Wow! It has been a very long time since posting. As is fitting with my new position-- a wee business consisting of myself--I need to 'promote'. This is antithetical to my nature.
My business is mental health, counselling, lecturing and learning. This is a new phase in life. I've never had a business before and realise my nature rebels against the traditional business model. I say traditional, but am not sure it actually is a 'tradition'.
We've all been rather shocked at what 'business had done' in these last years. But as I've been studying, writing lectures and discussing with students the 'Ethics of Business', I realise there is a laudable 'business ethic'.
In class, we are discussing values, mores, morality as concepts: Concepts I rarely think businesses as having except to market deceptively and gain our hard earned cash by convincing us that we can not 'live' without their latest & greatest 'product'.
The Introduction to Management text I used for this section of my course--which I've never used or taught before--surprised me! There are 'real values', a positive sense of morality, a desire to see good as a business outcome in the world. Go figure!
Actually, this shouldn't surprise us. There are those who, though making a living--a great living--also believe in helping their fellow humans. Ben & Jerry's, The Body Shop are just two businesses which come to mind.
The wonderful thing about a sound business ethic is that giving back to the community and to others has its rewards--personally and financially. It seems, however, by the time our students leave the sacred halls of ivy, they've forgotten this.
Or--and this is what I really suspect--the environment in which they must work, drives this positive ethic underground. Then we have the 'dwarf throwing contests' and other insensitive, money wasting, over-the-top activities done by business because 'we can'; because 'who's going to stop us?'.
Here's my hope for this term and for many terms to come: That my students walk away with their business degrees and their ethic intact; that rather than succumb they overcome and lead the way forward, like Ben, like Jerry, like the Body Shop. This IS a generation that can. I wish them every success!
In Peace: LankaBlue2 aka LankaBlueToo
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