Learn". This gives you information on unfamiliar terms and actionable advice to battle your Limiting States.

TeamAware also provides a team exercise that is the same thing as the Daemon exercise. Simply, TeamAware generates a message intended to arouse beneficial thought and action.

Viewing Options

You can view this data either in a grid format for easy reading or on an individual basis, i.e. one limiting state at a time.
TeamAware also has a graphical analysis so users can view their results easily and quickly over time.

Documentation

One of the best things about the Awareness Tools is their built-in dictionary. Most people will be unfamiliar with the terms used in the software. Therefore, the handy dictionary helps users understand the relevance of the terms and how these messages impact their own lives.

Overall Evaluation

If you're willing to take a deeper and creative look at this team-building tool, I definitely recommend downloading TeamAware.

TeamAware, can be extremely helpful in team communication and defining team problems. It helps you identify where problems may occur, and how to overcome them. TeamAware is also useful in that it tracks your users' responses and helps you identify where improvements need to be made.

Considering that it is free, there are many ways that it can add value to certain situations. For example, you may decide to use it in your team orientations to assist with team building and getting to know your team members. This would probably be the most useful exercise for TeamAware.

TeamAware even has the ability to graphically analyze the information that your team members have input:

By date
By critical, mental, physical and vital state
By state

Therefore, you can also use it as an assessment tool for before and after team projects to evaluate how your team dynamics have changed.

There can be many uses for this tool on many different levels, both individual, team or organizational. You might even want to get creative with using this tool and get your new recruits or potential candidates to us it for Staffing or Orientation purposes. The tools definitely project a unique and inviting tone that will surprise some individuals and perhaps turn off others. Just make sure that your organization's culture and the image projected by Awareness Tools fit together so that your employees won't think your manager has just joined a spiritual or religious movement.

The only improvements that I would suggest would be:
1) Provide more information on the development of these tools and the philosophy on which they are based. There is a lot of information on the teachings and philosophy but little on the individuals themselves.

2) It's too bad that the Tools aren't customizable, i.e. you can't add your own questions or Limiting States, etc. However, you can't really complain considering it's free.

About the Author
Katherine Lee

Katherine "BUBBA" Lee is one of our esteemed Investigators of important stuff at HR.com. She gained her nickname due to her extremely bubbly (hence Bubba) and outgoing personality. One would not think that Katherine would be able to sit still long enough to perform her job, but she actually produces very comprehensive work. Katherine hails from the University of Toronto where she obtained her CHRM, and is very close to completing her Masters in Industrial Relations. Katherine has what some may consider to be an unhealthy obsession with her pets. She is the very proud owner of a Shih Tzu named Willie, whose picture she flaunts around the office. In addition to this, she is in the process of trying to become a bird breeder with her two birds, Bruce and Bubba. We at HR .com are beginning to suspect that her birds are both females, but we have decided to let Katherine figure that one out in her own time.