Category: Commentary

Herman Mulder, a colleague in The Netherlands, has written up his thoughts and recommendations in a piece titled “From Accidental Pain to Systemic Gain” for an action agenda going forward from the pandemic and, more recently, the concern for inequalities which could be remediated.

Herman has much experience in working to improve our decision-making with the Global Reporting Initiative and now with the effort to document impacts, assess them and in the way of the quality movement, achieve continuous improvements in the outcomes of our economic systems.

To me, Herman embodies what I have come to respect in so many Dutch – practical wisdom, personal modesty when blessed with talent and dedication to the common good.

I am very pleased that he has agreed to let us share his suggestions with you.

I have just received a response to the email I sent on facts about policing in the U.S. raising a question about “who” should be accepted as a guide to realities within the African American community or any other community for that matter?

Who, for example, speaks for white Americans, Hispanic Americans, the Chinese in Hong Kong, the religion of Islam, ad infinitum?

Jason Riley, whom I quoted in my cover note, wrote that in a commentary published by the Wall Street Journal. Riley’s views are different from those of many other African Americans. I am increasingly of the thought that we so often confront impasses when the perceptions of one culture – widely shared within that culture and arising from historical conditions – are foreign to those coming from another culture. The outsider is removed intellectually and emotionally from what seems so true and real to the insider. When we seek to become more aware of the “other,” a challenge is who speaks for a collective other, what texts, what artifacts express a core perception for that other?

I know of other African Americans who have the same general point of view as Riley and we all know from their public remarks and writings of notable African Americans who disagree with him.

In a way, the work of the Caux Round Table is to be between various “others,” both individual and group and through dialogue, seek to bring out what can be accepted and believed in by more than one tradition.

I have received many worried emails from our international network about the protests and violence here in the U.S. since the death of George Floyd. Some abroad may presume the worst about our institutions.

I have also read, more on the margins of our anguished public discussions than featured front and center by leading media outlets, a few commentators who have brought forth facts about policing in America, facts which should inform our thinking.

For example, Jason Riley, an African American, wrote in the Wall Street Journal today: “So long as blacks are committing more than half of all murders and robberies while making up only 13% of the population and so long as almost all their victims are their neighbors, their communities will draw the lion’s share of police attention. Defunding the police or making it easier to prosecute officers, will only result in more lives lost in those neighborhoods that most need protection.”

I feel an obligation from seeking to understand truth to communicate uncomfortable facts to our network internationally and so have written a short piece titled “Narrative and Reality: Racism and Policing in the United States.”

As the Caux Round Table advocates in its Principles for Government and as is implied in our Principles for Business, moral judgment depends on thoughtful discourse about reality. Morality cannot be the forceful imposition on others of untruth or personal prerogative.

Two phrases have come to mind. One is the Latin fiat justicia, ruat caelum – “Let there be justice though the Heavens Fall,” which is a call to irresponsibility and dismissal of consequences to others. The other is the quip of Mme. Roland, on the way to her execution by other Jacobins during the French Revolution, said: “Oh, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!”

I would be very interested in your thoughts and feedback.

As you know, anger and resentments have once again boiled over in American cities. The fault line of displacement is along the interface of police and African Americans in the inner cities. But this time, protests calling for an end to racism and for justice were manifest in London and in Paris.

There is a time to reflect and a time to plan, but there is also a time for action. “There is a time for every purpose under Heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

Here in Minnesota, I was working the past few days with two of our colleagues – Matt Bostrom, former Sheriff of Ramsey County and now working on a Ph.D. in policing at Oxford and Richard Bents, a psychologist who helped us with a self-assessment psycho-metric questionnaire on leadership decision styles – to design a new method of hiring for character in new police officers.

Yesterday morning, I sent our proposal to the Governor of our state and the Commissioner of Public Safety.

For your information, you may find a copy of our proposal here.

What we are living through these days is historic. In several senses, historic as of great importance and an inflection in the course of events and historic in its parallels to past moments of breakdown – Lexington and Concord, the Bastille, the March from Selma 1965, Detroit 1965, Watts 1967.

When disruption subjects the common good to abuse of power, there are no winners and cycles of fear and retribution dissolve well-being, fair politics and cultural reassurance. The community falls apart.

The actions of four Minneapolis police officers on Monday night were such a disconnection between the common good and the use of power. A particularly important insight into the behavior of those officers is the complaint issued by Hennepin County for the arrest of officer Derek Chauvin. A copy of the complaint is here. Please read its statement of facts.

In 1829 when creating the first modern police force, Sir Robert Peel demanded that the force of law be part of the community and never stand against it. He set down ethical principles for policing for the benefit of community.

These principles are:

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary, of avenging individuals or the State and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

With our podcast discussions with guests, keeping up with family and associates and reading here and there, after a while, one begins to settle on some lessons learned from our global exposure to a mere virus. I’ve been keeping notes and put my thoughts into five different short video commentaries.

My attention has been drawn to 1) risk shifting and not sharing, 2) the responsibilities of government, 3) self-reliance, 4) leadership and 5) capitalism.

The series of videos are available here in order, with the first being the one on risk shifting and the last on capitalism.

I welcome your reactions and comments.

I wanted to share with you an article from one of our fellows, Stephen Jordan, on how we can recover from the policies enacted to combat the coronavirus.

Stephen is a keen thinker looking at the forces set in motion by institutions and markets who served as the Executive Director of the Business Civic Leadership Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Today, he is the CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Development.

Since the intent of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism is to offer practical help and not be too overly conceptual, discursive and academic, we consistently seek to provide you with evidence of alignment between our recommendations and wider perspectives on business and financial realities.

Recently, I was sent a paper by McKinsey & Company on “purpose.” I have excerpted portions which validate our emphasis on vision and mission as determinative of success with stakeholders and so as drivers of profit and growth in a firm’s equity valuation.

Responsibility – of a person or an organization – reveals itself in mindful intentionality. Purpose has become a trendy word in the last year, or so, for highlighting our intentions. As the McKinsey paper advocates, purpose focuses our intentions into a channel of dedication and collaboration leading to success.

You may find the paper here.

The full version can be found here.

I welcome your thoughts on these recommendations.

As a coordinating member of the Minnesota Council on Character, I would like to share with you an unusual statement by two or our council members, Todd Otis and Chuck Slocum. As some of you may remember, both Todd and Chuck were Chairman of their respective political parties – the DFL and the Republicans.

At the Council, we seek to elevate worthy character as the foundation for citizens and as a goal of education. As Ben Franklin said at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, “A republic stands or falls on the virtue of its people and their chosen leaders. Our laws and our policies flow mostly from our character as people for good or for bad.”

Chuck and Todd have written this appeal, which has appeared in local newspapers. I wanted to share it with you and so have included it below.

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Column: Turn to Our Better Angels and Away from Partisanship

By Todd Otis and Chuck Slocum, Guest Columnists

May 7, 2020

We are former chairs of the two major political parties in Minnesota; we care deeply about public issues.  Yes, the two parties are driven by different priorities and principles and the two of us have our strong and cordial disagreements.

But at this remarkable and agonizing time, we find ourselves in total agreement on one idea.  And that is that now is absolutely not the time for nasty partisanship in the public affairs of our state or our nation.  All of our elected leaders, from our president and Minnesota governor and thousands of others, need to be guided by character and not political expediency.

Our Anishinaabe brothers and sisters can show us the way.  They have treasured the “Gifts of the Seven Grandfathers: Humility, Courage, Honesty, Wisdom, Truth, Respect and Love.”

Humility. The awesome responsibility that elected leaders have to lead honorably and focus exclusively on the public good requires giving up the usual orientation toward re-election.

Wisdom. Knowing what to focus on to develop strategies and garner resources to attack the coronavirus requires great wisdom.  It requires securing the public’s health and regenerating the economy.

Truth. The solutions we need urgently must be guided by facts, science and verifiable truth.  The scope of the dangers, the effectiveness of treatments, the challenges related to developing and distributing vaccines must be unwaveringly guided by the truth.

Honesty. Now more than ever, our citizens need to have leaders they can trust who will tell the truth.  Indeed, trust is the bedrock for a vibrant and effective democracy.  In our adult lifetimes, trust has been eroding ever since the 1960s; 2020 is the time for our leaders to reverse what has been eroding for that last 60 years.

Respect. The heroes of the COVID-19 crisis are on the front lines, putting their lives at risk to serve us all.  Respect for them must be continuously and profoundly offered.  Leaders must not point fingers at one another as the blame game often creates losers across the spectrum of public opinion.

Courage. The courage that is shown privately by doctors, nurses, public safety professionals, grocery store and other service workers is a worthy model for all leaders.

Love. The spirit that “we are all in this together” is sweeping across our nation and the globe. Rather than inciting racism and xenophobia, now is the time to lead with love, understanding and forgiveness.  As Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

We are certain that we will get through this crisis.  We grieve for those who are losing their lives and livelihoods because of this cursed virus.  This is a calamity for the ages.  It calls upon all of us to summon our faith, hope and charity.

With leaders who demonstrate character, what is at the other end of this tunnel could literally transform our state, nation and world.  We can summon our “better angels” to do that.  That transformation can change the tone of public life from one of polarized recrimination to robust, but respectful debate on the important issues.

We can find helpful ways to provide greater financial and health care security for millions while rebuilding our economy.  And we can join hands to protect the environment and the earth.  As Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Todd Otis of Minneapolis is a former state legislator and State Chair of the Minnesota DFL. Chuck Slocum of Minnetonka is a management consultant and former State Chair of the Independent-Republicans of Minnesota. They are members of the non-partisan Minnesota Council on Character.

We have just published Klaus Leisinger’s new book, The Art of Leading, on Amazon.

Initial reactions have been most favorable, with very appreciative comments that it comes at a time of troubles when the leaders which Klaus describes are needed. My colleague, Richard Broderick, is one of those who admires Klaus’ practical wisdom. I include below Rich’s review of the book.

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The Art of Leading: The Significance of Personality and Character in the Choice of Leadership Personalities in the Economy
By Klaus M. Leisinger

A Quick Review by Richard Broderick

Encountering a book aimed at business executives, consultants and academics who teach management theory with a title like The Art of Leading is usually a task that elicits a weary sigh. A reader automatically expects some kind of shallow, boiled-down cross between Machiavelli and Norman Vincent Peale or perhaps a series of simplistic nostrums cobbled together by a columnist moonlighting from a newspaper business section; you know, the kind of tract that offers “on-the-scene” insights on how to get your day-old sushi business up and purring, etc.

In this case, however, the title belongs to a book whose contents are not only worthy of a business audience, but offer an integrated sequence of arguments and analyses all of us could benefit by reading. How many tomes with names like The Art of Leading offer a 27-page bibliography containing citations from sources that range from the Harvard Business Review to online magazines like Alternet to encyclicals issued by Popes John Paul XXIII, Benedict XVI and Francis I? Not many, I assure you.

The book is the work of Klaus Leisinger whose career in academia, business and as founder and president of the Global Values Alliance might lead a reader to expect a weighty tome, offering more work than enlightenment.

Not so. The Art of Leading is a clear and, above all, eloquently expressed thesis that manages, however unlikely it might seem, to demonstrate that Erich Fromm’s groundbreaking The Art of Loving, which argues that being governed by love, in the broadest and most profound meanings of the word, is as much a key to true success in the workplace as it is everywhere in life.

It is, above all, the basis of a form of “success” that benefits all stakeholders of enterprises in the capitalist world, not merely shareholders and upper management. By combining pragmatic compassion – you help me, I help you – with agapé, the embrace of a universal and unconditional love of the cosmos, it is within our grasp, Leisinger argues, to shape an economic system that sustains the environment – natural, human, political and financial – while maintaining the freedom to choose where we work, what kind of work we do, who will serve as our political leaders and more.

Given enough time, human beings can get used to almost anything, Dostoevsky argued. And that, he declared, is both our greatest strength – and our most dangerous weakness. We are very adept at compartmentalizing our lives and our sense of consciousness: a critical skill for a species of relatively small physical prowess (compared to, say, bears and tigers) and a wide and highly variegated range of undertakings necessary for survival.

In the capitalist world, the emphasis of this compartmentalization tends to fall on the individual, as opposed to the collective. I know I can make this happen tends to supersede the deeper question of should I make this happen, regardless of the benefit to others. This emphasis lies at the heart of why capitalism was born and first flourished in the west.

In time, however, that has led to an economic system whose internalizing of profits, while externalizing costs has bequeathed us with a mentality in which industries and individual enterprises operate as if everything and everyone is either a resource or a potential consumer, here to be used, used up and then discarded.

Of late, society’s long-standing objection to profit über alles has taken on an even greater urgency. Today, it’s not just an individual city or region or even country that suffers from irresponsible business practices; it is the entire planet, including the natural environment upon which human civilization – and any kind of economic system – relies for survival.

Can we respond in a manner that is able to reconcile and preserve what is best about capitalism – its enormous power to marshal resources and enrich whole societies – with what must be done to preserve our world?

Yes, Leisinger proposes, if we learn that The Art of Leading depends upon The Art of Loving, where “love” is practiced in the broadest and most beneficent sense.