Quakers and Business

Denise Stanley-Chard reports on the summer gathering of the Quakers and Business Group

The summer gathering and Annual General Meeting of the Quakers and Business Group (Q&B) was held on Saturday 25 June at Dorking Meeting House. I recently joined the Group and, in addition to dealing with the agenda for business, the gathering also proved to be a great opportunity to reflect on the EU referendum with like-minded Quakers who are also business people with individual perspectives and diverse experiences.

A theme for the day was: ‘What would today’s Cadbury look like?’

The day began with Ivan Hutnik providing an introduction to the history of Cadbury and the socially concerned stance of the company in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He talked about how the company had produced a quality product and used its profits to improve the quality of life of its workers.

The story of Cadbury was placed in the wider context of early Quaker businesses – from banking and iron to shoes. This set the scene for the meeting to consider the question of what a Quaker business would look like today. It also noted that Adrian Cadbury’s 1992 contribution to corporate governance is still significant, twenty-four years later.

The Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance was set up in 1991 and chaired by Adrian Cadbury. It had a remit to review those aspects of corporate governance relating to financial reporting and accounting. The final report entitled The financial aspects of corporate governance is known as the Cadbury Report and was published in December 1992. It contained a number of recommendations to raise standards of corporate governance.

Quaker values in business

The values of Quakers in businesses run by families such as Cadbury were no different to those values expressed through the Quaker testimonies and basic principles of simplicity, truth, equality and peace. Friends learned that there was, however, some evidence of the Cadburys being fooled by misleading conditions in cocoa plantations that actually amounted to slave labour in practice.

The importance for Quakers of maintaining honesty and integrity in all business dealings, in managing risk and uncertainty in an appropriate way and in avoiding speculation and short-termism seemed paramount.

This introduction and brief critique was followed by a workshop by Cait Crosse, project manager of the Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) new economy project for Britain Yearly Meeting. Cait neatly uncovered the mix of our meeting participants as sole traders, business owners, management consultants, creative and digital businesses, manufacturers and business supporters through a short networking exercise.

She shared an overview of the work that her team are doing to forge a better fit between Quaker values and a vision of the economy so that we all might gain clarity on how Quaker business people might impact the economy.

Workshop

Cait’s workshop enabled small groups to explore an important problem, examining the roots, systems and fruits of each problem. These problems were:

• Conflict between growth and value
 
• Lack of purpose
 
• Growing pay gap
 
• Short term focus
 
• Articulating values in modern business
 
• Manipulation of the consumer

The groups fed back the main comments and this gave the meeting some insight into potential structural issues and opportunities for Quaker thought and engagement.

We then had lunch, with the opportunity to experience the beautiful Meeting house garden and share thoughts informally with others. This was followed by the AGM.

Afternoon session

The afternoon session began with a talk by Peter Coltman and a colleague, Nicola Purdy, from Friends House (London) Hospitality Limited. The company embodies Quaker values in their profit-making business. Their profits go to support the work of Britain Yearly Meeting.

The company currently employs sixty-two staff, fifty-one at Friends House and eleven at Swarthmoor Hall. Peter described the bottom-up process the company has facilitated with staff to articulate their values through work. This, he explained, leads to ‘going the extra mile’ with customers, visitors, the public and the community. He also described the board commitment to the staff. The procurement policy included Fairtrade, water consumption reduction, renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon reduction, diversity in the recruitment policy and also, rather brilliantly named, cupcakes from the Bad Boy Bakery of Brixton prison!

There was a brief discussion about some previous staffing issues that had proved a useful learning opportunity, but a challenging situation. The strong message was that the company monitors delivery, measuring if this is working and if not, makes changes and if it is, then tells others including clients, Quakers, directly involved staff and other staff.

A suggestion from the meeting to Peter was for the company to also develop a systems approach that examines what current or future conditions or forces are likely to stop the company from succeeding and to develop strategies to cope with these.

The final session

The final part of the day was the session from Jon Freeman. In this session he proposed that values change because they are a human cultural solution to create the ability to thrive in specific evolutionary human contexts. Jon presented how specific ‘values sets’ aligned with each context, from survival, tribal, power, order, striving, human bonds and ‘flexform’ – ‘lean and agile’.

The session brought a mix of insight and confusion to the fore, similar to that of the outcome of the EU referendum. In a world that has volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) we can’t predict – so we have to be self-organising and be able to cope with VUCA and to actively make a new order. The session came to an abrupt ending, primarily because of time and the need for some quiet reflection.

The last session particularly, and the day as a whole, left me with a very strong image in my mind. It was the image of a simple sail boat in which the hull and rudder are made of the most resilient wood (‘Quaker values’) and a sail-set that is hoisted and used skilfully (‘Strength of fabric and flexibility’ for the best possible strategic response to ever changing conditions); and the wind and sea as the unpredictable/predictable mix of the ever present patterns made by air and water on the boat.

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