Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks by August Turak - Book review

Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks

One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity

By: August Turak

Published: July 9, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 200 pages
ISBN-10: 0231160623
ISBN-13: 978-0231160629
Publisher: Columbia University Press











"This is not a disinterested treatise on monastic business practices; rather, it is a highly personal, nuts-and-bolts account of the business lessons I have learned over seventeen years while living and working with the monks of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, as a frequent monastic guest", writes successful CEO and software start up entrepreneur August Turak, in his inspirational and management transforming book Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity. The author describes how the monks manage their business very successfully based on the concepts of service and selflessness, applied with authenticity and piety.

August Turak understands that authenticity may be the latest in corporate buzzwords, but for the Trappist Monks, authenticity has formed and managed authentic businesses for more than ten centuries. The author provides insights into how the monks emphasize the qualitative and human aspects of a business. August Turak shares how the monks manage profitable businesses because they seek piety and not profits. Instead of denigrating the more common corporate practice of quantitative management, the author demonstrates how the balance between the standard quantitative business model, and the holistic and qualitative business practices of utilized by the order.

August Turak (photo left) recognizes that a business model based on a lack of ethics and internal contradictions regarding customers, employees, quality and service, is a failed approach. In its place, the author offers the diametrically opposite approach as practiced by the Trappist Monks. Instead of failure, the service and selflessness tradition model is highly successful. Ignoring most of the standard methods of business management, the monks retained the principle of quality. The monks take an alternative path, emphasizing living the mission, personal transformation to becoming an authentic person, and a cooperative community way of life.

August Turak presents the business philosophy and practices of the Trappist Monks in a manner free of dogma, sectarian bias, and in a secular format. The author shares the fundamental principles that guide the actions of the monks, and form the very foundation of their way of life and inner purpose. The author examines the following aspects of the order's success:

* The economic miracle of Mepkin Abbey
* What we all really want
* The end of selfishness
* Goat rodeos and transformational organization
* Mission
* Selflessness and community
* Excellence for the sake of excellence
* Ethical standards: Why good things happen for good people
* Faith
* The power of trust
* Self-knowledge and authenticity
* Living the life

For me, the power of the book is how August Turak combines the timeless wisdom offered by the Trappist Monks of Mepkin Abbey, with a hands on strategy for putting the order's principles into action. The author presents the ideals and the practices of the monks in a format that is both accessible and readily applicable to secular companies. August Turak demonstrates how the monks live their mission and their values, and how their devotion to service and selflessness in an authentic way is the real key to the order's business success.

Having spent seventeen years studying with and learning from the Trappist monks, August Turak has definitive proof that their concepts and principles are effective and profitable. The author shares his own experiences and those of other CEOs, with highly successful companies, as case studies to further illustrate the value of the order's principles and values. Every chapter includes a valuable lesson that forms the background and foundation for transforming any business into one based on service, selflessness, and authenticity.

I highly recommend the visionary and timeless wisdom filled book Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity by August Turak, to any business leaders who are seeking an alternative business model based on quality, service and selflessness, that is not only profitable but satisfying and engaging for employees, customers, and the entire community. The book shows clearly that ethical values and genuine authenticity are not only the right way to conduct your business and your personal life, but they are the key to profitability and success as well.