6 minute read
Soundbites
A challenge to graduates: reboot the world
The bad news is that the world being passed on to today’s college graduates is broken, unequal, unstable and unsustainable.
The good news is that young people have a chance to “reboot the world” to make it better.
That’s the message from Don Tapscott, co-author of Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World. He was giving the convocation address at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., in early June.
“Your generation will need to turn this situation around — to reboot the world — and each of you will have a role,” he said. “You will need to advocate change in your workplace, community, country and in the causes you join.... In your first job, you will care more about opportunities to learn, do interesting things and have fulfilling work and relationships than about how much money you make. You can be the generation to put the Dilbert cartoons out of business.”
He said aspiring business managers will work in “corporate architectures dramatically different from those of the 20th century — ones that emphasize teamwork rather than hierarchy. If you become an executive, you will lead in the rethinking of the purpose of the corporation – beyond shareholder profit to creating value for all its stakeholders.”
Tapscott acknowledged the
Necktie democracy
Nothing seems more medieval than dress codes. Office personnel are supposed to stroll around in suits and ties or dresses, but who remembers why? It’s like this because ... well, it just is.
The receptionist is the calling card of the company — how silly is that? What customer, supplier, or banker would cancel a deal when he sees a casually attired receptionist? What buyer has failed to do business with a customer because a salesman wasn’t sufficiently fashionable?
Dress codes are all about conformity. People want to feel secure, and dressing like everyone else is one way to accomplish it....
We told our office workers and managers they could dress as they pleased. Period. And most gave up suits and ties and dresses in favor of jeans and, on hot days, shorts. Sure, there are moments when more formal attire is appropriate, such as at board meetings and presentations to important customers. But every responsible adult knows how to dress correctly for these occasions....
Democracy is a lot of work ... and it begins with little things, like neckties. — Brazilian entrepreneur Ricardo Semler in Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace sometimes-agonizing challenge of “fixing the mess my generation has created,” but noted the high-stakes arena today’s graduates face would also be exhilarating.
“Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther called the printing press ‘God’s highest act of grace.’ With today’s communications revolution, your generation has been bestowed with a second act of grace. You have a historic occasion to rebuild business and the world. Because each of you can participate in this renaissance, it is surely an amazing time to graduate and to be alive.” (The Globe and Mail)
What I meant was...
Our intentions tend to be much more real to us than our actions, and this can lead to a great deal of misunderstanding with other people, to whom our actions tend to be much more real than our intentions. — E.F. Schumacher
From the mailbag
I wanted to write you to send you two kudos. First, thanks for the great piece on LCC in the last Marketplace (March/ April). You very sensitively captured the energy and vision of the place. I have been here for eight years now, and was amazed at how someone who has not been here captured us so well. The map graphic is another thing! Apparently someone wanted to expand Lithuania from the map so you could see it. It’s not clear that that is what you are doing, and in the process Lithuania got placed upside down! So...the article communicated accurate information, the map not.
Second, I really appreciated the article “Fishy Tale.” In a few brief strokes you wonderfully captured the complexity of poverty issues, a complexity that is often ignored by both conservatives and liberals. I plan to use the article in one of my classes here. — Steve Dintaman, LCC International University, Klaipeda, Lithuania
Editor’s note: Our regrets for the map of Lithuania. It became distorted when we lifted a rounded map from a globed surfaced and flattened it for page use.
Immigrant risk
Immigrants are not averse to starting over. They are, by definition, risk takers. A nation of immigrants is a nation of entrepreneurs. — Israeli political economist Gidi Grinstein in Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle
Power surge
Most people suspend their values about contributing to society when they go to work, believing that it’s something they’re only supposed to be concerned with in their free time at home. It’s when we’re at work that we’re most powerful, because we’re organized and we have the financial resources of the company behind us. The results we can achieve within the company, working together, are far greater than those we could accomplish working as three hundred individuals at home. — Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
Core innovation
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples, then you and I will still have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. — George Bernard Shaw
It is fascinating that the corporate world is increasingly interested in faith at work. About 20 years ago when I was starting my career with IBM, if someone had asked me what I did last weekend, and I replied, “Wow! I heard a great sermon at church!” everyone would have run away and thought I was a religious zealot. But today when I go to a cocktail party in New York City, attend an event in Zurich, or travel anywhere in the world and am asked, “What line of work are you in?” I often say, somewhat mischievously, “Well, I’m in the God business.” Inevitably, that’s followed by silence. Then questioners ask, “What do you mean?” I tell them, “I used to be a partner at an investment bank, but now I think about God and the roles God and theology have in our daily work lives.” Usually there’s a little bit more silence, then one of two reactions: Either they quickly abandon me to grab a drink at the bar, or they start a conversation that often lasts the whole evening. The fascinating thing is eight out of 10 people don’t run to the bar. They say, “Can I talk to you?” — David Miller, director of the Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative, in Our Souls at Work, edited by Mark L. Russell
David Miller will be a keynote speaker at MEDA’s upcoming Business as a Calling convention, Nov. 4-7 in Calgary. For more information go to: businessasacalling.org Room with no view
Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark. — Writer Annie Dillard
Corruption eruption
The hidden costs of corruption are almost always much higher than companies imagine. Corruption inevitably begets ever more corruption: bribetakers keep returning to the trough and bribe-givers open themselves up to blackmail. Corruption also exacts a high psychological cost on those who engage in it.... [C]orrupt business people habitually compare their habit to having an affair: no sooner have you given in to temptation than you are trapped in a world of secrecy and guilt. — The Economist
Market realities?
Too many of us who consider ourselves Christians have made the mistake of accepting as “market realities” what are just plain injustices within our corporate culture. — Judith Valente, former staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal
