‘Make values visible’, says Quaker business group
'The upheaval of the pandemic has granted an opportunity to revisit core values and reapply them in the present business environment.'
The Quakers and Business Group (Q&B) has said that it wants to ‘make values more visible in business’, with its annual conference based on this theme.
‘Quakers have more recently tended to perceive business as immoral and engage more with social, academic or care work,’ member Suzanne Watts told the Friend on behalf of the group. ‘The Quakers and Business Group are working to change this perception. Working in business does not mean leaving your values at the door and subscribing to the profit motive that is dehumanising people and destroying our environment.’
Roland Carn, the Q&B development working group coordinator, said that the upheaval of the pandemic has granted an opportunity to revisit core values and reapply them in the present business environment.
‘Many of us, as we come out of Covid-19 lockdown, are in a different economic and social world and the future is uncertain. We might have found we are redundant, our customers have gone away, our employees have gone away, friends and colleagues are no longer there. Those of us on track to survive and flourish are looking ahead to an uncertain future. A well-proven way to thrive is to build a new business, a new market, a new career on the core values that have served us well in the past,’ he said in a brief for the conference on 6-7 November. Entitled ‘Making Values Visible’, the online gathering aims to highlight ‘what Quakerism can bring to business, and what business can bring to Quakers’. Each day will include two keynote speakers, followed by fifteen minutes of questions, reflection and discussion.
The group also set up an online twice-weekly Connections group to help support members through the pandemic.
Freelance communications consultant Suzanne Watts said: ‘It has been a massive help because I lost such a huge pipeline of business and meeting other Friends in the same situation meant that I was not alone. I have been inspired by the can-do attitude of many Friends and we have sparked off each other to come up with ideas for projects to work on together. This has been one of the most challenging but fruitful times of my working life.’
Comments
In business it is not wise to know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Nor is it wise to leave your personal values and ethical standpoints behind. Those who know what they stand for, who know and espouse both what moral lines they will not allow to be crossed when being dealt with by others and what moral lines they themselves will hold firm to when dealing with others, are the ones that can be trusted - and valued indeed. But it takes a great deal of courage and strength of character to hold true to one’s beliefs. To do so is emphatically not to take the line of least resistance, much less do anything for a quiet life!
By markrdibben@gmail.com on 6th November 2020 - 20:58
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