Most humanized business culture
This is an invitation to the business leader to assume his role of leadership as a call and to have the courage to use his personal transformation to positively impact his own life and that of the people of his company and who interact with it;to adopt the highest standards of excellence and instill in his organization;to an introspection to make an essential change that has to do with the transcendent purpose of him, with making critical choices about who he is, about his life and about his reason for being. An essential change to live according to your deepest spiritual truth, be sincere with yourself and be consistent with its principles and values in everything it does. It is an invitation to overcome the most relevant personal obstacle to serve the common good in its business activities: a divided life;That is, divorce between our faith and our daily business practice.
According to this, Francis urges us to recover the light of faith whose own characteristic is the ability to illuminate all the existence of man and to recognize the signs of God in the daily experiences of our life. Faith conceived not only as a path, but also as a building, such as the preparation of a place where man can live with others, since faith also illuminates human relationships.
So what is required for a Christian business leader to assume his duties and responsibilities as a vocation illuminated by his faith, which allows him to dignify his business work? First, you must recognize that both your talents and business skills, as well as your position in the company or in your property, are gifts of God. And, recognizing them thus, return them to society acting as a leader at the service of others and generating spiritual capital in the company where he works. This is a crusade to install –lideing with the example – an organizational culture where all the audiences of interest – the stakeholders of the company – are seen as bosses. It is to infuse in the organization founded values about unconditional respect for the dignity of each person, in each and all the interactions that take place inside and from the company. It is transforming business task into a noble vocation!
A more human company
Evangelii Gaudium calls to be bold and creative in the task of rethinking the objectives, structures, style and evangelizing methods of the communities themselves. For the business leader the company is one of those relevant communities and, thus, the invitation to all be missionary disciples. This can be interpreted as an invitation to a new prominence, in which the subject considers his company as one of those other more needy places and to expand his scope to open towards others and announce the message of Christ as ina constant exit to the peripheries of its own territory or towards the new sociocultural areas. Invites the business leader to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, so that they can fully incorporate into society and reminds him that the fair salary allows adequate access to other goods that are intended for common use. Francisco challenges the business leader directly to create work, but to be a free, creative, participatory and supportive job so that all those who work in their companies express and increase the dignity of their life through their work.
The conviction is underlying in this synthesis that each Christian company leader is called to practice their business mission, in a way consisting of their vocation and the degree of influence that supports society. And the business leader – the businessman, the executive, the entrepreneur, the boss, etc.- It exerts its influence on the world of the company, understood as a community of people, in its organization and that of the various work teams that compose it, modeling the underlying organizational culture. Thus, the call is to build a more human organizational culture in which unconditional respect for dignity is constituted in the ruling of the company’s work. In this way each human being will always be seen as an end in itself and never as a means. To what extent can Evangelii gaudium guide us in the construction of this culture?
Francisco expresses his conviction that the application of the following four principles can be a genuine path to peace within each nation and in the entire world: i) time is superior to space;ii) the unit prevails over the conflict;iii) reality is more important than the idea;and, iv) the whole is superior to the part. What is the meaning of polar tensions behind each of these principles and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of the company and the dilemmas facing a business leader in the real world?
Time is superior to space
This principle refers to the bipolar tension that exists between the situation of the moment and the time horizon. Also to the tension between the will to possess everything and the limit that derives from our community life. The application of this principle allows to work in the long term, without obsessing for immediate results. And giving priority to time is to take care of initiating processes than having spaces: time – Francisco says – brings the spaces, illuminates them and transforms them into links of a chain in constant growth.
On the one hand, the business project requires ethical behavior that enables the company its social legitimacy and its long -term sustainability. Ethics, in the first sense, is to show us how to deliberate well in order to make good choices;But it is not just about choosing well in a specific case, but throughout life: time is superior to space. Therefore, this principle invites the company to forge a good character that allows it to take good elections. Here the concept of the future is indispensable because, for the company to forge a character, it needs time, it needs to consider long -term goals and goals;A vision of the future from where intermediate goals make sense.
The company today requires the company high standards of behavior;It requires a vision that accommodates a more human business practice. An ethic that does not subordinate its principles to the narrow confines of maximization of short -term profits. And, in a really competitive market, where it is very easy to fall into the temptation to subordinate dignity, rights and human growth to the achievement of immediate economic results, the promotion of this business ethic is not achieved without a view of the futurethat is beyond the contingencies of the moment.
On the other hand, the company must meet multiple and varied expectations of its different interest groups and, to be the construction of peace, it must strive to meet the legitimate needs of these groups. In the short term, it may happen that these needs are in irreconcilable conflict: salary v/s utility;quality v/s costs;development v/s environment, etc. In this way, it is only possible to reconcile the interests of diverse groups when the business project is considered as a long -term project.
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