'Bonus vs Pro Bono' - responses to presentations

• There is evidence that people want to open up to the spiritual in business and community life but don't know how to. The evidence suggests they are interested in spirituality rather than institutionalised religion.
• Religion and spirituality have been sidelined by secularism. A change of mindset is needed to overcome the common reaction of drawing back when religion or spirituality are raised.
• We need to find the place to outsource leadership with spirituality and to get leaders thinking spiritually. Obama is an example of a leader with a depth of spirituality.
• One issue to overcome is that of inadvertently causing offence. Potential for conflict exists because people don't know how to react to, for example, Muslim or Jewish women.
• Faith groups can assist in community empowerment by providing ways in to communities. Faith groups define identity for some and help their members grow into leadership. We also need to consider how people with no religious faith view spirituality. Sacred spaces in, for example, hospitals need to be places which are open to those with no religious faith.
• We have a responsibility of stewardship towards the planet and its peoples. Our legacy can be one of countering a system which depresses people's expectations in order to raise and exceed expectations.
• The first Muslim was a woman. Mohammad (pbuh) worked for a woman. Half of the first delegation of Muslims were women. 
• We are often too cautious through fear of giving offence. Muslims, for example, are not offended by Christians wearing crucifixes.
• Spirituality outside of organised religion is the common ground which creates space for dialogue and which has been the starting point for us in our discussions.
• Spirituality equals meaning. I have been influenced by David Bohm who identified ways in which we  misperceive time and space in everyday life. These are the two geometrics that I seek to draw in my wave drawings.
• Religion and spirituality are different poles or spectrums of the same concept and are not often valued. Talk about spirituality often alludes to a sense of difference.
• Spirituality can be a driver for better, more meaningful work. What helps people cope in business is often their value systems.
• For me, Bonus vs Pro Bono means personal benefit vs public good. The faiths commonly value giving to the wider community. St Martin-in-the-Fields is a church which runs a business with the profits funding its work with homeless people. There remain tensions around the way in which these go together.
• The mid-term elections have seen a person of faith (Obama) being slammed for not having sorted out the economy. Baroness Uddin has been criticised as a result of the Standards and Privileges Committee findings. Peter raised the issue of tolerance of imperfection. What happens when the inspiration provided by spiritual leaders is called into question?
• Faith traditions are often perceived as having disempowered women. What can women bring to such traditions?
• The Apprentice may define a part of the issue we are discussing in that it is a competition with one winner which operates on the basis of team exercises. There is an inherent tension in the programme between personal gain and collaborative working which may be symptomatic of the business world.
• Concepts of partnership can be found both in Islam and in the Co-operative movement. Shared equity is not a zero sum game. Such models work but we have moved away from them in our economy.
• A business contribution that benefits the community/wider society may be an attractive concept in the current environment.
• Success could be understood in terms of legacy - taking people with us through empowerment - but this is not valued within society, although this may be beginning to change. 
• Those who opted to work in the public sector wouldn't have gone into it in order to cut it. A big political tension currently is the Big Society in relation to the recession.
• The thought that 'bigger is better' has been a part of all our lives and we need to see a new way of sharing resources.
• We don't see spirituality as a resource, instead we see it as a stance. We need to understand spirituality as a resource for seeing higher purpose and for seeing our fellow human beings in a better way.
• Inspirational CEOs are cutting their own salaries.
• Buildings are intractable things to cut.
• Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin. Of leaving 99 sheep in order to go after the lost one. However, this was done for the sake of the 100. The 99 were not whole if the one was not with them. The story speaks about the connectedness of us all. We need to think more collaboratively so that no one falls over the edge. Risky efforts have to be made to stop the one from going over the edge; a judgement has to be made about care for the 99 or for the one.
• The House of Lords was founded on feudalism. The history of the UK is built on inequity. There is a question to be asked about whether 'the great and the good' cover up or institutionalise inequity.
• Huge cuts are coming in health and social services. It wasn't hunky dory before the cuts and a debate is needed about how to share.
• I can't be happy if you are unhappy or I can't be safe if you are unhappy, which may be closer to Amartya Sen's phrase. The well being of the least for the well being of all. 
• The dead space and human capital freed up by cuts could be used as an incubator for micro or social enterprises.
• Spiritual leaders are the opposite of short-termism, yet leaders in the NHS are often only there for 18 months or so. Faith groups bring the long perspective and a wider awareness of time.
• It is difficult to stay with this territory. Act local, think global. Act in some way for the common good - credit unions, community gardens etc.
• Empirical evidence (a business case) exists for the benefits of workplace spirituality. Once enough pieces have been fitted into the puzzle a paradigm shift will be seen.
• How leaders handle cuts is an expression of spirituality; how they explain cuts, how they engage others with cuts instead of simply imposing cuts.
• Big bonuses for big bosses don't speak in that way.
• The celebration of community groups coming together is needed. Co-production is needed; the public sector and community groups together.  
• Mozambican artists have made powerful sculptures from weapons. We need symbolic representations of our issues.
• These ideas could be shared with Guilds and Livery Companies. These began for the benefit of ordinary traders but have in some senses become the reverse of their original purpose. 
• The City has a centre for interfaith relations in the St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace and a centre for spirituality in the London Centre for Spirituality. There is also the City Circle within the Muslim community. This may leave scope for a Centre for business ethics and spirituality which could also have an artistic dimension exhibition art, architecture and artefacts and creating visual representations of ethics and economics. This idea may be of interest to the Prince of Wales or could be linked to the space on the Olympic Park that had been proposed as a Mosque site.