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What does it mean to be a human being? What are our basic needs? Those are the problems I want to discuss. I also want to indicate their
significance for business and education and for the creation of a just society. Proper notions of value management and community building rest on a clarification of these problems.
Background
Today education is in most countries almost identical with professional education. The continued improvement of professional knowledge and skills is a
necessary condition for mastering the competition in a market-driven economy. Earning money and maximising the shareholders’ profit are often the overriding criterion of success. And what are the effects? There are
many. One of the striking ones is that the life span of the 500 most profitable and successful companies, according to Arie de Geris (The living company, 1997) is between 40 and 50 years. And why is it so short?
Just because the management (and owners) primarily think in terms of change and profit and largely neglect the development of the employees as human beings. Thereby they also neglect the improvement of interpersonal
relations and co-operation, both decisive conditions for success in the long run.
It is a fact that the notion of being human is a much richer notion than any notion of professional competence in whatever field ever can be. The focus
on change and profit does not only neglect the human side and interpersonal relationships, it seems to have a destructive impact on them. It appears to be a commonplace in religious wisdom and in humanism of various
sorts that anyone whose primary occupation is with making money, always does harm to other people and the community of man. Christ, the Chinese teacher Confucius and the Indian philosopher Tagore, all agree on this.
From the Arab culture we learn that a people’s and culture’s success is measured in social relations.
The Africans are joining in: as human beings, they say, we have two needs, the small need and the big need. The small need is our need to have a place
to stay, something to eat and some money to pay our bills. The big need is our need for an answer to the question, why? As Charles Handy rightly observes, especially Europe and the United States (together with the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) have for years attempted to answer the big need by supplying a series of answers to the small one. And this is bound to fail. It should be obvious that a proper answer
to the big question never can be found in the culture of professional knowledge, profit and consumption and, with a few exceptions, neither in the media. To answer the big question, one has at least to focus on
social relations.
The consequences of this failure are all too obvious: the dissolution of values and social disintegration have in many countries reached frightening
proportions – in terms of family dissolution mental suffering and crime.
Economic success and social disintegration
Among dozens of answers given to this question in the history of ideas, I want to focus on the following answer: to be a human being is to be
responsible for one’s own life. I shall, briefly, spell out some of the implications.
In the present-day knowledge and information society, an adequate professional competence is an obvious condition for fulfilling one’s responsibility.
The educational institutions give the opportunities. The motivation may have several sources. It may in fact come from the idea for acquiring a position and a (high) salary, in part form the student’s social
environment. The latter source will always be present, although the person’s awareness of it may be rather vague. The former appears, especially to students of the business profession, to be the dominating one.
In that case it changes the nature of education. It is a commonplace in pedagogical theory that the primary purpose of education is not to make money,
but to contribute to the betterment of society. The focus on money together with the context in which it is pursued (market economy, global free trade, formation of multinational corporations, speculative
investments and technological innovation) have, despite its merits, obvious negative effects on the social, political and cultural development. It changes our mindset. It fosters selfishness and takes our thoughts
and feelings away from our fellow human being. We or most of us are opening our mind towards an endless series of ever-changing impressions from media and consumption - mostly of an utterly trivial character. The
infantilisation of the human mind is a well-known phrase among some sociologists. It leads to the dissolution of traditional values and rituals, without proposing new ones.
Democracy and public life in general are suffering from the freedom of the individual. Global free trade appears to have a social, political and
cultural destructive influence on societies. No wonder that quite a few people in many countries experience economic success, for the most part caused by foreign investors, the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, as another form of colonisation. The latest example is Mozambique.
These negative aspects of development are long since recognised by many people, institutions and business companies. Many of them have started a new
type of prospect, dealing with ethical values. The overall purpose is to develop new forms of communities. The values involved no longer belong to the traditional ethics of duty and obedience. It is rather an ethics
of participation. I have myself described several business companies and educational institutions in Norway and abroad, especially in the United States and in Asia. These communities are often based on local
cultural history and the people involved.
They all point to the necessity of developing social and cultural competence in students and employees. I shall briefly describe what these ethics of
participation is about.
Ethics of participation
Successful study and use of professional knowledge and skills require that other people have trust in you. Trust in someone depends on his or her
attitudes and behaviour in all areas of life, in one’s workplace as well as in private life. Trust in someone is a value that cannot be fragmented. If you commit something in private life that creates distrust, you
are immediately met with distrust in your profession. Selfishness in whatever area of life, is never compatible with trust in interpersonal relationships.
Trust requires nurturing of personal and emotional relations between people. Professional competence is never sufficient for participation in a community. In addition, one has to relate to other persons as human beings. To develop personal and emotional relation does not mean to mingle with other peoples’ private lives. It means to care for them. In order to be able to care for them, you have to understand them. And the best way to learn how other people feel, is not by co-operating with them in order to reach some goal, but to read their body language, their facial expressions, what their eyes tell you. As human beings we are communicating all the time. It can hardly be any doubt, however, that the strong focus on professional education has made us neglect and forget this basic interpersonal communication – to the effect that most of us have lost sight of other people as human beings. This, I guess, is an important part of the explanation of social disintegration. For this reason Emanuel Levina’s views on "the ethics of the face" is valuable reading.
Personal and emotional relationships cannot be developed in large groups of people. Traditionally the family is the unit for such
relationship-building. The family, as Hegel says, is the primary ethical substance. This is of course not to say that you should not be concerned with a larger group of people, the local, the national and the
international community. It merely says that the capacity to be thus concerned has to be developed in smaller groups, in families, among friends or in working group. This is an important aspect of the enculturation
process, or in simpler words, it is moral or psychosocial training. That is the way, perhaps the only way, that individuals could develop care and responsibility for other. That individual will also know what
freedom is about. Freedom is only freedom on the basis of responsibility for others. Says the Jewish-American philosopher Abraham Kaplan in his introduction to Individuality and the New Society (1974),
addressing the youth of his day: the more you stretch out towards others, the more you become yourself. Or, as Kant put it: you act morally if you act on behalf of humanity in yourself. Freedom in the true sense is
sharing. As such it is the basis of distributive justice.
The release of energy
Human relations are never static. They are lived relations and, therefore, changing. So does each individual, irrespective of mental strength and
self-confidence. The relations, good or bad, in which we live, are always to some extent influencing out state of mind.
Any one of us has the potential for exercising a more powerful physical and mental energy than we at any given moment are able to. It depends to a
large extent on our relations.
Traditionally, there are several sources for the release of our energies. Perhaps the three most important ones are love relationships, religious and
humanistic beliefs and the membership in a union. Today all three have lost much of their power: the divorce rate approaches 50% or even 70% in some countries. Religious and humanistic beliefs are in many places
reduced to private enterprises, and unions are merely to negotiate wages and security measures. An inscription in a workers’ museum in Norway (Rjukan, Norwegian Hydro) suggests the traditional role of a union:
"The union offered its members total existence". Members were cared for the whole of their life.
The question is, which sources still exist for the strengthening of our creativity, for balancing the negative trends of the development and for
improving our sense of distributive justice? These sources should of course be intelligible and acceptable and also inspiring for families, educational institutions, administration and business.
There are several. To me two topics seem to be particularly important. It may even be necessary to take them into account if we are to succeed in
developing good and just societies in the future. The first concerns the relation between the sexes, the second concerns the notion of culture. The task is to enrich the professional culture in all areas of society
so as to comprise its historical and social context. This enrichment of the professional culture serves the purpose of making the culture both more creative and responsible.
I shall briefly sketch a way of thinking about the two topics.
The relation of the sexes
The relations of the sexes is a complicated topic. The relation is even more difficult to change. What is absolutely certain, is that all of us in all,
or most, cultures have to start reflecting upon what it means to have a sexual identity and what the relation between the sexes is and ought to be.
There are a few thing that, in my view, may be regarded as fairly obvious. First, a person is always more than his or her sexual identity. The meaning
of this ‘more’ will vary. It depends, for instance, on childhood experiences, education, work and cultural surroundings. The way a person’s sexual identity is integrated in a person’s richer personality, will also
vary. In extreme cases, a person’s personality may dominate the sexual identity or the other way around.
As persons, man and woman are equal. They should be respected and acknowledged as valuable in themselves. The phrase ‘in themselves’ does not mean,
however, that persons are self-sufficient. We are every one of us, as pointed out above, a relational being. Our identity involves our relation to others. This is perhaps most obvious as regards our sexual identity:
a man is only a man in relation to a woman and vice versa. For a relation to function properly and to be mutually inspiring, the participants have to be subordinated to one another. This is not only according to
depth-psychology, in Jung and others, it is ancient wisdom. The New Testament, St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, states that man and woman shall be subordinated to each other.
Historians know that the history of marriage and private life has not always been in accordance with this view. In most cultures, men have taken the
superior position in public life, education, religious life and business. The history of the sex roles and of parts of feminism tells us that women have often suffered. The break-up of marriages may be part of this
history.
The best argument for the interdependency of the sexes lies in their sexual identity: man and woman share in each other’s identity. They have both a
double sexual identity. The masculine psyche is part or parcel of the feminine psyche and the other way round. This is why children need both parents (both sexes) in order to develop a harmonious mental life.
This does not mean that men and women are psychically identical. They are different. The difference is the subject of a wide variety of research
projects, both in philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. The upshot may be formulated in the following way: men are primarily action-oriented, whereas women are primarily relation-oriented. Men and women are both
capable of both types of behaviour. The difference between them lies in the dominating type of behaviour.
‘Progress’ over the centuries is mainly due to the male action and goal-directed behaviour in all areas of life. We all also know the result: in the
experience of success we did forget to nurture the relations, the social ties between both sexes and people in general. We are faced with social disintegration and the enormous expenditures going with it. To
establish, or re-establish, a sound relationship between the sexes also involves establishing a balance between the action and the relation-oriented behaviour in all areas of life.
This process is what value management is about. In view of the overriding role played by the rule and goal-directed leadership style, the primary task
will be to discover the interpersonal field. This field is what ethical values is about. These values are basic to any organisation. Quality of products, services, marketing, customer relations and resource
management all have their roots in how you and I, including man and woman, behave together. To put it differently, the primary task of value management is to apply the traditional relation-oriented and co-ordinating
role of woman to education and working life in general. It is to discover that no one, young or old, works towards the same goal alone. Each one of us is living and working in interpersonal relationships. This
discovery will at the same time be a discovery of the significance of families and the local community surrounding the schools or companies. I have myself in described, in two books, several of them. They care.
Cultural development
The development of a richer culture in professional life serves several purposes. It enriches communication, internally and externally, it stimulates
creativity and it sharpens the awareness of basically being servants of a community. The emergence of multicultural societies and a growing contact between peoples and cultures on a global scale is a major challenge
to all professional cultures.
What, to my mind, is beyond doubt, is that if you are to succeed in international and intercultural communication you have to have deep roots in your
own local and national culture. This is necessary for developing criteria of what culture and cultural identity is about. It is after all only though belonging to a specific culture that you may be identified as
someone and have a personal identity. The nearly homogenous professional culture is about to invade every country and create a homogenous professional culture mixed with and increasingly senseless culture of
entertainment and consumption. These types of surface cultures stimulate selfishness and, as repeatedly stated in books and newspapers, it makes the rich people richer and the poor people poorer. It should be added
though, that material richness has a long historical record for developing mental poverty.
The process of integrating the variety of professional cultures into a broader culture is to combat these destructive tendencies.
What does it mean to integrate professional life into a broader cultural setting? Now, with a few exceptions, the notion of culture always involves history.
Not only Kierkegaard maintained that life has to be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards. According to philosophers of the 19th century, it is often history that tells us what we have become (e.g. Wilhelm Dilthey). Although this is fairly obvious, it is an important reminder at a time when history and historical experience is the losing part in a rapidly changing present and future. It is, however, still a fact that to meet someone is to be confronted with a life history. And no life history of a person is separated from the life history of other. History is something that we share. This history is, or may be, a major contribution to communication. A person only occupied with the changing present, and with little or no historical awareness, has hardly much of interest to say.
If this is true, everyone working in an institution (family, school, administration unit, business company) should have some knowledge of the history
of the community and its cultural history of which the institution is a part. There are companies which make it compulsory for every employee to attend courses, not only in the history of the company, but also in
the history of their products and services, and in the history of the place and community (or communities) in which the company is working. The positive effect of such courses is obvious: it enhances the
professional creativity and whenever the company is visited by delegations of customers, especially from abroad, every employee has something of interest to tell them. These interpersonal relationships add
considerable trust to the company, to its people, products and services.
History is also the history of ‘customs and rituals’ as well as of religious and ‘secular festivals’. History in all cultures tells us that if your are
to keep people together and strengthen communal life in whatever form, your have to ritualise it. Rituals in all forms are reminders that we are living and working together
to achieve some goal. I have noticed that teachers in multicultural classes are creating mutual respect and acknowledgement among the children when they organise presentations of customs, rituals and days of celebration from the different cultures represented in the class. It is unity in diversity. In my view this is the true model for the world’s cultures at large. That is why global free trade should not be allowed to destroy cultural differences.
History is furthermore the history of aesthetic experiences. Everyone knows the role of music, song, dance, drama, painting, drawing and the other
aesthetic forms in education and community.
The two cultures
The upshot of this is that institutions, schools, and business companies are composed of two cultures, the professional, corporate culture and the community culture. They are continually interacting. They have, however, entirely different characteristics. For the sake of clarification, it may therefore be wise to separate them. I shall indicate and briefly discuss the most important ones, applied to a business company:
The corporate culture
Employees – customers. Sexually neutral.
Professional competence
Wages, economic planning and income
Unions
Hierarchical organisation
The corresponding five features of the community culture are:
The community culture
Human beings – man and woman
Social and cultural competence
Acknowledgement, care and love
Fellow human beings. Collaboration
An organic organisation
To succeed in today’s competitive market requires a high professional competence as well as a continual improvement of that competence. Equally
important is co-operation among professionals, often of a great variety. Success also requires communication and co-operation with customers and with the community. Communication and co-operation require social and
cultural competence. Cultural competence is shared knowledge and hence communal knowledge. Cultural or communal knowledge bridge the gap between individuals and between professions. Cultural knowledge, if
sufficiently broad, also unites the company and its professional culture with the rest of the world, local, national or international. Thus the cultural foundation of a company’s professional competence makes the
employees aware of the variety of relationships in which a company stands to its environment. Consequently, it also makes the company more aware of its moral responsibilities towards nature and the community at
large. On the basis of a strong community culture, the overall purpose of a company can no longer be profit, but to serve the community.
A community culture is primarily created by employees as human beings. To ground the professional culture in broader cultural values is to widen the
humanity of the employees. It may be enriched indefinitely – according to the richness of cultural traditions. There is something to the view that the richer one’s past is, or one’s humanity, the richer and more
promising is one’s future likely to be. And similarly, the poorer one’s past, or one’s humanity, the poorer and less promising is one’s future like to be. As indicated, I have myself described several companies,
showing this to hold true.
In a community culture employees are men and women. The history of sex roles is a rather sad story. The discrimination of women has led to poor
relations -–compared to the creative potentialities between man and woman. The condition for improvement is that both men and women develop a richer notion of each other’s psychic life. Then they will discover the
differences, and thereby learn to respect the other sex.
Interpersonal and emotional relationship should not be valued in terms of wages and profit making. Acknowledgement and love are essential to people. No
one can be a successful leader without exercising both these and similar qualities. A leader is also the servant of the company’s communal life. As Lao-tse says: Why is the sea being paid so much attention by the
rivers? Because it places itself lower than them. (From Tao-Te King). Christ also defined himself as the servant of the people: I have not come here to be served, but to serve. (NT, St. Matthew 20.28). And, if you
allow me, Christ has after all kept his "company", the Christian church, alive for nearly 2000 years.
In a community culture there are, ideally speaking, no conflicts between the unions and the leader, the board and the owners. They all pursue the same
overall goal, the mastering of the situation in the best way possible, in the service of the company and the broader community.
In the community culture the hierarchy of position is replaced by an organically organised community. From the point of view of professional
competence, employees are unequal. Form the point of view of a human being, everyone is equal, irrespective of educational level. A cabin maid at an oil platform in the North Sea (Draugen, belonging to Shell) said
to me during a lecture: "This is a wonderful place to work in". "Why?" I asked her. "Because, here there is no difference between the head of the platform and me", she replied. Without
a strong community culture, tension and conflicts between the various organisations seem unavoidable.
Leadership styles
The community culture of a company, or of an institution in general, is the subject of value management. The point is that qualities in the personal
relationships in a company serves as a guarantee for qualities of the rest. It is a guarantee that employees follow rules and reach the objectives of the company. Value management thus supports leadership by rules
and by objectives. That’s why value management is also called cultural management or even ethical management. Ethics is often all primarily concerned with how we behave together. It may simply be defined as a
project of developing a strong community culture. Basic to value management is to develop a cultural foundation of the company (or institution). The resulting community culture creates (or is supposed to create)
commitment to basic ethical norms. It is usually not the awareness of these norms that is lacking. I is rather the commitment to them.
The basic ethical norm is common to all the major religions and cultures. It is the golden rule: To quote a formula from The New Testament:
Everything you want others do to you, you shall do unto others. (NT, St. Matthew 7.12). The negative formulation is known from Buddhism and Confucianism as well as from philosophy: Do not do to others that
which you do not which them to do to you. Islamic writings state that no one can be called a believer unless he wishes the same for his brother as he does for himself. In order to uphold a strong community
culture, everyone should regularly test his own attitudes and actions in view of the golden rule.
The golden rule may be specified in a number of directions. I have chosen to focus on ethical norms in the new Testament. I could, however, have chosen
other sources. The norms are:
Equality. You shall treat others as equals. Or, as stated in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians: Here is neither Jews nor Greek, slave nor free
man, man nor woman, but all are one in Christ. (NT, 3 Gal. 3:28). The phrase "One in Christ" may also be "translated" into secular language: equality is established when you acknowledge and
respect others.
Forgiveness. You shall show the ability to forgive. To make mistakes is human. To forgive, so the saying goes, is divine. We would do well to
learn the art of forgiveness ourselves. We are in need of it ourselves. Forgiveness is our invitation to become a fully fledged member of the working community again.
You shall make demands on others. Christ was no easy person to get along with. None of us should be. We should challenge and inspire each other
to participate in the building and strengthening of the culture of the company, both its professional culture and the community culture.
You shall have love for your fellow man and woman. Love of man and woman is a fundamental value in Christ’s behaviour. "Belief, hope and
love, the greatest is love", St. Pauls says in this letter to the Corinthians (NT, Cor. 13). Christ even loved his enemies.
Love is a strong emotion. It may turn a diversity of individual into a powerful unity. At the same time it creates respect for individual differences.
Some years ago Mother Theresa was invited to give the opening speech at a conference in New Delhi (I believe). The Indian leaders and managers were
eager to listen to her message to business people. She entered the chair, looked silently at the audience for a while, then she said: Do you know your employees? Do you know them personally? She observed for a while
the reaction of the audience, before she added: Do you love them? Then she went away.
It goes without saying that it took some time before the audience was able to discuss the agenda. She had pointed to something that creates the
strongest possible community at the same time that it empowers the professional culture.
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