INSPIRE 31 out now … it’s all about Trust
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Stories, ideas, values, opportunities for action and meaningful job offers for you, from EBBF members.
PEOPLE Inspiring Responsible Business
Job Offers, stories and ideas from individuals passionate about creating success in their workplace using strong positive values
Singing, Music, Spiritual and Personal Development
Artists are messengers of peace, who speak a universal language, and achieves communion between souls, in a kingdom without borders.
These are words from Paris-based bass singer and new EBBF member Frantz Cialec, who sends in his thoughts on how he strives to apply and promote principles of love and human dignity through the medium of music.
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My Singing is for me a spiritual calling to serve the divine plan, with a multicultural approach . I express myself through a top level repertoire (Classical songs, traditional songs, Negro Spirituals, Folk) based on different traditions and cultures. I ‘m also inspired by the divine message to compose my musical compositions. I try to communicate with the audience, touching both hearts and souls. I try to convey the strength and courage to be different, to develop resistance against the decadence of the world and contribute to the emergence of a peaceful society! More »
Handle With Care: Trust is Fragile
Bill Davis (seated center) surrounded by the staff at DPK Consulting
New member and veteran consensus-building mediator Bill Davis shares this story of his experience as a mediating a dispute over the installation of the 1,600 kilometer Trans Caucus pipeline. His honest narrative underscores the crucial importance of trust at the negotiating table, as well as poignantly showing how delicate that process of building trust is.
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… You inquired about the conflict in Georgia over the construction of the Trans Caucus pipeline. I worked for the Office of Ombudsman in the International Finance Corporation who had invested in the project with BP. Conflicts arose from the people and communities where the pipeline was crossing their part of the country. You may know the pipeline originates in Azerbaijan and extends all the way across Georgia and down through Turkey to the sea.
The official version of what transpired can be found on the web site of the Complaint/Advisor/Ombudsman’s office at the IFC. When acting as a neutral, one does not have broad discretion to influence outcomes. Rather your role is to foster a process where they can be sufficient trust between and among the parties that they agree to consult/mediate their dispute. Trust is the key to any successful engagement where there are differences.
Establishing trust with the parties begins from the outset with one listening carefully to each person and or institutional representative. Laughingly, it is said that God gave us two ears and one mouth and we need to learn to use them in proportion. More »
Job Offer: Corporate Social Responsibility – Hyatt Corporation – Chicago, USA
The Manager of Community Engagement at will help execute the company’s global CSR strategy, priorities and programs with a focus on community engagement efforts and philanthropy. Reporting directly to the Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility this person will participate in the development, execution and evolution of Hyatt’s global volunteer programs, corporate giving and philanthropy initiatives and will also assume responsibility for all CSR-related metrics collection, reporting and communication. The position is based in Chicago.
Key Responsibilities
Strategy
- Under the supervision of the V.P – C.S.R, participate in the development, execution and evolution of Hyatt’s global CSR strategies
- Collaborate with global business units, including human resources, legal, finance, corporate communications, operations and brand marketing to ensure that community engagement and philanthropic programs address the strategic needs of the business, are regionally relevant, are effectively communicated to internal and external stakeholders and are supported globally. More »
Building Bridges of Trust To and From Asia
New member Kenneth Bergenthal writes in with his experience connecting businesses across the East-West divide, and the importance of that little thing called ‘trust’ no matter the currency.
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I run my own business—Asia Pacific Consultants Inc.—which was formed 8 years ago. I’ve been working in and with Asia for 20 years now, having lived in Japan and China for a total of 5 years, and going back to various countries there about 6-8 times per year. I work with various IT computing companies around the world helping them to develop their business throughout Asia, with a strong emphasis on partnership, joint ventures, OEM bundling, and channel development. My clients have actually been from the US, Asia, and Europe, and it’s been a learning experience even dealing with just the culture that each of these entities bring to the table, in regards to their understanding of Asia, and then more important, how their own cultural upbringing meshes with doing business in Asia or not.
One of the biggest issues that I’m caught in the middle of is “trust.” The general input I get is a lot of worry about doing business in China and India. And then vice-versa, worry about business with the Japanese from other Asian countries. Then to top that off, when I’m representing a company from Eastern Europe that is trying to sell its software in Asia, the biggest hurdle is helping potential partners trust the Eastern Europe company, given that although they understand so little about Eastern Europe, they have already built up a stigma in their minds about that part of the world. Try to imagine balancing the cultures of Romania and China, having the Chinese partner resell Romanian software, maybe even form a joint venture for the future. It’s been a learning experience for sure. I must be sensitive to both cultures—both on the people and company perspective–and at the same time try to build a bridge while seeming to be understanding and supportive of each company when they see me in action. So this really puts me to my limits in building understanding, honesty, and overall bridging the gaps between two sides. More »
Can clients and suppliers be part of the same software development cooperative?
An intriguing question from Frank Oxener opened up a discussion on EBBF’s Linkedin site, which explores the redefinition of the relationship between clients and suppliers of software. Below is the original question, followed by a few snippets of others’ responses.
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Is it possible to have two (opposite) kind of members (clients and suppliers) in a one co-operative?
I’m researching the benefits of a formal commercial co-operative for independent software developers. (See also http://rubycoop.org).
Originally the purpose of this co-op, that I had in mind, was to create benefits for the software developer in terms of collective acquisition, sharing knowledge, flexibility in workload etc. But after a while I was thinking about the difficulties that come with the duality between a client and a contractor/supplier in assignments and software projects. Most of us will know about the poor reputation of software projects: too late, too expensive or even not wanted or even wrong functionality. A lot of those issues does NOT benefit of the duality between the client and the supplier.
So I had a (far fetched and crazy) idea. What if clients are a full member of the co-operative as well and have an equal share in the profits of the co-op? More »
“How far that little candle throws his beams!”
EBBF is predicated on the simple idea that individuals through their everyday ethical decisions and conscienscious action can make a difference in their work and lives. But straightforward that this idea may be, still it is not difficult to lose this perspective. We need daily habits, environments, and each other to ever coax us on in this chosen path of service. These quotes can be part of this coaxing. They are from http://www.quotegarden.com/helping.html.
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How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~Anne Frank
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little – do what you can. ~Sydney Smith
This is the true joy in life – being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. ~George Bernard Shaw
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade More »
Cases: Profits Follow Principles Applied
In the EBBF publication “Purpose Beyond Profit: Towards a Spiritual Foundation for Corporate Responsibility”, authors Marjolein Lips-Wiersma and Venkataraman Nilakant provide several compelling examples of companies that had strength enough to break out of the standard ‘neoliberal doctrine with its exclusive focus on value creation and for shareholders’ and give weight to their social principles. These examples clearly demonstrate that principled behavior, while demanding sacrifice at times, can be coupled with profitability. Here are two of the stories shared:
Merck is an example of a company that has based its purpose statement on a definition of customers not only as those who can afford its product, but also those who need its products. Merck has certainly been challenged by its own mission statement to “preserve and improve human life”. In a 1950 speech at the Medical College of Virginia, George W. Merck, the company’s president for 25 years stated simply and unequivocally: “We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that they have never failed to appear”. To date, Merck’s mission statement still emphasize getting their products to “people that need them”. Twenty five years after its founder’s speech, Merck was being challenged to put its corporate values to the test when one of Merck’s research scientists stumbled upon a potential application of a drug that could possibly provide a treatment for the widespread disease of river blindness. More »
Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Specialist – Save the Children – Lusaka, Zambia
Last day to apply: August 25, 2010
Save the Children is an independent organization for children whose mission is to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.
Save the Children has an immediate need for an OVC Specialist who will be based in Lusaka, in the Teacher Education and Specialized Services Directorate, and who will build consensus on guidance and counseling activities for OVC cooperating with schools, pupils, local communities and NGOs. The Orphaned and Vulnerable Children Education Support Initiative (OVC-ESI) project in Zambia is a five-year contract, estimated at $20M – $25M that will institutionalize, in a decentralized way, Ministry of Education (MOE) support to community schools to stabilize their operations by providing educational resources, improving teacher skills and school management, and enhancing learner support through community and private sector participation. The incumbent will assist to develop a system wide effort to use guidance and counseling as a strategic tool to enhance learner retention and performance. S/he will also oversee the administration of scholarships and related activities for this program.
Additional Qualifications: More »
Faith Translates into Collective Action
Delegates to the World Religions Summit (from BWNS site)
In a recent article on the BWNS site, we see a clear example of the intimate connection between beliefs and commitment to social action, as people from all faiths at the World Religions Summit in Toronto, Canada drew on their beliefs in their work against poverty, for peace and the environment.
“Acknowledging our common humanity and embracing the imperative to treat all persons with dignity, we affirm that no one person is more or less valuable than another,” said the statement prepared by leaders of world religions addressed to political leaders who were soon to meet in Toronto in advance of the G8 and G20 summits.
We can further distil from the various people quoted in the article that there is an underlying unity in the religions vis-à-vis a vision of a shared, peaceful world.
“We are living in a very critical period in history,” said His Holiness Aram I, of the Armenian Orthodox Church. “I believe what is important for us is building community. It is not just living side-by-side, coexisting peacefully. It is a question of building integrated communities, communities of integrated diversity, accepting and respecting the others, but living together…. We have to tell the G8 and the world that we religions not only speak together but that we are working together to build communities of integrated dialogue.” More »
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