The major corporate climate debate of the moment is whether business should be solely answerable to stockholders or whether much broader stakeholder responsibilities must be brought into play. In this article I discuss “Business Ethics” and how old-fashioned views of stockholders alone are broadening out into a wider conception of value creation.
I have avoided Twitter for some time. My reluctance stemmed from the fear of another social networking site tearing chunks of time out of my day. However, I’ve surrendered, and despite my first inclination to only follow the likes of Stephen Fry and other celebs I’ve actually found it rather thought provoking. Of course, there are many mundane tweets which don’t put a spark in my day (such as trips to the dentists or school runs) – but there are others which have made me stop and think about some of the bigger business questions of our day.
A recent Tweet was ‘Business ethics is an oxymoron’ – a well used phrase but one which never fails to get my goat. My initial reaction was to reply saying, “Why is it that we feel we must accept an outdated view of business as ‘dog-eat-dog, each bastard for themselves’? Can’t we instead embrace the social collaboration of value creation that modern capitalism can be if only we all try?” – but that was more than 140 characters. So I thought perhaps I’d try to explain my view in a bit more fully.
A successful business is obviously one who seeks and achieves economic growth. Milton Friedman’s famous assertion that “A business’s only responsibility is to its shareholders” is often quoted as the ethical foundation of capitalism. In seeking to act responsibly to anyone other than the stockholders of the business, owners and managers are actually behaving unethically. But does this argument really hold much water?
If a successful business is one which seeks and achieves (sustainable) economic growth, how does it do this? It is likely to be working with suppliers who understand its needs and works innovatively to provide it with the best product or service. It is likely to provide value-rich products or services for its customers. It will be complying with legislation and working in all ways to act justly. In short, it will be taking into account multiple stakeholders to achieve the best possible return for each.
This much broader view of responsibilities – Stakeholder Theory – has been around for quite some time and owes much to the work of R. Edward Freeman. In his words, “For any business to be successful it has to create value for customers, suppliers, employees, communities and financiers (shareholders, banks, the people with the money).”
The interests of all the stakeholders must be considered and best integrated in a broad-fronted quest for value creation. In finding the common ground of these stakeholders – rather than seeking only to mitigate against conflict and searching for trade-offs – businesses are better able to create value for all.
Business cannot be values-free or ethics-free simply because it is not people-free. Customers, suppliers, financiers, employees and communities are all made up of humans with names and faces. The co-creation of value for all of these stakeholders relies heavily on collaboration.
Is “Business Ethics” an oxymoron?. No – in fact the phrase itself is actually more of an irrelevance than an oxymoron. Good ethics in all parts of our lives actually come back to common sense.
Now I just need to shrink that down to 140 characters.
Posted in Business by Stephen with No comments
You have probably heard the phrase that most people would rather die than present the eulogy at the funeral. Yes, public speaking brings on performance anxiety (a form of social anxiety disorder) in most of us. Performing artists, job interviewees, sports people and exam participants are also performers and are susceptible to performance anxiety.
While many of us feel anxious when we have to perform, anxiety itself is not bad. When you are stimulated, scared or anxious a flood of adrenaline and cortisol is released into your body. This prepares
you to give the highest performance, one with excitement and focus. So anxiety does serve a purpose. Most experienced performers feel concerned if they do not feel any anxiety as this can lead to a flat and dull performance.
Performance anxiety is feelings of ‘butterflies in the stomach’ or in severe cases ’stage fright’. It is the response to ‘fight or flight’.
In some people this reaction is so debilitating that they become paralyzed by fear, unable to speak or think clearly. For someone with social anxiety disorder they may even go to the extent of refusing a promotion at work if there is any likelihood of having to do a presentation at any time.
But there are ways to help prepare to perform and to lower your state of anxiety.
Change your thinking to change the way you feel. If you start thinking about your sweating palms, racing heart and wondering if you will remember your speech your attention is divided and not on the job at hand — that of giving the speech. If you are thinking about the outcome you are distracting yourself from the task. Focus on the task at hand, the presentation you are going to give. Perceive your presentation as a challenge rather than a threat.
You wouldn’t expect someone to tell you that you were useless before you went out to perform but that’s what we tend to do to ourselves — telling ourselves that we are no good at speaking, or that we’ll be glad when it’s all over. This negative self talk needs to change into something positive — “I am well prepared and will show them what I can do.”
A good way to counteract negative thinking is to practice new thinking and create new habits. For each stage of the performance process write a set of positive self talk.
1. Preparation: The time from when you know you are to give your talk until you arrive at the venue.
a. “I am looking forward to this challenge”
b. “If I feel nervous this is natural and means that the performance is important to me”
2. Before: The time before you go on stage.
a. “I have done this in practice and can do it here”
b. Remind yourself of breathing and meditation techniques to calm yourself, and breathe easily.
3. During the performance
a. “Focus on the present”
b. Remember that if you forget something your audience has no idea that it has been left out, after all you wrote the notes.
c. A tip is that pauses are effective in a speech making, use a pause to gather your thoughts.
d. Another tip is to look just above your audience’s heads. It will appear that you are looking at them.
4. After the performance
a. “What can I learn from this performance?”
b. “Next time I’ll do even better.”
The key to your presentation of course is to be prepared. And to practice, practice, practice. Self talk will not help you if you have not prepared and do not know your subject
Many well known performers have admitted to being troubled by performance anxiety. Kim Basinger Stephen Fry, Barbara Streisand, Carly Simon and even the late Pavarotti have all suffered the affliction. These performers have made a conscious effort to control their anxiety and you can too.
Posted in Business tagged Feelings, Flood, Stomach by Stephen with No comments
Why Don’t People Work and Act Safely on Site?
Do you drive to work?? Hang on, what’s that got to do with CDM 2007 or construction site safety? you might be asking. Well, bear with me while I use this common example to lay bare the truth about human error, and highlight behavioral characteristics which can make or break construction site safety.
So, back to the driving question:
Following the good practice in your vehicle handbook would dictate that before you drive away you should check lights, brakes, fluid levels, tyres etc. But how many of us do this? In reality I would venture to guess that it would be a struggle to find anybody (including health & safety specialists) who went through these checks on a daily basis.
We just don’t want to waste the time – right? Statistically, on a reasonably new vehicle, the chances are that nothing will be far enough out to cause us a problem. Ok, if the tire pressures are a bit low then fuel economy might suffer a bit and the tyres might wear slightly quicker, but such things are not immediately noticeable, when set against the fact that we are going to be late for work if we don’t leave NOW!
Driving off without making those checks is a risk, but a calculated one. The very fast risk assessment the driver has mentally carried out probably resulted in a calculation something like this:
a) My car/van/truck is not that old – nothing should fall apart yet;
b) I always have it serviced by the main dealer at the specified intervals so everything has been checked not so long ago;
c) It’s highly unlikely that something is bad enough to cause a problem, and if it is, driving just down the road will highlight any problem before I get to the motorway;
d) If I don’t leave now I’ll hit more traffic and be even later than I am now;
e) It’s so unlikely that anything is badly wrong that I’d just be wasting a lot of time for nothing;
f) I’m not going to waste my life being a train spotter – My mates will think I’m an idiot;
g) It’ll never happen to me.
The above scenario illustrates some of the reasons people don’t necessarily act in the safest possible way whether it’s a legal requirement of CDM 2007 or not.
Stephen Fry has been quoted as saying that what he does with temptation is to give in straight away as it “saves time on faffing about.” The fact is: we’re all human and susceptible to common temptations – think of new year resolutions, speeding on the motorway, or giving up drinking / smoking.
In terms of CDM 2007 and construction site safety: If? an accident occurs where someone gets hurt, a common reaction of Site Management is to look for an “idiot” to blame, but is this reasonable? It is generally assumed by standard site safety management systems that when we walk into a workplace or onto a construction site we will immediately experience a personality metamorphosis and become earnest, logical deep thinkers, but this is a simplistic if not downright naive expectation. It is much more likely that if the safe method is slow, awkward and a nuisance then it’s just a question of how many workers will succumb to the temptation to take “short cuts” and how often.
Remember that people will normally be attracted to answers that are immediate, certain and (at the time) positive. Say for example: A chimney has been taken down manually. The bricks need to be removed to a skip but the only method available is a bucket on a long rope. So the choice is lower the bricks down one bucket at a time, or throw bricks down from the scaffold. Throwing the bricks is unsafe and banned by construction site safety procedures, but offers an immediate solution and could be seen as “positive” because time might be saved. Or consider this: what’s easier: Sitting down to produce risk assessments safe working methods, policies and site safety Plans which will comply with CDM 2007, or taking a chance that the HSE won’t find out?
In reality it’s far more effective to design out temptation than to implement harsh punishments. In the driving example at the start of this article, the vehicle manufacturer’s have responded by looking for solutions that are positive, convenient and immediate. For example: we would generally notice dashboard warning lights. A brake warning light glaring at us is highly visual and much more likely to make us pause, check and take action – after all there wouldn’t be a light if it didn’t connect to the serious stuff.
In the bricks / scaffold example: Putting in place a CDM health & safety plan which identifies the work order and risk assesses the stages would highlight the issue, and a chute discharging directly into a skip could be specified in good time to avoid the temptation to throw bricks from the scaffold.
Having straightforward highly visual CDM system documents which highlight site issues means little time is required to produce a site specific plan. This can be more easily discussed with the workforce, saves time and money by identifying and avoiding critical hazards and ensures compliance with CDM regulations.
KEY POINTS
Human error is inevitable. To reduce the consequent risks we need to analyse the work, predict where errors might occur / the reasons for them and take preventive action. If unsafe behaviour has immediate and apparently positive consequences, people will be tempted to take “short cuts” To reduce risk we need to predict where the temptations will occur, and design out shortcuts / make the safe method an easy, painless and rewarding way to do the job. Ask the opinions of people involved in the task: what is slow / awkward / a nuisance about doing this job? Discuss and take action based on the answers. I hope that you can see the case for using visual techniques which involve the workforce in site safety, leading to identification of effective, but easier and more economical methods of ensuring excellent construction site safety. Using highly visual methods which fully comply with the spirit of the CDM 2007 regulations will give you the ability to spend more time on practical site safety and less on reading or producing pointless reams of paper. And that’s got to be good news!
Posted in Business tagged Construction Safety, Construction Site by Stephen with No comments
