Soundbites

Bye-bye to long hours?

So long to bragging about how busy you are. At least that’s what Lucy Kellaway would have us believe from an article in The Economist. People who took fake pride in being snowed under will have to find new ways to impress as punishing CEO schedules will start to look unhip and inefficient.

The “long-hours culture” is due for an overhaul, Kellaway predicts. “The pressure for change will come not only from lazy millennials averse to hard slog, but from older workers exhausted by the tyranny of technology.” Among her indicators: “Google in Dublin confiscated employees’ devices when they left the office, and Daimler deleted messages that arrived in the inboxes of staff who were on holiday.” In the new work economy, “To get your work done by a reasonable hour will not be a sign that you are a slacker, but that you are working efficiently.” Office productivity will soar: “There will be fewer pointless initiatives and meetings,” writes Kellaway. “Memos will be shorter. Performance reviews will be less unwieldy. For most things three bullet points will be enough.”

But not all is lost for Type A folk who need somewhere to use their abundant energy. “Some,” she predicts, “will do aggressive volunteering and compete to change the world more successfully than the next guy.”

Uplifting invention

You may not know this about elevators. It comes from an interview in Ethix magazine with Randy Wilcox, Otis Elevator Company’s recently retired president for the Americas.

By his account, Otis came into being 162 years ago because of a safety problem. Elevators had been around since Egyptian times, but they could be perilous contraptions. Elisha Graves Otis invented a safety brake which kept an elevator from falling if the hoisting rope broke. “So the company was essentially born out of solving a safety problem,” says Wilcox.

“An elevator is actually the safest form of transportation,” he claims. “It is even safer than walking down the street.” Moreover, “Safety remains our most important absolute and it is more important than profit.... At Otis if you compromise in safety or ethics you’re much more likely to lose your job than if you miss the numbers.”

Wilcox contends that elevators are environmentally friendly because they are regenerative and can put energy back on the grid.

“A traction elevator has a counterweight and a cab, and whenever there’s an imbalance you’re either using energy to overcome that imbalance, or that imbalance can create energy,” he explains. When the counterweight is heavier than the elevator cab, the movement actually generates electricity. “If you are the only passenger on an elevator going up, you are likely putting energy on the grid. And on a loaded elevator going down, you are also putting energy on the grid.”

So if you are one of those who takes the stairs instead of the elevator, keep doing so — but for the exercise, not to save the environment, says Wilcox. ◆

Flourish or falter

[Business] is a noble calling. Business activity raises individuals and whole populations from idle penury to greatness. By attending to a society’s basic needs for goods

and services, it frees people for other pursuits. By generating wealth for workers, investors, and governments, it liberates individuals and countries from the enslavement of poverty and the tragedy of limited opportunities. The commercial vitality of a nation largely determines the degree to which other disciplines — art, medicine, and education — will fl ourish or falter. Indeed, in most parts of the world, business is the very underpinning of civility. — David Olive in Ju$t Rewards: The Case for Ethical Reform in Business

Role of business

Business plays a central role in our lives. We are affected more by businesses than by any other social institution. Most of us earn our livelihood and provide for our families by working for companies, and all of us purchase the goods and services companies produce with extraordinary effi ciency and ingenuity. The quality of our lives, our health, our overall well-being, and even our happiness depend greatly on the ways in which businesses operate. — John Mackey and Raj Sisodia in Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business

Born in the marketplace

Jesus was in touch with the marketplace from the very beginning of his life on Earth. He was born in a place of business, the stable of an inn (Luke 2:7), and the angelic worship service to celebrate his birth took place in a nearby feed lot (Luke 2:13-14).

Rather than religious leaders, Jesus’ fi rst visitors were employees and small-business owners. They were shepherds (Luke 2:15-20) whom his parents received in the inn’s parking lot. I point this out because the stable was the equivalent of the modern service station — it was used to dispense food (fuel) to the mules and donkeys (vehicles) that rested (parked) there for the night....

He had learned a trade in order to make a living, and this required that he run his shop at a profi t. His daily business routine likely included the calculation of the cost of goods and labor, the interplay between supply and demand, the establishment of competitive pricing, the measurement of the potential return on his investment, the estimation of maintenance costs and the replacement of equipment. — Ed Silvoso in Anointed for Business: How Christians Can Use Their Infl uence in the Marketplace to Change the World

Letter

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Disappointing cartoon

“I think you know that I love MEDA and everything you do, and also the magazine, which I usually read cover to cover. Good review (July/ August issue) of the Orie Miller biography; he must have been quite the guy.

“I was a little surprised and disappointed by the cartoon a few pages later on p. 21. ‘...as wide as yer Aunt Tillie.’ Really? This plays into a negative, gender and body-based stereotype in my view. Not helpful in any way (although the point of the cartoon is well taken).” – Sara Jane Schmidt, Winnipeg