Author: CRT Admin

Below is an email we recently sent to the Minnesota Business Partnership, the business community here in Minnesota, about our efforts in responding to the death of George Floyd while in police custody last May.

I thought it would be of interest to you.

Dear Minnesota Business Partnership Members:

The death of George Floyd this past May 25th upsettingly surfaced for our community three very serious issues: 1) an assertion that systemic racism prevents Minnesota from doing justice to its African American neighbors after years of being disadvantaged and worse, by slavery, segregation and lack of equality; 2) a demand that policing and law enforcement be reformed to reduce unfeeling, unnecessary and sometimes deadly, discriminatory treatment of African Americans; and 3) a substantial gap in wealth and income experienced by many African American families compared to most other Minnesotans.

The Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism (CRT) has responded immediately and directly to each need for remedial change by drawing on its Principles for Business and for government to guide implementation of three initiatives.

First, to improve law enforcement, we have held two workshops on community policing under our Principles for Government using Sir Robert Peel’s Nine Principles of Policing of 1829 and recent focus group data regarding the character traits communities want to see in police officers in order to trust them. The data was collected by our associate Matt Bostrom, former Sheriff of Ramsey County, for his Oxford University dissertation.

Sir Robert Peel’s principles, created for the first modern police force, the London Metropolitan Police, were inspired by the moral standard that “public office is a public trust.” Peel’s principles demand that the police be the community and the community the police in the effort to provide public safety and prevent crime. Such a strategy for the prevention of crime requires trust of the police by the community and, reciprocally, trust of community by the police.

Earning the community’s trust of the police can be enhanced by hiring as police officers only individuals who have the character traits admired by the community. Matt Bostrom’s data permits hiring for character and then training for competence.

As a result of the last workshop, St. Paul City Council members Jane Prince and Rebecca Noecker have decided to press for a City Council resolution setting forth a modernized version of Sir Robert’s principles as the City’s vision of community policing and law enforcement – a first in the nation if it happens.

Prior to the tragic death of George Floyd, Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety, John Harrington, had retained Matt Bostrom to conduct focus groups among Minnesotans and then advise the Department of Public Safety on its hiring and training practices. The department is working to design a “Minnesota Model” of modern policing using the best practice of “hiring for character, training for competence.” The CRT is fully supporting the Commissioner in this pioneering improvement to law enforcement.

Secondly, on closing the wealth gap between African Americans and other Minnesotans, we are moving forward with a leadership group in St. Paul – Dr. Delores Henderson, Bishop Roz Caroll, Anita Spencer and Eric Clark – to bring a smartphone App to young people and families in the community to enable them to set up personal investment accounts in equity portfolios. The portfolios earn on average 6% a year so that compounding returns can make a difference in the acquisition of wealth and thus reward personal habits of saving and planning for the long-term.

The App has been developed by Newday Impact Investing in San Francisco. Several of the Newday equity portfolios available on the App use CRT metrics to rank companies according to alignment with a variety of moral standards – Protestant social teachings, Catholic Social Teachings, Jewish Halakhic norms and Qur’anic guidance. Company rankings are calculated by Magni Global Assets, LLC, a local asset management company.

The CRT introduced Newday to the St. Paul community leaders. We are also introducing Newday to community leaders in Minneapolis. Our initiative is being brought to the attention of Bernice King, daughter of the late Martin Luther King and Daymond John, one of the entrepreneurs featured on Shark Tank.

Thirdly, with respect to viewing American society through the lens of “systemic racism,” the CRT has recommended an alternate approach of “translation” or using “interpreters” to facilitate the building of community and not the alienation of some from others over different life experiences and divergent perspectives. In its international work over the past 35 years, the CRT has experienced the effectiveness of translation skills to bring strangers together, promoting collegiality and even very close collaboration, as better understanding of the other builds acceptance and trust.

The wise use of translation skills creates important social capital by reducing suspicions and anxieties.

Given this experience, we held an in-person round table on how Minnesotans should talk with one another about racism, asking if “racism” is even the right word to use, what words best frame our realities and what interactions most permanently further the common good?

The response of participants was enthusiastic. We are now scheduling future round tables in collaboration with Growth & Justice.

We are optimistic that each of these initiatives will produce constructive results. I look forward to reporting to you from time to time on our progress. I invite your support of our efforts.

Sincerely yours,

Stephen B. Young
Global Executive Director
Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism

The Caux Round Table has supported the Minnesota Character Council since its inception. We believe that just as good values produce good leaders in business, government and society, so does character produce social justice and sustainable prosperity.

As Heraclitus advised: ethos anthropos daemon – character drives our destiny.

Another sage insight from the Greeks is that “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first deprive of good judgment.”

Americans, at this time of testing and dissention, need once again to hold our virtue dear and put good character first. Good character will resolve the issues we have with each other more quickly, more easily and more effectively than is permitted by our current culture.

As we go to the polls tomorrow, we will exercise the responsibilities of citizens in a republic, responsibilities that demand character in our decision-making, in our compassion and in our resolve to serve our country well.

Our Minnesota Character Council has released a statement of purpose and an invitation to join its work. That letter can be read here.

Our colleague in The Netherlands, Herman Mulder, has just published some sound and impressive recommendations for adjusting markets to accommodate “wealth” creation more comprehensively, as defined by the Sustainable Development Goals. I find his thinking closely aligned with the Caux Round Table’s vision of a moral capitalism.

You can read his piece here.

Herman now works with the Impact Institute. He is noted for being an advocate, expert in international law and a key player in the development of corporate responsibility, impact investment and ESG integration. Mulder is most notable for the initiation of the Equator Principles. He is currently a Chairman of the True Price Foundation, member of the board of the Dutch National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for MNE’s and the former Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative.

Here in Minnesota, in response to concerns about “systemic racism” preventing the U.S. from providing “liberty and justice for all,” the Caux Round Table convened a round table to discuss how we talk and might talk about “racism.” Then, coincidently, following that event, Pope Francis issued his Encyclical Fratelli Tutti on dialogue and encounter with others.

A summary of our round table and a comment on the Pope’s important argument are included here.

I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

Recently, our fellows held a dialogue to reflect on what has happened over the past few months to our global community as it has responded to the coronavirus pandemic. The various observations tabled for consideration had a centrifugal tendency to converge on leadership.

My summary of the discussion sent for your information is:

Modernity has lost its fondness for convergence. It is now diffusing and pluralizing its energies. Its essence is subdividing, morphing into different forms and expressions. Inconsistencies among cultures are escalating into wars of cultures.

Covid has exposed such vulnerabilities and shortcomings. Consider the subsidence of leadership. Self-righteous employees impose their will on those around them. Behaviors become toxic at will. The flow of trust ebbs.

The world today is audaciously complex, ambiguous and interdependent. It is easy to lose one’s confidence when the range of possible outcomes expands and there is no line of sight to reliably expected outcomes. Little can be foreseen. When everything might be possible, trust becomes impossible.

We have lost time for reflection. The rate of flow in which we try to swim towards our destinations increases daily and threatens to sweep us away from our lifelines at a time when we have no trusted heritages to use as life vests.

The qualities we need in ourselves and to perceive in others are: 1) courage, 2) understanding the other and 3) value organization. These can emerge from conscience which teaches us how to co-value ourselves and others, to become aware of our roles and duties; of how to appreciate our positions of stewardship bringing moral order out of chaos.

We are separated from one another by dispositions, psychological presumptions or world views. Some fall back on a will to power. Others are self-indulgent, but in the emotional Dionysian fashion. Yet more prefer Apollonian forms and structures. Still others are detached rationalists. And many are just materialists.

These disparate dispositions bond their respective followings into mini-cultural communities which become tribes. Leadership today is within the tribes, not daring to cross boundaries or risk contact with what seems to be a soul-destroying contagion or might lead to a draining away of self. We debate identities, teleologies in win/lose terms, not strategies for collaborations producing mutual benefit.

In such a world, there would be value in slowing down the mind-process and still the fever of emotions which can only afflict us with their distractions and their undermining of our self-control. There is also value in embracing each other.

Perhaps we need to develop the skill of mapping the domains of tribes, a social and cultural cartography where overlapping Venn circles might appear on the map.

But who has the courage? Acceptance of accountability is an expression of courage.

Values are the well-spring of courage. Courage will crystallize leadership.

The need is to convert this crisis into new possibilities through rethinking. The will to propose without fearing others would be most welcome. It would draw forth trust by setting an example of accepting responsibility for the future. Its impact would scale across the tribes.