FAW Interview - Tom McMakin - 3/28/01

FAW: Tom, you’ve just written a book that is striking a deep chord in readers about spirituality and work called Bread and Butter: What a Bunch of Bakers Taught Me About Business and Happiness. What is it about?

Tom: It’s about how to combine work and our inner lives in ways that both win. It’s about creating healthy organizations that have specific policies that foster health in individuals and how healthy people, in turn, create healthy organizations. It’s also a story of how, as I searched my heart for what I wanted in life and work, I moved to Montana, a beautiful place, and then stumbled on a unique little company called Great Harvest Bread Co., and how I grew up there as a professional business person and a spiritual being in the midst of a wonderfully alive and energetic community of fellow seekers.

FAW: Why is it timely now?

Tom: Some days it feels like as humans we are on a collision course with ourselves. Particularly in the business world, the current ethos is work real hard, go public, and cash out. We see our work lives as a means to some distant hoped for happiness. There’s no better time to hear a story of a group of people who are creating business and work in service of their lives and not burning out on life in the service of work.

FAW: You use the term “fellow seekers”. Tell us something of your own spiritual awakening and seeking. Was it influenced by church, doors opening, distress, or something else?

Tom: I tend to look at the whole of my life in geographic terms, a spiritual landscape, with high and low points, tough uphill climbs, moments of elation and low valleys when it’s hard to get perspective. That said, one of my first memories is the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. where my parents were active. The lesson I carried from there was that it is important to live your faith through your work. The Church of the Saviour is organized around mission groups, each centered on some positive action that members express through their gifts and talents. That laid a foundation for my next big spiritual experience at Rock Spring Church in the Virginia suburbs, where as a teenager I thought more consciously about my gifts and what I was meant to do on earth. At the time I felt called to the ministry, and although I left that behind, some of the same things that drove me toward that calling have found expression in the work I do now. Later, when attending Oberlin College in Ohio, I was profoundly influenced by an awakening to the many religious traditions, trying different spiritual practices. It was then that I saw myself as a spiritual seeker, called to ask questions of many sorts of people.

I joined Peace Corps after college, and there was exposed to the power of ritual, living in a small rural village, and also to the power that “our ancestors bring us”, to use an African phrase. These days the topography of my spiritual life is marked by the presence of young children and the tasks of providing for a growing family, which carries its own lessons of mindfulness and humility. I must say, there has not been one moment of awakening or turning point for me, but rather a steady evolution of my spiritual life over time.

FAW: What keeps you spiritually alive? Do you engage in some “soul-feeding practices”?

Tom: Yes. I love to run, to stretch – I practiced a modified form of yoga -- to sit in silence and to do some meditation. I also have a number of less traditional practices. For example, when I lived in Egypt, I loved to watch people wash their hands, face and feet before entering the mosque for prayer. So once a day I slip off to the bathroom and splash water on my face and find that to be a grounding and purifying ritual that I carry from day to day.

FAW: As a thirty-something, have you noticed certain longings in your generation that commitment to a spiritual path would address? And what gifts do people your age bring to the spiritual quest?

Tom: Spiritual longing is common to all human beings regardless of generation. Like others, my generation feels a desire for spiritual awakening, community, ritual, meaning and greater understanding. I’m not sure we have a special gift to bring to the search, but we do have a unique opportunity to marry parallel traditions and to synthethize the many ways in which human beings explore their spiritual selves. As the world has gotten smaller, we have unique exposure to the richness of the many traditions alive on this planet. We’re seeing Catholic lay people sitting in Zen meditation, Zen abbots taking yoga classes, and yogis studying the Talmudic texts. This rich cross-fertilization is bringing new energy and awareness to the globe.

FAW: Back to the book, lots of people are writing about spirituality and work. What is your unique take on this? What message are you wanting to share more widely?

Tom: One of the kindest things that someone has written about this book was when Matthew Fox wrote, “Here lies a new way of doing business that energizes people toward personal and spiritual growth.....a service both to the people in the company and the community in which they bake their delicious whole wheat bread.” One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from this community of bread store owners is that our businesses and work are a near perfect reflection of who we are as people and spiritual beings. Some of our most successful stores are owned by people who don’t work first on the business but on themselves. I think of Paul Maurer, owner of a store in Salt Lake City. Whenever things got tough in the store -- someone didn’t show up for work, a bread didn’t turn out right, a customer was upset -- he declined to work harder on the business problem, but chose instead to withdraw and work first on himself. Almost magically, his business problems solved themselves or dissolved in importance. The result was a business that made uncommonly good bread, had a loyal and centered crew, and was powerfully magnetic to customers. Paul taught all of us at Great Harvest how inextricably intertwined our inner and outer lives are.

FAW: What do you mean by “working on yourself ?

Tom: For me, the first step is developing awareness and that means cultivating a deep and mindful appreciation for people, things and circumstances. The second step is developing a practice through which you can begin to touch something that is enduring and maybe even transcendant.


FAW: How have you applied what you learned at Great Harvest in your own life and work?

Tom: There are two opposing forces alive in me. There’s a strong desire to be present to every moment, to be mindful, to be at peace with my world. But there is also the desire to improve the world and that part of me cultivates an intentional dissatisfaction with things as they are as I dream for and act to create a better world. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the really smart person is one who is able to hold two completely opposing thoughts in their mind at the same time. One of the central challenges of my life is both to be supremely satisfied, indeed, in love with everything in my world, but at the same time to be supremely dissatisfied and to work for constructive change. One way I reconcile the two is to compartmentalize my life - to have moments in my day when I cultivate mindfulness and other times in the day when I scheme and dream and make long lists of things to do. In those parts of the day when I try to focus on being present, I work hard to ignore thoughts of the future and memories of the past. It turns out that this is really difficult. It takes my full attention and lots of practice.

FAW: The theme for this issue of FAW is “It’s Time to Get Changed.” How were you changed by working at GH and producing the book?

Tom: I’ve always been interested in the ways in which a person can cultivate the spirit in life. Great Harvest has taught me that there are many things an organization or workplace can do to foster their people’s quest for a rich personal life. I’ve come away excited about spreading the word about how this can be done and also eager to continue creating organizations that do this well. Producing this book clarified my thinking and transformed what were vague inklings into a powerful personal call.

FAW: What changes do you hope your book might inspire in readers?

Tom: I hope that readers will walk away with a keen sense that they must design their lives, to be clear on what constitutes a good life for them, then to create work that supports the lives they want to live. My hope is that readers will have a renewed sense that a truly spiritual life must include work that aligns closely with our most deeply cherished values. Business has something to teach us about how to live our lives. One of the first principles of business is that it must make a profit for without a profit it cannot grow or reinvest in itself or sustain itself through hard times. The same is true for us. We need to invest in ourselves so we can continue to give.
Another insight I hope readers will receive is a sense that none of this is all too serious, neither business or spirit. The first line in our mission statement is, “Be loose and have fun.” The truth is that when we are all standing around the kneading table, laughing and joking, molding dough into big round loaves, it is then that we feel the spirit most alive within us.

FAW: Thanks, Tom. We loved the book. We think of it as a guide for those who long to connect work and spirit, a business book with soul, and the honesty of your own quest makes it sing! One last thing . How do we order the book?


Tom: It will be in local bookstores starting June 1 and is available online right now from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Also I will be traveling throughout the country this summer, holding conversations on work and happiness. To get the schedule, log on to my website: www.
tommcmakin.com

Marge, If you want to add a sidebar with the mission statement, here it is:

Be loose and have fun,
Bake phenomenal bread,
Run fast to help customers,
Create strong, exciting bakeries,
And give generously to others.