Many years ago, when renowned economist Milton Friedman said, ‘…the business of business is business’ opinion makers all over the world were scandalised! At that time many believed, and still believe, that the ultimate purpose of business is to do good for humanity. Some others, who had seen how businesses exploited people, ravaged resources and destroyed nature thought the opposite and created a ground for protests and lobbied with governments for newer regulation. There were still others with a vision to draw upon the good work of businesses to generate a better influence in the business sector. However, the traditional debates and stories remained mainly in the confines of ‘economic’ realms of transactions. It was about personal commitment to honesty, fairness, appropriate business through a deal. So, there are stories about not paying bribes, being gratuitous to employees and about bettering relationships - mostly in monetary terms. Even a broken limb was compensated just by a certain amount of money, and was accepted in thought and action.
In the recent years much has changed. Business leaders understand that revenue and profit while important, are means – just means – and that there is a larger purpose for profit. There is also a realization that business operates in multiple contexts - economic, social, environmental, biodiversity and several others. There is greater awareness of how Business has increased its power on society, and by working for its own growth has left more than six billion people without livelihoods. And, the increasing numbers of billionaires with personal wealth more than the GDP of tens of poor nations is deplorable! The findings by scientists on the phenomena of climate-change added humongous responsibilities on business about its misbehaviour on the environmental front.
Therefore, there is growing importance of sustainability which overarches economic conduct with many other forms of new behavioural requirements like conservation of scarce resources, saving of energy, water and so on. On the other hand a company like Maruthi Udyog (Suzuki affiliated) has promised to absorb all temporary employees in the next two years! Other companies may well follow! There are new compulsions of appointing women in senior positions and on the boards of companies! There are procedures to prevent and manage sexual-harassment at the workplace. There are global, Indian and Japanese standards to constantly improve working conditions and employee well-being! Resettlement and rehabilitation of the impacted people due to industrial projects displacing them is not an act of charity but one of a business imperative. Laying-off people is not so easy. They have to be compensated heavily.
While this expanding bandwidth of change goes on, business behaviour is correcting not only in terms of economic and financial dimensions, but more importantly in areas of social and environmental sensitivities. Will this not trigger off new kind of stories? Are we not going beyond money to the emerging phenomena of Value, sustainable Value?
Champions of ethics could begin to understand sustainable Value and how companies are co-creating it, and understand also how negative impacts destroy Value. Let us hear more about how your contract labour got a better deal. There are innovations in wage-settlement, stories in areas like gender and other forms of equity. Let there be a conversation on individual efforts in companies to conserve endangered species of birds or fish. There are initiatives in different forms of inclusion of the disabled, marginalised people and so on.
These are all initiatives of change! The important thing to recognise is that innovations like the ones mentioned above are triggered from listening to the inner voice. Many of these changes began with an individual. They were self-driven, often against heavy odds or for no apparent reward. These came from transpersonal leaders who leveraged emotional, social, intuitive, creative, courage and perhaps spiritual aspects of their persona. These are about Value generators. These are our next level leaders – and from these initiatives there is so much more for business to learn than our confines of traditional thought on ethics or values around money.
Anant G Nadkarni, Senior Advisor, Leadershape; Special Advisor, Tomorrow’s Company, both in the UK; and formerly, Group V. P. CSR & Sustainability at TATA (anantg.nadkarni@gmail.com)
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