OSI and Sir Francis Drake.
Outsourcing Services International opened its executive meeting, held Jan. 28 at Sucrée restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador, with a prayer that’s attributed to 16th-century explorer and soldier Sir Francis Drake. Why, you might ask? What connection could possibly exist between OSI and the first man to circumnavigate the globe?
We ran those questions, and other related ones, by OSI President Joel Ciniero.
“I have a personal interest in pirate stories and explorer stories,” said Ciniero, when asked how the OSI team discovered the Drake prayer. “I’ve read countless books on those subjects and have an admiration for people who got on a ship and sailed the ocean with nothing more than a compass and an adventuresome spirit. In the 1500s and 1600s, that was like flying into space today. You were risking your life.”
Ciniero said he discovered the prayer, titled “Disturb Us, Lord,” while reading an adventure book and that he was struck by the prayer’s spirit and message. He added that the prayer can be interpreted as saying, “Don’t get comfortable, don’t settle for mediocrity. Always challenge yourself.”
“That embodies the philosophy that I want the OSI management team to have,” he said. “I want them to dream big. I want them to take chances. I want them to be a little nervous. If you’re not nervous, you’re not challenging yourself.”
OSI’s executive meeting is held annually. Traditionally, Ciniero has hosted the meeting in December at his home in San Salvador, but, this year, the pandemic forced the company to find a larger, open-air venue and to postpone the meeting a month.
The goal of the meeting, said Ciniero, is to acknowledge that, though the executives all have different roles, they should operate as a family.
“Disturb Us, Lord” has been read and discussed at previous OSI executive meetings. However, Ciniero said, some of this year’s fourteen attendees were not familiar with the centuries-old prayer. But, he added, everyone was engaged and seemed to take something from the prayer.
“The night was a success,” said Ciniero, who has been with OSI for ten years. “The venue was beautiful; the food was great. But more than that, people who don’t get to see each other face to face on a daily basis sat down and talked about the prayer, work, their families, we joked and had fun. We bonded and we learned a lot about each other.”
Sir Francis Drake’s prayer “Disturb Us, Lord,” which dates back to the 1570s, reads in part:
“Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.”
To read the full version, simply Google “Disturb Us, Lord prayer.” It’s widely available online.