Compassionate Societies

Slow Progress on Women Entering Positions of Power

This week the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a series of new gender indicators, covering the presence of women in top corporate jobs and parliaments, the gender wage gap, and entrepreneurship. 

Despite efforts in many countries to promote their participation on boards, women are still under-represented in top corporate jobs.  On average, women make up 10% of board members. The United States is only 2% higher at 12%. Quite a few countries do better. The highest is highest is Norway, at close to 40%, due to a mandatory quota introduced in 2006. In Sweden, France, Slovak Republic and Finland the proportion of women on boards is between 15% and 20%, while in Germany, Japan and the Netherlands, it is less than 5%.

Compassionate CEOs

Last week around the world, the story of “The World’s Most Generous Boss” splashed the headlines. Ken Grenda, CEO and Owner of Grenda Corp, a conglomeration of bus companies with 1,800 employees in Australia, sold company for $425 (Aus) million and gave $15 million to the workers in bonuses. Grenda, a quiet, kind man completely surprised his employees, some of whom received over $50,000 because of length of service. Grenda himself was completely surprised by the world attention.

By his expression in the photos and videos, Grenda was obviously deeply touched by the gratification of his workers. Perhaps he had been a kind boss so long in an isolated place in Australia that he did know that the norms of CEOs worldwide are to hoard the spoils and do just the opposite of his generous gift.

Meanwhile Mitt Romney was on the Republican campaign trail trying to explain to the American people that he was a good CEO of Bain as he was firing thousands of workers and pocketing the profits of leveraged buyouts, “because that’s what good businessmen do.” Well Mr. Grenda put Mitt Romney to shame as he did thousands of other CEOs for whom giving large bonuses to rank and file employees would never have crossed their minds.

Giving bonuses to fellow executives, now that’s a different story. Executive bonuses and generating big income for profit-hungry investors, who have no long-range interest in the company, are the standards of the majority of CEOs in the present financial culture.

"Ken looked after his employees, he treated them like family," one worker said. "Every time he comes past the depot, he shakes everyone's hands, and says 'g'day'." Most CEO totally miss out on the morally uplifting feeling that Ken Grenda had from his grateful, loyal workers. Himself nearly in tears Grenda said "We've had guys in tears, we've had fantastic emails."

If all CEOs were compassionate like Mr. Grenda, we would not now be in a world financial crisis; we would not now have a world-wide “Occupy” movement based on the staggeringly huge inequality in pay and wealth between CEOs and workers.

Ken Grenda had a message for other CEOs and supervisors – “Look after your staff and don't get greedy. I get totally dismayed when you see the level of salaries some chief executive officers get. I think it's far above what anybody's worth." 

When was the last time you heard your boss say anything about compassion? Probably never. And it rarely is taught in the world’s business schools. But one exception is the University of British Columbia’s School of Management. Several professors led by Peter J. Frost acquired the conviction that compassion could greatly serve the corporation. Take a look at this report: WHAT GOOD IS COMPASSION AT WORK? Also, find Frost’s article “Why Compassion Counts?”

Business Model for a Compassionate Project

Three marketing students from Lake Constance, Germany decided to break some rules of business by insisting that they and their customers serve the common good. Their first business partners are incarcerated convicts, who make handbags.

A Compassionate Business?

Can the common good work as the main objective of a  business model?

Three marketing students from Lake Constance, Germany decided to break some rules of business by insisting that they and their customers serve the common good. Their first business partners are incarcerated convicts, who make handbags. The students wrote a marketing plan, help with the distribution of the products, and developed a strategy for channeling the profits back into improved inmate rehabilitation programs. Their story first appeared in German in Spiegel Online on December 27, 2009. An English translation, along with a photo of the students, can be found at Fortune 500 Global.

What is most interesting about this student project is that it began with their desire to build a business model that was limited to products that help others in a direct or partly direct way.

I would call these types of projects compassionate because they address a problem of someone’s suffering and act to provide solutions. The German students identified with the plight of very limited opportunity for most prisoners to prepare to return to their communities without returning to lives of crime.

So far, their marketing plan has been surprisingly successful. Prison inmates work at a very low rate but are still motivated to do the work because it gives them a small income. The students take a small percentage of the revenue from sales of the handbags to cover their costs and the remainder goes to rehabilitation programs that assist ex-convicts with their post-prison challenges. This story and some commentary about the implications can be found as a longer article on this site: Business Model for a  Compassionate Project.