“How we think about what our businesses do is really important. Why are they there? What is important to the organization? Our concept of that really does matter because it affects how everybody thinks, feels, and acts in the organization,” Lawrence Miller told a group of two dozen people that gathered in the town of Nobleton, Ontario, on 31 March 2007 for the first annual conference of the Canadian Bahá’í Business Forum.
Miller, an American consultant and writer on improving business culture, delivered a keynote talk that began the one-day conference. He is the author of Competing in the New Capitalism: How Individuals, Teams and Companies Are Creating the New Currency of Wealth and counts Air Canada, Honda, Eastman Kodak, and American Express among his clients.
His talk at the conference, entitled “Competing in a New Capitalism: A Bahá’í Perspective on Organization and Economic Development,” explored how the worth of an organization is closely tied to the value it attaches to its individual employees, and how that value is indicated as much by the moral and spiritual direction of the workplace as its financial stability.
Failed economic systems of the past, like communism, Miller said, did not work because they overlooked the roots of human motivation.
“Part of the idea Karl Marx had was that communism would transform human character,” said Miller, who is a Bahá’í, “that by creating state socialism first, people would become unselfish and only want according to their needs. To Bahá’ís, human character is transformed by faith. That is the purpose of religion.”
Miller’s latest book, Spiritual Enterprise: Building Your Business in the Spirit of Service, due out later this month, discusses how to apply spiritual principles, like trustworthiness, justice, and unity, to the operation of a modern business.
An affiliate of the European Bahá’í Business Forum, the Canadian Bahá’í Business Forum works to promote ethical values and moral leadership in the business world. Among its focus themes are social responsibility, sustainable development, partnership between women and men, and non-adversarial decision making.
Bob Willard, a consultant and author on corporate sustainability and the conference’s other keynote speaker, discussed how ethical and environmental responsibility among corporations not only is critical to the well-being of the planet but can also strengthen a business’ bottom line.
Willard is author of The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line and is on the advisory board of the Natural Step Canada, a charitable organization that promotes sustainable development in the economic sector.
For more information on the Canadian Bahá’í Business Forum’s parent association, please visit www.ebbf.org.