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Good business isn’t just making money, loads of profit and greed – it’s also about doing good.
There’s a way to it, if we do it for the common good.
Lest We Forget
Why do we need an Economy for the Common Good, and what might it look like?
A Businessman and an Economist in Dialogue for the Common Good
This is How to Balance Purpose and Profit to become a Force for Good
Can Jamie Dimon Make Finance and Banking to Act in the Interest of the Common Good?
In 2020 Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase
Called for Business and Government to Act in the Interest of the Common Good
Photo:facebook.com
This year, in 2021, he has some big ideas on how to fix America* (see below for more)
A Human Approach to Leadership
‘COVID-19 has proved to be a powerful catalyst for change. Amongst all the tragedy there is a hope that the corporate world will emerge from the dark days of 2020 having learned some fundamental lessons about the human race. Faced with our vulnerability to a silent killer we have had to think about what is important in life.
‘We are living through an exciting and challenging time in the development of leadership. It’s taken a virus to knock us out of our complacency and force us to rethink many assumptions that govern the world of work. COVID-19 has accelerated the rate of social and economic change and leaders cannot afford to be left behind.’- Eric Cornuel, President, EFMD Global
Finance, Banking, Business and the Common Good?*
Photo: The New York Times
‘Many of our citizens are unsettled, and the fault line for all this discord is a fraying American dream – the enormous wealth of our country is accruing to the very few. In other words, the fault line is inequality. And its cause is staring us in the face: our own failure to move beyond our differences and self-interest and act for the greater good. The good news is that this is fixable.’- Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase, annual letter to shareholders, 7 April 2021
‘Jamie Dimon has a lot to say about how to fix America. In his annual letter to shareholders, the JPMorgan Chase CEO discussed the economic recovery after Covid-19, his thoughts on leadership and the purpose of companies, and US public policy. The document is 66 pages long—three times longer than last year’s letter—and a full 22 pages are devoted to Dimon’s prescriptions for rebuilding America and addressing what he sees as the world’s biggest problems: climate change, poverty, economic development, and racial inequality. It’s a banker’s manifesto for a more progressive form of capitalism, masquerading as a corporate report.
Dimon’s missive followed a week in which dozens of prominent CEOs spoke out with varying degrees of conviction against a new Georgia law limiting voting access in ways that will disproportionately affect Black Americans. Most of these corporate defenses of democracy were brief, belated (many came after the vote and under activist pressure), and carefully lofty. “The right to vote is the essence of a democratic society, and the voice of every voter should be heard,” wrote the Business Roundtable, representing nearly 200 CEOs. That shouldn’t be a controversial point of view, but in America in 2021, it is.
Microsoft president Brad Smith’s approach was more in the Jamie Dimon mould. In a blog post, Smith took on each of the law’s major provisions and urged “the business community to be principled, substantive, and concrete in explaining its concerns.”
When enough corporate leaders band together to oppose legislation, politicians listen. Even the most anodyne statements can have an effect. But CEOs serious about corporate responsibility will have to grapple with the issues in a lot more detail. They’ll need to explain how social and political questions are connected to economic and corporate ones, be clear about their companies’ responsibilities and interests, admit their own complicity, and define the society they want to help build. For that, even 66 pages won’t be enough'. — Excerpts by Katherine Bell, editor in chief, Quartz Daily Brief, 10 April 2021
*Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase, annual letter to shareholders, 7 April 2021
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Dear Mr. Johnson, your Covid-19 survival must become a force for good
Responsible Leadership in Action, Geneva, June 2015
Detaching Nature from Economics is ‘Burning the Library of Life’
Good Riddance to Trump: A Disgraced Man who Never Cultivated Goodness and Humanity
Can President Biden Heal and Build a Better America, where Goodness is Valued above Greatness?
This is why every country needs a Jacinda Ardern to discover What it Means to be Human and Great
Ten Steps to Build a World in the Interest of the Common Good
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Can teaching kindness at universities make education better and students happier?
Students’ Anxiety, Depression, Self-Harm, Kindness, Good Education and Happiness
Yes, it is true: “Education is what makes us fully human”
But, the fundamental question is: What kind of education will make us truly human?
This posting aims to concentrate on this timeless question and will endeavour to provide some possible answers.
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?-T.S. Eliot
Our ‘Greatness’ consists in our ability to project ‘Goodness’ and apply our power to build Kindness and Fairness
Goodness and Kindness is the Foundation of Greatness
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I was intrigued to write this Blog with this title, when on Sunday 28 March 2020 I read the Guardian’s Editorial on 'Post-Christian' Britain: a spiritual enigma’.
The editorial got me thinking on ‘Some of the biggest questions ever asked’. Questions such as: What is reality? What is Life? What is consciousness? What is dying? What is religion? What is god? What is nature? What is spirituality? What is philosophy? What does it mean to be human?...
Thus, I thought it would be a very good idea to share this editorial with our GCGI family.
However, before that, I would very much like to draw your attention to an article I had posted on the GCGI website a few years back in 2013, dealing with some of the big questions of our time as a taster, warm up to the Guardian’s editorial:
“What does Spirituality Mean to You?”
Photo: medium
Now, reverting back to the Editorial:
The Guardian view on 'post-Christian' Britain: a spiritual enigma
Could Britain become post-secular as well as post-Christian?
Inside the derelict St Paul's Church in Penzance (Image: Greg Martin / Cornwall Live)
St Paul’s Church, which is also known as Saint Paul’s Memorial Jubilee church and Church of Saint Paul, was declared redundant in 1999,
and was finally closed on 30th April 2000 . The closure was in response to shrinking congregation sizes, as well as a lack of funds to repair the church.
…’Congregations may have since thinned out, but spiritual hunger is part of the human condition.
It will find other outlets and means of expression in the years to come.’
‘Afew years ago, one of Britain’s leading sociologists published a fascinating paper on the rise of “no religion” as a self-designation in social surveys. More and more “nones”, reported Prof Linda Woodhead, had declared themselves “in a slow, unplanned and almost unnoticed revolution”. A new cultural majority was emerging with no connection to organised religion.
Empty Pews everywhere. Photo: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
'The most recent census may prove to be a tipping point of sorts in that national journey. The results will not be published for months, but it is being predicted that, for the first time, the number of Britons describing themselves as Christian may dip below 50%. In 2001, when the question “What is your religion?” was first included, the figure was 72%; by 2011 it had fallen to 59%. Meanwhile the proportion of “no religions”, or “nones”, rose from 15 to 25%. These statistics, stark as they are, may significantly underestimate the phenomenon. When the 2018 British Social Attitudes survey asked the less loaded question: “Do you regard yourself as belonging to a religious group?”, only 38% identified as Christian. A whopping 52% said they were “nones”...’- Continue to read
Read more:
Religion - British Social Attitudes
UK secularism on rise as more than half say they have no religion
Is religion disappearing entirely from Great Britain?
What is religion if less and less people are believing it?
A reflection by Kamran Mofid PhD (Econ, Birmingham, 1986) & Certificate in Education in Pastoral Studies, Plater College, Oxford, 2001
St. Peter's-On-the-Wall, Bradwell-On-The-Sea, Essex. It dates from between 660–662 and is believed to
be the oldest active church in England.-Photo:wikimedia.org
Study after study have reported that, around the world, people, and especially
the youth, have turned their backs on religion.*
‘My religion is, to live through Love...In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion.’-Rumi
Being without Believing: Is this the fate of the world In today's "post-modern society"?
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...And it is the same across the pond
‘Percentage of churchgoing Americans is steadily falling, and the swirl of rightwing politics and Christianity is playing a key role’
…’Just 47% of the US population are members of a church, mosque or synagogue, according to a survey by Gallup, down from 70% two decades ago – in part a result of millennials turning away from religion but also, experts say, a reaction to the swirling mix of rightwing politics and Christianity pursued by the Republican party…’
Donald Trump with religious leaders for a national day of prayer in September 2017.
Photo: Evan Vucci/AP/ Via The Guardian
'Allergic reaction to US religious right' fueling decline of religion
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