What business can learn from buddhism

Millennials, we are told, have a different attitude to work than their elders. They want to work for organisations committed to values and ethics, where there is a higher purpose than simply making a profit.

Businesses wanting to attract the best millennial talent might therefore learn a few lessons from ancient spiritual teachings, such as those of Buddhism. The fourth largest religion in the world has been focused on attaining a higher meaning and following the path to moksha – liberation – since the sixth century.

Organisations, especially in the non-profit and charity sector, can re-energise their employees by aligning the way they measure performance with the principles of Buddhism. This could also improve productivity, an important measure of economic activity and living standards.

These were the findings of our research. We interviewed 63 executives from not-for-profit organisations and found that most had simply imported practices and strategic models from the business world to measure their performance. Unfortunately, this is a world driven by maximising profit, which goes against the underlying purposes of these organisations.

Engaged and energised

Many studies have established that most staff are not only motivated by money, while the carrot and stick approach, which mixes reward and punishment, is also outdated. Employee engagement is now the ultimate goal for managers and it involves more than just job satisfaction.

It might be that an individual is perfectly content with a job and yet not engaged in it. Instead, engagement is found where work is absorbing, and to which employees feel naturally dedicated; work that one gets wrapped up in and is energised by. Engaged employees are prepared to go beyond the call of duty and actually drive the business; they show up because they want to, not because they have to.

Employees and businesses benefit from an injection of spirituality.
shutterstock.com

Some might think spirituality and business should not be mixed in together, but both play an important role in society and people’s lives. They should be seen as interdependent. Spiritual disciplines may very well offer insights into techniques for achieving lasting employee engagement that everyone is searching for. At the very least, ancient wisdom could offer some lessons for understanding what it means to seek and achieve higher meaning in your life.

A different focus

This is perhaps even more applicable in not-for-profit organisations. Many non-profits use standard performance measures, that have been tailored to help traditional organisations maximise revenues while reducing costs. The rationale provided for the use of performance measurement is also usually a commercial one, suggesting that measurement only supports efficiency and effectiveness.

This can obscure their ethical and benevolent dimensions. Focus instead is placed on understanding data like the number of products delivered, or what rating a service has in numerical terms. Employees are rewarded for their capacities to score highly on given criteria. Although none of this is inherently wrong, it means that discussions and attention are pushed towards money.

Meanwhile, rich social interactions, trust, and positive, but unquantifiable, stories go unnoticed and unrewarded. Employees would be better able to believe in their organisation if it’s clear that their performance measures drive social connectedness and create social value.

Our research found that spiritual philosophies can provide this. Buddhism, for example, teaches its followers to take greater personal responsibility for their actions, to have a healthy detachment where necessary, and embrace a wholesome view of their actions.

This can include how socially connected and conscious employees are, but also their entrepreneurial awareness. Risk-taking and innovation are core to many of these organisations so employees must have the mindfulness to evaluate and exploit opportunities when they arise.

It also applies to financial meaning – how money is spent, but also where it comes from. Spiritual rationales for goals and activities can complement commercial ones. Most employees in the non-profit sector want to help people and this is what motivates them to work in this industry, often for less money.

Evidence also suggests that embracing spirituality within organisations may lead to better decision-making, enhanced creativity, reduced absenteeism, and greater emotional control.

Buddhist principles are not just for not-for-profits, however. Spiritual principles such as higher meaning, awareness (of self and the environment) and connectedness (belonging to a community), are likely to be relevant in other sectors, particularly if corporations want to re-engage and re-energise their workforce.

Many are already dabbling in this with corporate social responsibility programmes, corporate volunteering, and sustainability targets. Several large companies, such as Google and the retailer Target, are even already adopting spiritually-informed practices to reap some of these benefits. But management practices such as measuring performance have not caught up with the deeper desire that many employees might have. We are just scratching the surface of how we can find more meaning and more productivity from our work.

Haley A Beer, Assistant Professor of Performance and Responsibility, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick and Edward Gamble, Assistant Professor of Accounting, Montana State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Why capitalism wins. And how a simple accounting move can defeat it

Blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon, off Louisiana, in 2010. The losses produced by polluting companies should cost as ‘negative’ for a country’s growth.
Reuters/US Coast Guard/Files

Notwithstanding its many flaws and centuries of criticisms, capitalism is still the dominant economic system globally. What made it so resilient?

Without denying the importance of entrenched interests among ruling classes, I believe the real strength of capitalism stems from the theory of value it has imposed on society. The theory can be summed up as follows: value is only created through market transactions, which are always positive for the economy. The rest - like social costs and ecological impacts - doesn’t matter.

Classical sociologists and economists like Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter and Werner Sombart saw the adoption of a specific form of accounting for measuring performance in industries - so-called double-entry bookkeeping - as a critical factor to explain the rise of capitalism before and after the industrial revolution. Since then, we have simply assumed that what is good for the firm must be good for society.

As I show in my book Gross Domestic Problem, even socialist systems largely accepted capitalism’s accounting approach, ultimately failing to beat capitalism at its game.

But the global debate is shifting. The Sustainable Development Goals recognise that real value is only created when economic development leads to improvements in social and environmental dynamics. I argue that, by changing our headline indicators of prosperity in line with this new thinking, we can show capitalism’s inefficiencies and contribute to its demise.

Change accounting, change the world

Accounting is not a neutral exercise. As the term suggests, indicators “indicate” the path to follow to improve performance. In the end, governments, companies and societies at large strive to achieve what is counted, while disregarding what is not.

Of all accounting tools, the most powerful is the gross domestic product (GDP), the headline indicator of economic performance. GDP fully endorses the capitalist theory of value: it views market transactions as the only drivers of development, as opposed to non-market exchanges; it considers as positive all forms of production and consumption, regardless of their impact on economic welfare; and it neglects social and environmental impacts. For as long as our approach to economic growth is determined by GDP, capitalism will continue having the upper hand.

The good news is that, for the first time in almost a century of national income accounting, there is now a window of opportunity for change. A growing number of global institutions, including influential actors like the World Economic Forum are calling for a shift beyond GDP.

When we apply any of these new indicators, which integrate social and environmental impacts into the concept of economic performance, the alleged efficiencies of capitalism disappear. For instance, the genuine progress indicator shows that the global economy has massively under performed since the early 1980s, at the same time as free market reforms were boosting GDP. The genuine progress indicator deducts costs of environmental damage and social ills from economic performance.

Using a similar approach, UN-sponsored studies conclude that some of the world’s largest corporations actually generate more costs to society than profits. This is particularly true of fossil fuel and commercial food companies. The negative environmental effects of their operations are estimated to be in excess of USD$7 trillion a year.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of the world’s richest countries, has developed a “better life index”. It underlines how prosperity is determined more by factors like community engagement, work life balance, health and the environment than by income.

The organisation estimates that value generated for the economy by families and communities through self-production and informal exchanges – notoriously neglected by GDP – is equivalent to over 50% of everything the market produces.

And what about the non-monetary activities performed by civil society? According to the World Bank, associations have a massive impact on the economy by building the interpersonal trust – a precondition for a functioning market. In money equivalent, their contribution would be over 20% of the value of all goods and services produced by businesses.

These are the real ‘invisible hands’ supporting the economy.

A new world

By portraying corporations as the sole creators of value and by hiding their social and environmental costs, GDP has further entrenched the capitalist grip on power. But as we move beyond GDP, we begin to realise that the emperor has no clothes. A new accounting approach linking economic, social and environmental dynamics – what I call ‘wellbeing accounting’ – can indeed have game-changing effects.

Take fossil fuels. After the recent hurricanes in the US, several experts rightly argued that oil companies should be taken to court and charged with covering the costs of damage.

New accounting would make such an approach automatic. The losses produced by polluting companies would count as ‘negative’ for the country’s growth. This, in turn, would force policy makers to push renewable energies if they want to improve their economic performance.

The alleged virtues of globalisation rest almost entirely on GDP’s blindness to global trade’s environmental and social impact. But new accounting methods do the opposite: they reveal global trade’s negative effects and highlight the more efficient value creation of local and regional exchanges.

Our perception of global leadership would change too. The US and China may look “big” in GDP terms, but the real champions of social progress are some middle powers. These include Costa Rica to New Zealand which have built strong economies while improving the quality of social and natural dynamics.

Moving away from GDP would also benefit developing nations, especially in Africa. It would put an end to the traditional capitalist approach that equates prosperity with exploitation of people and nature, This in turn would allow countries to experiment with new forms of development.

Wellbeing accounting

GDP accounting is what keeps capitalism on life support. As I discuss in two recent books The World After GDP _and _Wellbeing Economy, a shift to new forms of accounting would eliminate the statistical foundations on which capitalism’s credibility rests.

In the end, this is precisely what Adam Smith did with the founding book of capitalism,The Wealth of Nations He questioned the traditional approach to value creation. Smith argued that the real creators of wealth were not the kings and knights that dominated the political scene, but the captains of industry who steered the new industrial market. By shifting the accounting approach, he reinforced the demand for power that would soon lead to the modern revolutions and the dominance of capitalism.

Similarly, well-being accounting shows that an economy promoting the public good and the commons can generate more wealth than the capitalist market. Through new numbers, it aims to embolden all those actors marginalised by the capitalist theory of value. Above all, it equips them with new tools to demand more power and a radically different approach to growth and development. It’s a smart way to beat capitalism by stealth, once and for all.

Lorenzo Fioramonti, Full Professor of Political Economy, University of Pretoria

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Police watchdog needs R50 million from the people it watches

Conflict of interest in the funding of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate

By John Hess
9 October 2017

IPID does not have the resources it needs to watch over the police. Photo: Sune Payne

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) has in recent months been in the media for allegations of “backstabbing”, child abuse and irregular expenditure. Last week MP Zakhele Mbhele (DA Shadow Minister of Police), citing a 739.5% increase in the “irregular” spending category during the 2016-2017 financial year, wrote that “the people … need to urgently be reassured that their safety is not being risked by IPID’s inability to keep its financial affairs in order and the department must implement an urgent recovery plan.”

Most recently, reporting to the Portfolio Committee on Police on 13 September, IPID executive director Robert McBride admitted that IPID had sought funding relief from the South African Police Service (SAPS), the very organisation that IPID is mandated by statute to investigate.

IPID’s reported budget increases were only 5.1%, failing to cover even the anticipated inflation (Consumer Price Index) of 6.2%. Expenditure amounts related to contractual obligations, annual escalation of fees for goods and services, and the regulated annual wage increment were all left to the side.

There are two salient problems that should hold the public’s attention on IPID until such issues can be resolved. The first is a restatement of the obvious: How can IPID be truly independent, a true custos custodum — “guardian of the guards” — when it is forced to plead with the SAPS for funding?
The resulting conflicts of interest prove antithetical to IPID’s original mandate as a division with “effective independent oversight” fully capable of “impartial investigation of identified criminal offences allegedly committed by members of the [SAPS].”

IPID estimates funding assistance from SAPS of at least R50 million for the three financial years beginning in 2018; no trivial amount by any standard.

But the entanglements are not just limited to finances. In McBride v Minister of Police and Another (CCT225/15) ZACC 30, the Constitutional Court declared portions of the IPID Act (2011) invalid that allowed the Minister of Police to fire the Executive Director of IPID. The Court gave the legislative branch 24 months to amend the original Act, including diagnostic study and research to be completed by August 2017 for approval by the Minister of Police in September. The Civilian Secretariat for Police noted that the amended IPID Act would need to be introduced in Parliament by March 2018 to meet the Court’s deadline. To date, no action on the bill has been made publicly available.

The second problem presented by IPID’s lack of adequate funding revolves around its ability to carry out its expected responsibilities. IPID’s quarterly report in mid-September sheds light on this. None of the IPID annual targets in its information and investigation management programme are listed as being more than 78%. And no related performance indicators, where achievement is measured in the number of decision-ready cases, have percentage targets over 65%: deaths in police custody (62%), discharge of an official firearm (60%), rape by a police officer (65%), torture (45%), assault (51%) and corruption (40%). Moreover, first quarter progress was woefully inadequate. Three out of 106 targeted cases of deaths as the result of police action, six out of 27 cases of rape by a police officer and no cases of torture (out of a goal of 44) were decision-ready.

For these shortcomings IPID blamed a high number of backlogged cases due to a slowdown of operations in the 2016-2017 financial year, ineffectiveness of the Case Management System “due to dilapidated network infrastructure” and outstanding reports from the Department of Health and Forensic Science Laboratory.

It is difficult to imagine that IPID’s struggle to complete its caseload has no relation to its lack of financial solvency. It is similarly difficult to imagine that IPID’s independence is not affected by its reliance on SAPS for additional revenue. IPID is not unaware of these problems. In its 2015-2016 annual report, IPID acknowledged that “to implement its mandate of independence, IPID should ideally have developed its own capacity to fully investigate cases […] however, due to limited resources, the IPID relies on [SAPS] for this expertise…[impacting] the integrity of the investigations and of IPID’s independence.”

Perhaps the criticism from Mbhele and others in their reproach of IPID is misguided. Yes, the statistics from the most recent annual report and the first quarterly report of 2017-2018 are grim, and the thanks the portfolio committee received from the IPID team in September were likely given for the members’ patience with such a statistical dumpster fire. However, it is not the case that IPID is unaware or inactive in attempting to change its reality, going so far as to ask SAPS for significant additional funding.

It is now the responsibility of the Treasury and of the working group tasked with amending the original IPID Act to ensure it is truly independent. And it is the responsibility of the South African public to keep up pressure on those in government responsbile for making IPID a force for good in South Africa.

Until the government can prove it is up to the task of real change, the system tasked with bringing justice to the ranks of SAPS will be anything but judicious.

John Hess is a legal intern at Lawyers for Human Rights.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of GroundUp.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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Shale gas in South Africa: game-changer or damp squib?

There are indications shale gas may be present in South Africa’s Karoo.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings

Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking, has in the past few decades made available the gas in previously ‘tight’ shale geologies. This has shaken up the energy sector worldwide by contributing to relatively low oil prices. Almost all the shale gas development has taken place in the US where production has increased from about 1 to nearly 16 trillion cubic feet (tcf) over the past 25 years.

There are indications that shale gas may be present in a semi-desert region of South Africa known as the Karoo. The core region alone has an area of 400 000 km². If a viable gas resource were to be developed in the Karoo, what impact would it have on the global shale gas market? And how would it affect the energy economy of South Africa?

A few preliminary studies have been done on the potential for shale gas in the country. These include a report on the technical readiness for a shale gas industry in South Africa, a strategic environmental assessment on shale gas development commissioned by the Department of Environment which I co-led, and a multi-author academic book on hydraulic fracturing in the Karoo.

The research, presented at a recent conference, has led to a clearer picture of both the potential, and the challenges facing shale gas extraction in South Africa. The purpose of the conference, organised by the Academy of Science of South Africa, was to map out a multidisciplinary research plan to fill the critical knowledge gaps.

How much, how little?

The studies to date suggest that it’s increasingly unlikely that economically and technically viable gas will be found in the Karoo. First desktop estimates of gas-in-place at depth in the Karoo basin were hundreds of tcf.

More realistic guesses – which is what they remain, in the absence of new exploration and testing – put the upper limit for gas in the Central Karoo at about 20 tcf. This is a tiny resource by global standards. In terms of energy content, 20 tcf of gas is about forty times smaller than the known remaining coal reserves in South Africa. Conventional gas reserves offshore of Mozambique have been estimated at 75 tcf. On the other hand, the continental shelf gas field off Mossel Bay located on South Africa’s garden route, exploited and now nearly depleted, was 1 tcf.

A viable gas find in South Africa, even if quite small, would potentially transform the national energy economy. But making a large investment in infrastructure, regulatory tools, monitoring bodies, and wellfield development for a resource which may not exist is financially, politically and environmentally risky.

Any decisions about how the country should proceed must therefore be based on solid research which is why efforts are under way to adopt a multidisciplinary research programme to fill in the key knowledge gaps. On top of this, good governance is a prerequisite if South Africa is to proceed to shale gas development.

South Africa’s energy mix

South Africa’s formal energy economy is dominated by coal. But that cannot continue, as the country’s cheap, easily accessible coal reserves are nearing an end. Coal mining has also devastated important agricultural and water-yielding landscapes. Financial institutions are increasingly reluctant to fund new coal-burning power stations because of the impact carbon dioxide emissions are having on the global climate.

As a result, coal-burning power stations are likely, over time, to be replaced by wind and solar energy, or perhaps the more expensive nuclear option. But the degree to which the country’s energy supply can be based on intermittent sources like wind and sunshine depends on the availability of an energy source that can be easily switched on or off to fill the temporary shortfalls between supply and demand – like gas-fired turbines.

South Africa has already decided to increase the fraction of gas in its energy mix. The only question is where to source it from. Are international imports or domestic sources, like offshore conventional gas or onshore unconventional gas, including shale gas and coal-bed methane better?

Next steps

The optimal approach would be to take the first exploratory steps cooperatively, and in the public-domain, rather than in a competitive, secretive and proprietary way. This would allow South Africa to learn about the deep geology of the Karoo and the technologies and hazards of deep drilling, even if no viable gas was found.

A “virtual wellfield”, an imaginary but realistic computer simulation, could be developed on the basis of these findings. This would allow decision-makers and the public to better understand the economic spinoffs and environmental hazards of gas development before any significant actual development occurs.

The continuing low price of oil and the reduced demand for energy caused by the faltering South African economy buy the country time to do the necessary research and exploration. It can establish the appropriate regulatory environment and institutions before making rushed decisions with large potential consequences.

This is a cautious, evidence-guided agenda which should be acceptable to most people who care both about national development and the quality of the environment.

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This article is the first in a series The Conversation Africa is running on shale gas in South Africa.

Robert Scholes, Professor Bob Scholes is a Systems Ecologist at the Global Change Institute (GCI), University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Tutu's activism for justice shows how theology can be made real

Archbishop Desmond Tutu ‘s deep spirituality drove him to fight for freedom and justice.
EPA/Nic Bothma

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is internationally acclaimed for his life and work.

He has become best known for his work as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, a base from which he led the churches in the struggle against apartheid for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, and his role as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town in which he continued that public role as a leading symbol of black liberation and the bane of white South Africa.

He is also known for his role as the chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which he endeavoured to help heal the nation as its father confessor; and lastly in a regularly deferred retirement, as a respected global elder in seeking to resolve both local and international conflicts.

Where does one even begin to start writing in appreciation of such a person and such a life? Fortunately, my task has been defined for me. I have been asked to write about his theology, an unusual request, but important nonetheless, given the fact that everything Tutu has said and done has been shaped, not by political insight and ambition, or by ecclesiastical interests, but by his faith in God, that is, by his theology.

Spiritual leader

Tutu is first and foremost, a spiritual leader, a man of deep prayer. But his deep spirituality is not and has never been the piety of a religious ghetto; exactly the opposite.

It was this that motivated his participation in seeking justice for the downtrodden and supporting the liberation struggle. It was this that gave him the courage to confront political bullies, stand up to abuse even from within his own church, and lead protest marches in the face of overwhelming displays of state power.

Functionaries of the apartheid state as well as those of our current government who abuse their power, look decidedly tawdry alongside the Arch. They are no match for his moral authority, his spiritual depth, or his theological wisdom. Nor can they compete with his humility, humour or humanity.

Unless we begin at this point in acknowledging Tutu’s spirituality we will completely misunderstand who he is and the contribution he makes to the life of the world. Critics who label him a political priest, totally misunderstand him. Tutu is politically astute, but he has had no personal political ambitions, nor was or is he a member of any political party.

Reconciliatory ministry

His social engagement began as he daily celebrated the Eucharist, listening in the silence to discern what needed to be said and done in the public arena. He had learnt this from his earliest teachers, the Fathers of the Community of the Resurrection in Rosettenville and Sophiatown, among them Trevor Huddleston, whose scathing critique of apartheid, Naught for your Comfort, remains a classic.

It goes without saying that Tutu was well versed in the theological doctrines of Christian faith. In particular he had a profound understanding of the incarnational character of Christianity, the faith conviction that

God was in Christ reconciling the world.

Therefore, he stressed the incarnational and reconciling ministry of the church in the life of the world. He discerned the image of God imprinted on the face of all human beings, and believed that despite their sins, none was beyond redemption. Thus forgiveness and the inclusive embrace of the other are fundamental to human and social well-being.

His favourite theological theme was the Transfiguration, a symbol of hope and encouragement in times of darkest despair when the cross looms large and suffering becomes inevitable though potentially redemptive. Tutu drank deeply from the wells of the Hebrew prophets whose words inspired his own as he challenged evil, spoke truth to power and words of hope to the powerless. All the while, he was being drawn deeper into the mystery of God as he journeyed into the suffering of people and trying to find meaning in the darkest of times. On one occasion, in speaking about the untimely death of a young Christian leader, he cried out

God is God’s worst enemy!

That is when theology becomes real – when the very word God becomes difficult to utter, when God is apparently absent. It is at the cross that faith is born. That is the faith of Desmond Tutu; the faith that enabled him to fight injustice and provide leadership in the struggle against oppression. That is Tutu’s theology, profoundly simple, yet simply profound.

John de Gruchy, Emeritus Professor of Christian Studies, University of Cape Town

This article was originally published on The Conversation.