Iofc caux 2017

Ethical Leadership in Business 29th June - 2nd July 2017

Caux shows us the way In today’s globalized world, which is changing at a rapid pace, corporate executives must base their decisions on ethical values in order to contribute to the wellbeing of society as a whole. It was a great pleasure to attend this year’s Initiatives of Change Ethical Leadership in Business conference at Caux in Geneva.

The Palace Shines...

The venue itself was stunning as always, with a sense of calm throughout.

Service was first rate. I had a maintenance problem in my room, which was sorted out the same day. My service was at breakfast, and due to changes in the kitchen, I had less to do and didn't feel the bonding with my work colleagues that I felt when I visited in 2013 for TIGE. Having said that, I witnessed a Syrian lad being quite aggressive to the kitchen manager. I was able to step in, talk to him and diffuse the atmosphere and turn a negative into a positive. The second morning, the manageress thanked me and said the lad is now working with the team. Whereas, before he was standing around with hands in pockets and nobody was able to motivate him.

TIGE and Ethical Leadership in Business (ELB), both provided high calibre speakers who engaged well with the audience and were open to debate and meaningful dialogue.

Compared to TIGE, we were a smaller group so we didn't use the main stage, but we were sitting within the bay window area and the Expo room and this kept an intimate feel.

Space to Think Future recommendations to develop the group size and actions to follow on from next year’s conference would, I believe, develop a stronger engagement throughout the year and create repeat business, building year-on-year.

There were rather a lot of workshops, which I wanted to attend due to the high calibre of speakers, and I felt that I personally wanted to have a break between workshops to talk through what we’d learnt, but the sessions were back-to-back and not really allowing any time to develop stronger relationships and deeper understanding.

My service group had high calibre people who really enriched my experience and our young Italian facilitator was very good. I became the rebel who asked “could we meet out on the patio rather than in the room for our sessions?”

The entire team, including the facilitator, saw the value of this and indeed, the following day a UN inspector in our group suggested we held the next session whilst walking in the mountains. This was very beneficial because the team were able to discuss their feelings for ELB... in between wheezing and altitude sickness!

Listen and Learn There was a great energy when Merel Rumping explained about her programme called Legbank, working on prosthetic legs for people in Columbia.

Day 2 also was the afternoon of the grand opening, to which the highlight and energy was created by a strong panel, including Eric Marclay (facilitator), Kate Gilmore, Raphael Nägel and Ramiro Santa. The one thing I felt really added value was the expertise of the facilitators in managing their panels.

During the morning session, Antonio Hautle laid out clearly how the SDGs were a strong tool, but pointed out that they will not be realised unless we can create cross-sector collaboration. This work is very close to my heart.

Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, made an outstanding statement; “we are the first generation ever to have the power to be the last generation.� This statement really brought home to me the fact that we have to stop talking and start acting. No longer can we acknowledge with a conference the damage we are doing, not only to our family and friends, but to the world as a whole.

It was brilliant to hear all the continents pulling together, sharing ideas and showing humanity is alive and well.

As we dive deep, understanding the work in Kenya and to hear the fantastic efforts which are being made to make the Tokyo Olympics one of the most ethical games of all time. In the audience there was a farmer from Tanzania who was looking to form a cooperative for the production of milk products. She was looking to educate other farmers in the area in order to improve standards and this meeting was music to her ears.

A Lebanese business woman working in knowledge transfer has offered to help Burning2Learn. The opportunities to develop these links could be harnessed more strongly if it was built into the programme to look for specific matches in the audiences in my opinion. In these times of action, rather than talk, these types of events could offer society more value if they saw it as one of their own targets to be provided with feedback of actions taken by delegates. How they reported on Brian Iselin‘s presentation, I’m not sure...

Something I didn’t expect to see on Day 3 at Caux was a man stripping to make his point!...

As the audience was giggling with embarrassment, Brian Iselin finished his presentation by explaining the removal of his clothes, shoes, belt etc. was to show he was taking the slaves off his back. Do we ever think who has made our clothes?

Would we ever buy leather shoes and belts if we knew that the bones of children were rotting due to the chemicals used to produce them?

Caux hits the right note!

A great concert was held on the evening of Day 3 by a group of youngsters which put a smile on everybody’s face. Once again, Caux Palace demonstrated the value of a safe space to be yourself. Now we need to ‘scale out’, not ‘scale up’ the energy of IofC.

I often found people talking about millennials and I raised the fact that there were none in the room! When are we going to stop talking about them and start talking with them?

Having said that, there were other events going at Caux which had a large cohort of young people who I engaged with.

I think it would be beneficial to think about bringing them into a particular workshop to have their generational input.

The final talk on the final day (Day 4); Professor Guido Palazzo, Business Ethics at HEC University of Lausanne. He spoke about ‘From Yale to Jail’.

A fascinating talk which highlighted how decisions we make can sometimes blindly lead us into trouble and it’s not always ‘black and white’, there is grey in this world and we must not forget that.

A time for reflection This lead me to reflect on how I could help IofC to develop in-house intergenerational conversations, taking on board the views of each generation to make a stronger organisation. If this was taken on around the world, a consensus could evolve from the elders who embraced changes that allowed the 6 pillars of IofC to resonate with more ease.

IofC has resources and knowledge that requires ongoing continued assessment. This will increase its value and impact when used by means of an effective delivery.

Personally, we all leave energised from these events, yet they could have a larger impact upon society if TIGE or ELB saw this as an opportunity, like a pebble being dropped in differing business communities.

If the organisers looked at their event as a pebble, would it make sense to monitor how it rippled out into various business communities in the world by way of a follow-up engagement, say three-six months later. They may find that various delegates have collaborated with each other, and maybe the essence of IoFC has spread out into various communities.

This type of monitoring would keep the energy of the event alive for a year or so, thus encouraging delegates to return and bring others from their own networks.

By taking this approach, IoFC would have two reasons to bring the marketing of this year’s event to next year’s attendees.

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