On Business Today

I just spent 3 hours discussing the the question of business ethics with a psychologist friend of mine. The freeform notes below are a ‘yet to be organised’ collection of thoughts I have had since that discussion.

Firstly, I suggest that we could ask ourselves why we are in business. Is it because we want money? Why do we want money? What is money alleviating or fulfilling in us? This may seem obvious but it may vary greatly depending on the dominant belief system or systems we live life by. Some of us may see a business as a living, a way to beat the system, or a way to live the warrior, the provider, or the hero's life. In that sense we may just be trying to enact our perception of our personal destiny.

The behaviours I witnessed in my early days working for an American corporation - the extreme competitiveness, the no-holds-barred approach all bears out the fact that some businesspeople really need to 'get a life'.

So having asked the question and received the obvious answer; ‘to support my family’, ‘to pay for my house’, I suggest we might choose to look a little deeper – into the twilight zone of hidden strategies we all play out to ‘manage’ our ideas of what life is. And in doing so we may release the blockages to business 'love' we would all hope to experience.

Why? Because when we do we may uncover some very interesting and useful facts about how we perceive and use ethics in our businesses.

For instance, in my own case, my mother, a country girl who married her policeman sweetheart, carried a fear of poverty out of the Depression years and a belief that the world was tough, uncompromising and ruthless. In the name of love, (as we all have done and will continue to do), she reminded me of this at every opportunity. Although I tried not to take on these values, and rebelled at every opportunity, history tells us that we do indeed play out our parents’ values in our own lives.

My Dad, the policeman, was, I suspect, a dreamer who never got the chance to dream. In those days it was the Depression, then the war, then working to bring up the family; the sum of life and its parts. Yet what I remember is a man who was loyal, honest, steadfast, and who did his best in his own ‘unexamined' life’s way, to live these principles. He was also generous, forgiving and supportive. However when he became an Inspector of police commanding a large regional town’s force, his honesty cost him friendship, camaraderie and status. He took down all those disciplinary cases from the top of a filing cabinet; conveniently ‘lost’ by his predecessors, and naively perhaps, did his duty; he followed them up and as a result some corrupt cops received what they deserved. My lesson was that although I loved my Dad and was drawn to and influenced by his values, he was ‘too honest’. Honesty cost him dearly.

So how did this relate to my business ethics? Firstly, my experience with the American corporation at the tender age of 18 showed me what I didn’t want. Almost in direct opposition I started up a hang glider making business. Risky - but in at the start of a boom. My life continued and over the years every business I owned had some degree of risk. If it didn’t, as one forlorn ex-partner informed me, I made it dangerous.

In hindsight, I now understand that the danger element was my 'safety' strategy. As a hang glider maker, a fisherman, an underground newspaper publisher, I believed that if I could succeed with a dangerous business I wouldn’t have too much of the sort of competition that my mother had warned me about; that ruthless world of business. Of course, the competition did come, as it had to, metaphysically speaking. Fear something enough and it will always become real.

So I can say that I ran my business by my mother’s ideals. Run hard, work hard, play hard. But at some point in each venture, I hit the brick wall I now recognise and choose to dub ‘Dad’. Of course it wasn’t brick; it was simply something in me that yearned for a way to run a business that was 100 percent ethical, 100% customer supportive, and 100% JOY!

It wasn't that I was unethical. It was more that when an issue arose that had a multiplicity of answers, I sometimes took a decision I now see did not advance me as a 'human being human'. I'm sure many people relate to this; if you believe the business world is adversarial, you will find yourself in decisions where that belief weighs on and affects your decisions.

So one could say I was running through cycles of split personality business disorder; and it always came to the point where a major expansion looked like a reduction of customer support - or future sales looked like the sort of selling that left me feeling a little less of myself. And again and again, I attempted, and failed at, a hybrid model. Fast, tough and ruthless doesn’t integrate well with steady, honest and empathic.

I guess in retrospect, failing to carry on each of my business ventures in a compromised fashion was the best thing I could do. To continue to pursue an ethically compromised model with dear old Dad looking over my shoulder was impossible.

The other obvious lesson in retrospect is that two value systems translate into fractured business decisions and a woeful waste of creative energy. They say swapping from one task to another in business adds an extra 20% to the overall worktime, and I’d confidently suggest that running two belief systems in one business drains it of far, far more that 20%. The really crazy bit is that you really believe in what you are doing!

Where do I find myself now? Luckily (even though it may not appear so) the GFC (Global Financial Crisis), reduced sales inquiries and changeover to new internal management and IT systems has once again loaded me up - and highlighted my basic management flaw. And this time I’m able to see my past patterns and at 63, I'm staring down the barrel of less years to put it right and experience full power integral business.

So I’m choosing what I have been afraid of my whole life; running an ethically sound, empathic and integral business model. Yes, my present business is ethical and cares for customers; but I am now demanding that our future expansion must maintain and perpetuate these ethical values and ferret out those areas where my dear old Mum is still talking to me. I'm going to give 'Dad' a go. My decision reflects a quote my psychologist friend gave me;

“The purpose of business is to create value and serve society.”

It came from Harvard business school and what it tells me is that if I’m not aligned with these precepts, I’ll get more of the same. I am choosing to serve and create value. And that has no room for the ethics of a consciousness that thinks you have to beat the other guy to the punch.

If this resonates for any of my readers I will be happy. As one great sage said, ‘A life unexamined is a life not worth living.” If we spend most of our life in our own business then maybe we really do need to find out why we do what we do; for our sake, our employees’ and the world’s sake.


One last thought: the way you run your business is a product of the way you think: the way you think is a product of your past experiences, traumatic and otherwise. So blaming yourself for how you run your business isn't helpful; but looking at it, feeling into it and looking at what that does for you just may be life - and career-changing.

Ian Blair Hamilton

PS: Here's a book on leadership that helped clarify my mind on what the hell I'm doing working. It's a wonderful treatise on the power and value of service.