'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.            

Making money or making a difference - are they opposed? (2)

Making money or making a difference - are they opposed?

• In my opinion it's relationships that make economies work; so you can make a profit and make a difference if you put other people first.
• Money can be made in an ethical or in an unethical manner - and it can also be used ethically or unethically.
• It depends how money is made.  Speculation and separating means from ends in finance and economics is unjust and undermines  spiritual, social and environmental value.
• NO - If you are making money to allow you to make a difference. YES - If you are making money at the expense of people.

Faith goes walkabout

Sue Martin is among those working with Faiths in London's Economy to deliver the Renegotiating 'value' seminar series. Sue is, among other roles, Consultant in children's services, children's literacy specialist and Curate at Gayton Benefice, Norwich Diocese. She has set up a website called Faith goes walkabout which seeks to bring faith, work and life together. On the site she writes:

"Life and work: these two are inextricably linked. Life includes work and work includes life.

They go in hand in hand. It seems when they are out of balance we can lose sight of what is important. Time is crucial and for many of us is a resource that we use to the full;never enough time, never enough time for the little things in life that make it a real joy.

“Some have work and money but too little time, while others have all the time but no work and no money. …. We seem to have made work into a god and then made it difficult to worship.”
Charles Handy – 'The Empty Raincoat'

If we can create a harmony between work and life without the need for more, and an achievement we can find ourselves in a good place."

As part of her ministry, fundamental to her sense of calling, is work in communities, with children and families, with areas in need and where the space for creativity and imagination has been lost by pressures of living and hard times.

As an expression of this she has an ethical partnership (SmithMartin Partnership LLP) with social aims which delivers projects supporting the development of social enterprise, governance and funding advice in the charity and education sectors. The partnership also offers project and change management for new capital and revenue projects which have social outcomes.

Renegotiating value in association with ...

Renegotiating ‘value’ is a seminar series organised by Faiths in London’s Economy (FiLE) in association with: Ethos HumanCapital; Faith Regen Foundation; The Grubb Institute; Mission in London’s Economy; St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation & Peace.


FiLE is a network-based organisation working with faith communities in order to create coordinated faith-community responses to the issues facing London's economy. FiLE's initial seminar, Ethics in a global economy, led to the creation of a Shared faiths response to the credit crunch. This paper was included on the faiths discussion page of the London G20 website. FiLE also provides on its webpage information on faith-based business organisations and resources through an alphabetical listing of organisations and a thematic listing of resources.

Ethos HumanCapital is Europe's first ethical holistic human capital solutions provider. Their knowledge, practical experience and deep networks in the Finance, Responsible Business, Media, Green & Charity spaces allow them to provide our clients and candidates with practical solutions to their recruitment needs.

Faith Regen Foundation is a unique national charity which works in the Employment sector to secure sustainable jobs for the most disadvantaged individuals such as BAME, women and those with disabilities. FRF works with the full knowledge that these individuals have many barriers and issues which have to be overcome before they even reach the stage of entering the labour market. However, they care and believe in the clients that walk through their doors; and that everyone’s journey is different and special. FRF simply wish to provide a safe and secure place where an individual is inspired to unleash their potential. They are a Muslim inspired multi faith organisation with a strong track record of achieving targets and outcomes to ensure positive change since their inception in late 2001.

The Grubb Institute is an applied research foundation working globally to enable leaders, managers and others to achieve personal and organisational purpose, using their values, passions, faiths and beliefs as resources to be more effective in their responses to the constantly changing geopolitical context, locally, nationally and internationally, transforming their organisations and institutions. As leaders and managers in a range of organisations we are likely to be filled with a range of conflicting thoughts and feelings, fears and anxieties as well as optimism and hope. The Grubb Institute sees 2010 as presenting enormous opportunities for transformation, development and growth for leaders and their organisations when able to work with the emergent realties in this chaotic context, resisting repetition of previously unsuccessful strategies and through a spirit of inquiry bringing forth creativity, innovation and wellbeing.

Mission in London's Economy which is a London wide ecumenical Christian organisation set up in 2005 which has set itself the following objectives: to co-ordinate the churches' interventions in discussion of London's economy; to respond on behalf of the churches to consultation exercises on London's economy; to recruit, train, support, insure and supervise workplace chaplains; to support Christians working in the institutions of London's economy; to educate churches in the issues facing London's economy so that they might be able to respond appropriately; and to work with other faith communities in order to create coordinated faith-community responses to the issues facing London's economy.

St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace has arisen from the ruins of St Ethelburga's Church, after its destruction by an IRA bomb in 1993. Now 10,000 people a year from all over the world meet there to share stories, skills and insights about how we can build relationships across divisions of conflict, culture and religion. St Ethelburga's welcome people of all faiths and none as partners in the work of helping people come to terms with difference and building peace. The Centre is a Christian-led, independent charity which owns the freehold of the site, managed by a Board of Trustees, chaired by the Bishop of London. It aims "to encourage and enable people to practise reconciliation and peace-making in their communities and lives". The Centre itself is independent of the Church of England.