ETHICAL COMPANY, SUSTAINABLE PROFITABILITY
The business world continues to be tyrannized by the false belief that “to be profitable you cannot be ethical”, a mantra that, today, thanks to the transparency of the era we live in, has been denied and outdated.
Organizations are living entities: they have many parallels with the human beings who create, direct and compose them. And right now, the vast majority of companies operate unconsciously. That is, they make decisions and develop by sheer inertia. Your day to day is governed by stress, hyper speed, fatigue, automatism and reactivity. They don’t know what the mood of their workers is. They don’t even ask what their products and services are for. They don’t even think about what is the real impact they have on society. They don’t care either.
The vast majority of companies do not have and do not want to have time to reflect and question their function and operation. The only thing that interests them is profit. Their vital objective is to earn more and more money, a completely legitimate and understandable behavior. After all, they are not directed by their conscience, but by their survival instinct. They are so afraid that they only think of themselves. Everything else doesn’t matter to them. This is the essence of the so-called “corporate egocentrism”, whose existential doctrine is that “the end justifies the means”.
The vast majority of companies are competitive, ambitious and greedy. And they are because they believe that this is the best way to survive. They are so fixated on the short term that they have convinced themselves that they cannot afford to be ethical. Of course, through marketing and advertising they hide behind a mask, pretending to appear what they are not to enjoy a good social reputation. They have no qualms about deceiving themselves and corrupting themselves, blatantly lying and cheating society. All you have to do is talk to one of your employees to unmask this uncomfortable truth.
THE TIME OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT
“The soul of the company, if it had one, begins to die the same day that its main objective becomes making money.”
(Richard Barrett)
The vast majority of companies are the way they are and do what they do because they are not in touch with their values. And by values we don’t mean ethereal concepts to put on a diptych or frame on a wall. Values are the inner compass that allows us to make decisions aligned with our conscience. And for an organization to connect with its values, it must first know itself. Only through this “business self-knowledge” can you discover your true purpose, answering the question: what do I want what I do to be useful for?
In short, the vast majority of companies have not yet found their raison d’être. And that always creates a great void. That is why they are so poor and so sick. Since what they do makes no sense, they are victims of a lethal virus: the epidemic of dissatisfaction and discomfort among the professionals that make them up, which year after year diminishes their creativity, their innovation and their ability to provide added value. Hence their incompetence when it comes to creating real wealth for society. And this is a luxury that they will not be able to afford for a long time.
The inherent paradox of most companies is that despite their efforts to survive, they function in such a way that they are doomed to disappear. Due to their inefficiency and unproductiveness they are totally unsustainable. In addition, the ignorance of not knowing who they are and the unconsciousness of not wanting to know leads them to run away from the only thing that can save them: the change and transformation of their organizational culture, a process better known as “change management”, “organizational development”. ”, “business humanism” or “leadership in values”.
ETHICS CANNOT BE TEACHED
“A conscious company measures its success by the level of well-being it provides to the people its life affects.”
(Jim Collins)
Of course, no matter how hard you try, ethics cannot be taught. Not even in the classrooms of the most prestigious business schools. More than anything because it has nothing to do with knowledge. It goes far beyond morality, what is right or wrong, what should be done… True ethics is the daughter of wisdom: it arises naturally when the organization is consciously created and managed.
Asking if ethics is profitable is absurd and even shameful. It is as if we ask ourselves: is it nice to be nice? Hence, the objective of the new emerging economic paradigm is that ethics and profitability go hand in hand. Especially for reasons of efficiency and sustainability. Right now, the biggest obstacle to promoting truly ethical management in organizations is the obsessive desire for short-term profit. Ethics requires a strategy that contemplates the medium term, which makes it possible to establish respectful and egalitarian professional relationships, in which all members win. And it is that only through trust, cooperation and the vocation of service can the sustainable abundance that any company pursues be achieved.
The great challenge posed by the conscious economy that is coming is to undertake and lead conscious business projects, which are committed to creating value through human values. And although it cannot be imposed, it can be taught. This learning will emerge when companies realize that this change is not a moral option, but a necessity to guarantee their economic survival. The vital objective of this type of organization will no longer be to make money, but to create wealth. And by offering really useful and necessary services and products, money will be an indicator that they are actually achieving it, turning ethics into a synonym of profitability.
