The Patron Saint of Business Management: A New Management Style from a Wise Monk

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Business writer Anna Farago portrays St. Benedict (c. 480–547) as the
patron saint of modern business management. A treatise written by the
Italian cleric outlining the basic principles for the governance of the
Benedictine Order of Monks became known as The Rule of St. Benedict and
was used by the monks over the centuries in the operation of their
monasteries, universities, hospitals, and wineries.

Farago has chosen to focus on 43 of the major principles found in The
Rule of St. Benedict. For each principle, she translates the applicable
section from the original document by St. Benedict and interprets its
application for modern business and commerce. For example, in the
statement of rule 1, which defines St. Benedict’s four classes of
monks as Cenobites, Anchorites, Sarabites, and Landlopers, she
characterizes the first group as “obedient” employees, the second
group as those who can work with little supervision, the third group as
those who “recognize rules and at times work against them,” and the
fourth group as “temporary or contract employees.”

In other rules, she examines what kind of man the Abbot (CEO) ought to
be, the characteristics of the Deans (managers and department heads),
their relationships in using the tools and goods at the monastery (the
business), and the structure of the monastery (its organizational
environment). Similarly, rule 15 (“How Young Boys Are to Be
Corrected”) becomes the template for a progressive discipline policy,
while rule 19 (“Whether All Should Receive in Equal Measure What Is
Necessary”) becomes a budgetary standard for allocating travel
allowances and other expenses. The rule “Of Excommunication for
Faults” ends with an admonition for company officials to reflect, when
firing an employee, on how they failed “by hiring the employee in the
first place.”

As simplistic as it may seem, there are undoubtedly enduring concepts
to be learned from the observance of The Rule of St. Benedict, or at
least portions of it.