John Dalla Costa

Redefining Corporate Integrity in an Age of Doubt
The following is the introduction to a series of essays published by the Caux Round Table, an organization of business leaders dedicated to shaping a moral capitalism.  Forthcoming on HCS will be the contributions of Paul Cardinal Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture; Dr. H Khayat, Senior Advisor to the Regional Director of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office; and Rabbi David Rosen, International Director of Interreligious Affairs, the American Jewish Committee, as well as prefaratory remarks by CRT Global Executive Director Stephen B. Young.

Author, consultant and speaker John Dalla Costa is the founding director of the Centre for Ethical Orientation in Toronto, Canada. His published works include The Ethical Imperative (1998) and Working Wisdom (1995), which spent five months on The Globe and Mail's National Business Bestseller List.



In his analysis of creative genius at work, psychologist Howard Gardner observed a ten-year pattern to the work of great artists like Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Martha Graham and T.S. Eliot. Once unleashed on a new course of exploration, these and other hard-working minds needed several years to define the potential of a particular breakthrough, several more to master the demands posed by this new realm, and then several more to exhaust every corner of possibility. During the last phase of this approximate ten-year arc the creative spirit, with its innate restlessness, would leave the easy certitudes of what had now become familiar terrain to pioneer yet more origi

As the careers of geniuses like Picasso, Stravinsky, Graham and Eliot show, movements of liberation require continuous renewal. Every advance can eventually become stale and constraining unless risks are taken to remake meaning and relevance. In many ways, our global economy seems to be following its own version of this cycle.
nal tracks. The lesson from creativity is that movements of liberation require continuous renewal, that every advance can eventually become stale and constraining unless risks are taken to remake meaning and relevance.

In many ways our global economy seems to be following its own version of this ten-year cycle. We now stand a little over a decade since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In that short period of time, markets have liberalized all over the world, including in China, creating an ever-more interconnected global economy. Yet the liberation that holds so much promise is now also getting tired and stale, with disruptive consequences. Major corporations – as many as one-third according to some studies – have stumbled because of fraud and corruption. At the same time that executive credibility has fallen among investors, consumers and employees, so too has the patience and confidence of the developing world, which feels increasingly excluded, marginalized or disadvantaged. With Enron and Cancun as exclamation points, we have clearly closed one phase of globalization, and are entering a new arc in which governance has emerged as the defining priority for both companies and global economic policy.

When imagined and applied properly, governance fuses and elevates the competencies of management with those of morality, realizing results as well as integrity, achieving return on investment as well as sustaining trust.. In the complexity of global business, and in the diversity of the world's cultures, no one company, executive, or jurisdiction can ever hope to achieve governance excellence singularly or definitively. To be meaningful and relevant, this imperative, restorative and enhancing work of governance will need to draw from many minds, hearts and sources, and from many ranks including the law, political policy-makers, academics, multi-lateral institutions and managers. As governance is inherently ethical, there is also a need to draw upon the world's resources for moral wisdom, including its great religions. To advance this tricky but essential dialogue, the 2003 Caux Roundtable hosted presentations on moral foundations from scholars from the three Abramic religions: with Rabbi David Rosen presenting Judaism, Paul Cardinal Poupard presenting Christianity, and Dr. M. H. Khayat presenting Islam.


We have clearly closed one phase of globalization and are entering a new arc in which governance has emerged as the defining priority. As governance is inherently ethical, there is a need to draw upon the world's resources for moral wisdom, including its great religions.
We are in the early days of fathoming the demands of this governance arc, still reeling from business scandals and not yet sure about which concepts and practices will fashion the needed new excellence. For the managers and management experts gathered from around the world, this dialogue with and among religions was an exhilarating, troubling, challenging and ultimately highly practical step in the process of managerial renewal and maturing.

The exhilaration was from both the inspirational wisdom brought to the discussion, and the degree of commonality in basic values across the three traditions. Although Judaism, Christianity and Islam share a grounding monotheism and a basic reverence for the original Hebrew scriptures, most of us at the Roundtable were surprised by the great coherence and consistency in anthropology and moral fundamentals. All three religions, in worshiping one God, in acknowledging one source for creation, also subscribe to what Rabbi Rosen called "ethical monotheism." Although infinitely more than we can fathom, the three religions teach that God is "loving, good and just," and that humans amazingly are made in this "image and likeness." From this imprint, and with this relationship with an ethical divinity, human morality is not a dry set of dictatorial rules but a means for living within a much larger potential of thriving freedom and dignity. The moral fundamentals that commit us to honor life, bear witness to truth, respect the person and property of others, bring forth the creative and just community by which we realize the gifts and transcendent possibilities of our basic human nature. The economy, as a realm of creation, is latent with opportunities for realizing this human potentiality, for participating in the work of creation with reverence and awe for the divine source and aim. At a time when the models for business governance are broken and society's trust capital depleted, our religions provide resources for recalibration and renewal, for repentance, healing and, perhaps most importantly, for hope.

Although Judaism, Christianity and Islam share a grounding monotheism and a basic reverence for the original Hebrew scriptures, most of us at the Roundtable were surprised by the great coherence and consistency in anthropology and moral fundamentals. At a time when the models for business governance are broken and society's trust capital depleted, our religions provide resources for recalibration and renewal, for repentance, healing and, perhaps most importantly, for hope.
The troubling implications from these remarkable presentations were twofold. First, despite their shared principles and concern for justice, the world's religions continue to be the basis for division, hatred and violence. This quandary obviously undermines the authority for participating in difficult debates about governance, and makes it almost impossible for managers in publicly traded companies to reference religious concepts or understanding for strategy, policies or practices. Second, despite the very good historical and legal reasons for separating religion from secular or state institutions, it is also obvious that we are often morally impoverished by too rigid a split between principles of faith and those of practice. The lesson from the recent spate of business ethics violations is that morality cannot be self-defined – cannot be managed and measured in isolation of the memory, wisdom and aspirations of the community at large. Vexing and yet urgently relevant, we need religious voices to help us develop the moral wisdom to attend to the new challenges of our global business reality. And for these voices to have credibility and legitimacy, we need religions to model the constructive engagement that yields profound attitudinal transformation, and not just polite agreement on commonalities or reciprocal tolerance on differences.

The challenges are spiritual as well as managerial, for the soul as well as for strategy. All the Abramic religions stress an interpenetration in which the work and projects of daily life within unfolding history are to reflect and make present the mysterious, loving primacy of the Divine. More and more, managers are pressured to think and decide in short-term increments, and the challenge of morality is to recognize that even the most trivial expediency holds eternal consequences. Our presenters shared three aspects of this moral challenge. First, as Rabbi Rosen explained, the structure of relationship with God - the terms of covenant - are always for and within community. As individuals we obviously depend on communities for sustenance, identity and opportunity. More profoundly, it is in relationship with one another that we also exercise the call and creativity of our humanity, and glimpse the call and gifts of Divinity. Second, as Cardinal Poupard observed, our creation in God's image bequeaths infinite dignity and serious obligations. Each of us has gifts of freedom and potential, which paradoxically achieve their highest fulfillment in serving the freedom and potential of others. In all three religions belief in one God carries a corresponding obligation for human solidarity, acknowledging our shared dependence for life, our shared value before God, our shared dignity for having souls, freedom and capacities for moral discernment. Third, as Dr. Khayat noted, the gracefulness of human life holds us in a web of beauty, courtesy and care by which we are dignified and to which we must contribute. Again, all the religions agree that our equality and freedom depend on a fundamental asymmetry in which those who have power, privilege or wealth have disproportionate responsibility for extending justice and dignity to the poor, displaced or marginalized. The heart of the one God beats especially for the oppressed and suffering, so religious morality, in the image of this compassionate God, aims not at reciprocity or utility but at serving the potential of the most vulnerable or disadvantaged.

All the religions agree that our equality and freedom depend on a fundamental asymmetry in which those who have power, privilege or wealth have disproportionate responsibility for extending justice and dignity to the poor, displaced or marginalized.
The practical consequences are numerous and compounding. Companies like Shell have begun to revamp strategy and governance to include consultations with environmental and social justice critics. The first practical opportunity from this dialogue is to more aggressively expand this interchange to include scholars and teachers from our religious traditions, to bring alternative wisdom to boards struggling with new imperatives of integrity, and to consecrate the tough work of business-building as holy work that can contribute to justice and creation as well as shareholders. The second practical opportunity is to engage religious understanding and empathy to re-imagine the stakes, terms and obligations of economic globalization. This has begun to happen, with organizations like the World Bank and Davos Economic Forum setting-up structures for on-going consultations between business and religious leaders. As key players in the project of globalization it will be increasingly important for companies to also develop the engagement networks and dialogue skills to include religious and moral factors in visions and policies. The third opportunity relates to managerial excellence. Ethics are now a strategic priority, central to credibility with investors, customers and suppliers, and therefore critical to overall business performance. Demanding much more than a code or simple compliance, companies need managers who have the imagination, confidence and commitment to problem-solve complex business issues with clarity and honour towards moral consequences. Religious wisdom can serve as the mentoring spirit for this capacity, for making integrity a core competence. The fourth opportunity is in deepening and expanding the environmental sensibilities of managers and companies. Recognizing all of creation as what the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called "the divine milieu" raises new standards for stewardship, and guides strategies and policies towards the inescapable but ambiguous goals of sustainability. The fifth opportunity extends the scope and substance of corporate social responsibility, with the religious orientation to justice and benefaction helping make programs more robust, accountable and systemic. The sixth opportunity is to use religious principles to restore the priority of the human being, which all too often has been lost in the midst of deploying new technology or realizing new productivity. The dignity for being in God's image demands considerations of respect and courtesy, both to honour investors and customers who extend their trust to companies, and to enable the creativity and human potential of employees who commit of their time and life to their employers. The seventh opportunity, (and by no means the last) is to channel the great innovation and energy of business to serve the aims of human becoming as well as those of wealth creation. To a degree this conflation of priorities is already happening as we grapple with shared moral questions, either from liabilities like global warming or the spread of AIDS, or from high-potential but high-risk assets like DNA advances in bio-technology. To effectively navigate shoals of such high stakes and complexity we need contributions from all sectors, including religion, in order to grow our capacities for wisdom commensurately with those from knowledge.

By all indications we are in the initial stages of a new, quite treacherous phase in our global, economic and managerial development. The world's religions are too important to not have a voice in this human and social transformation. And the world's companies are too important to not be held to the highest moral standards in their practices and outcomes. Whether as theologians or as managers, as believers or strategists, the task of creating a hopeful and responsible globalization requires that we dialogue across our differences, co-creating the moral foundation for a co-creative commercial exchange. As we glimpsed at the Caux Roundtable, such good faith is for today's world the ultimate best practice.