Week Twelve

Weekly journal questions:

§  Based on what you read in the first two pages (pages 3 and 4), why are virtue and integrity so vital to an economy?

Trust and integrity can truly build a business that is long lasting and positive on society. Too many companies look for easy road to make quick money. This might seem good for the present moment but it doesn’t build the future. Charles Handy wrote, “it seems that executives no longer run their companies for the benefit of consumers, or even of their shareholders and employees, but for their personal ambition and financial gain” This type of thinking that Handy writes about is destructive towards the economy.

§  According to Charles Handy, what is the “real justification” for the existence of businesses?

Handy writes, “The purpose of a business, in other words, is not to make a profit, full stop. It is to make a profit so that the business can do something more or better.” I was checking out clothing businesses this week and saw many that have another side to them. An example is United by Blue, (https://unitedbyblue.com/) a clothing company makes clothing out of sustainable materials and cleans a pound of trash out of the ocean for every product sold. They make clothes, but what they really want is to make clothing that doesn’t hurt the environment.

§  What are two solutions proposed by Handy that you agree with? Why?

Handy writes, “We should, as charitable organizations do, measure success in terms of outcomes for others as well as for ourselves” This is a very important idea. Unfortunately society measure success by material gain. We should measure success through relationships and the unity and joy of growing with those around us.

Handy also mentioned that leaders of companies need to take an oath to “do no harm”. This is important because leaders of companies influence the lives of a lot people. Their choices affect their employees, their customers, their family, and through the butterfly affect can change lives of people they will never know about. Their choices should be based on good intentions.

I heard a really interesting story this week that inspired me. 

There is a woman who makes and sells bows out of her husband's cellphone repair shop. From time to time I pass by and buy a bow for my baby. Her name is Adriana. She is very kind and stopped me the other day to tell me the story of an American woman who changed her life. 

When Adriana was little, her father died and her mother abandoned her. She got married at the tender age of 14 to a young man of 16. They did their best to make ends meet in their tiny house by selling coconuts and other beverages on the beach. There Adriana met an American woman who was sun bathing with her husband and mother. The woman was surprised to know Adriana was married at such a young age and this started a lengthy conversation that led to a building friendship. Before returning home, this woman wanted to visit Adriana. When she saw her tiny square house, with no bathroom nor kitchen, she couldn't hold back the tears. 

After returning home, the woman called up Adriana and said she couldn't stop thinking about her and her situation. The woman then began to pay rent on a house for the couple to stay in. After paying rent for them for five years, Adriana decided she didn't want to rent any more. She wanted a house of their own. Without saying anything to the helpful woman, she sold everything she had in attempt to gather enough money to buy a house. Unfortunately they were 6,000 Reis short. In a casual phone call from the woman, Adriana felt she had to explain herself to her American friend. The woman sent Adriana the money without hesitation.

To this day they are still friends, though Adriana hasn't needed any help from her since they bought their house. When Adriana met the lovely American woman, she and her husband had nothing but a concrete house just barely big enough for a roll-up mattress and a few small things. Now they have their own home, and three locations for their cellphone service business. 

I want to be giving to good people. If if weren't for that woman, who knows where this Adriana would be right now.

I loved the readings this week. I loved that they showed the importance of building a business that makes a positive difference. Sure charity is great, but I learned that sometimes, having a business that is good for the world, is even better than just give out things for free. We build connections. We build up others. When someone is given something for free they might feel lousy because they couldn't take care of themselves. When we help them with a business deal or loan, they can develop confidence while building something themselves.

Jeffery R Holland

In what would be the most startling moment of His early ministry, Jesus stood up in His home synagogue in Nazareth and read these words prophesied by Isaiah and recorded in the Gospel of Luke: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and … set at liberty them that are bruised.”...

As Jehovah, He said He would judge the house of Israel harshly because “the spoil of the [needy] is in your houses.”..

“What mean ye,” He cried, “that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?”...

“She hath done what she could”! What a succinct formula! A journalist once questioned Mother Teresa of Calcutta about her hopeless task of rescuing the destitute in that city. He said that, statistically speaking, she was accomplishing absolutely nothing. This remarkable little woman shot back that her work was about love, not statistics....

For one thing, we can, as King Benjamin taught, cease withholding our means because we see the poor as having brought their misery upon themselves. Perhaps some have created their own difficulties, but don’t the rest of us do exactly the same thing? Isn’t that why this compassionate ruler asks, “Are we not all beggars?” Don’t we all cry out for help and hope and answers to prayers?...

although I may not be my brother’s keeper, I am my brother’s brother, and “because I have been given much, I too must give.”...

I pay a personal tribute to President Thomas Spencer Monson. I have been blessed by an association with this man for 47 years now, and the image of him I will cherish until I die is of him flying home from then–economically devastated East Germany in his house slippers because he had given away not only his second suit and his extra shirts but the very shoes from off his feet....

What's a Business for? - Harvard Business School

Keynes once wrote, “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”...

Reports that CEOs in America earn more than 400 times the wages of their lowest-paid workers make a mockery of Plato’s ideal, in what was, admittedly, a smaller and simpler world, that no person should be worth more than four times another...

We need to eat to live; food is a necessary condition of life. But if we lived mainly to eat, making food a sufficient or sole purpose of life, we would become gross. The purpose of a business, in other words, is not to make a profit, full stop. It is to make a profit so that the business can do something more or better. That “something”becomes the real justification for the business....

,“If it did not exist, would we invent it?”...

A second and related hangover from earlier times is the idea that a company is a piece of property, subject to the laws of property and ownership. This was true two centuries ago, when corporate law originated and a company consisted of a set of physical assets. Now that the value of a company resides largely in its intellectual property, in its brands and patents and in the skills and experience of its workforce, it seems unreal to treat these things as the property of financiers, to be disposed of as they wish. This may still be the law, but it hardly seems like justice.... 

a company takes seriously the idea of itself as a wealth-creating community, with members rather than employees...

Today’s anti-globalization protesters claim that global businesses not only do harm, but that the harm outweighs the good...

Business needs to take the lead in areas such as environmental and social sustainability instead of forever letting itself be pushed onto the defensive...

Dave Packard once said,“I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being. As we investigate this, we inevitably come to the conclusion that a group of people get together and exist as an institution that we call a company so that they are able to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish separately – they make a contribution to society, a phrase which sounds trite but is fundamental.”...

 doing good does not necessarily rule out making a reasonable profit. You can, for example, make money by serving the poor as well as the rich..

Muhammad Yunus

I1 soon realized that there was a great distance between the real life of the poor and the hungry people and the make believe world of economic theory...

if you have to squeeze out the very essence of a human being to build a social science theory who needs that social science?... 

because of this misconstrued vision of human beings wage employment emerged as the only legitimate source of employment...

1 was shocked to see how people suffer for lack of access to tiny amounts of money as small as one dollar I1 was surprised to see how much hard work each poor person is putting in just for mere survival even then he or she finds it difficult to stay alive...

today that bank grameen gradeen bank lends money to 2.3 2323 million poor borrowers in 39000 villages of bangladesh and 94 percent of our borrowers are women to date more than 2.4 2424 billion dollars were given out as loans over the years the repayment rate is more than 97 percent last year alone we lent out nearly 400 million...

credit opens up the locked in potential of human beings...

the banking institutions by deciding that they can do business only with the rich literally have created financial apartheid...

ifwe can redesign economics as a genuine social science we can be firmly on our way to creating a poverty free world...

I1 strongly believe that we can create a poverty free world if we want to...

Sarah Endline

Being a woman is a great advantage. Women tend to be really intuitive. They look at the big picture. Those two things alone are so critical when it comes to entrepreneurship. you're the one at the head of the boat making sure you can navigate the rough waters. Your also the one making the hiring decisions at the end of the day

 I beleive in creatinhg the culture and the soul of the organization

Sheryl Sandberg

The companies were making a huge difference even though they weren't non-profits

Visions are usually stated in mission statements.

make it personal and make it work

A vision that scales that's compelling is such a great part of leadership

you have to compel people with the "why"

Larry Brilliant

It takes will

at some level we are all in this together

if we pollute the water and we pollute the air, there's not amount of money that can seperate you or change that

Elder Robert Gay

god gives to man the challenge of all materials

a pioneer is motivated by the possible

large and successful firms have a great chance of failing if they do everything right

we'll let go of those onmly willing to do what others tell them, and keep those that solve the problem

it's all about being accountable

look for deep solutions

president kimball - do you know where poverty is born, where it resides where it is merged. i have traveled your country and seen much. I see... the cure of poverty lies in isaiah.

"zion should labor for zion, and if they labor for money, they shall perish"

if he could get his heart right he would be blessed with blessing greater than the tresures of the earth

where we must keep our hearts in the world of business

Harold b lee - make others your constant practice and your needs will automatically take care of themselves

provide basic needs and rescue others.. no different than when Brigham Young sent rescue teams to retrieve handcart companies

intense letter from Darfur

the lord waits until we are ready and able

lessons from Joseph and the plates in business

You have powerful covenants that opens the powers of heaven

business is about service and rescue