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DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIÁN, JUNIO-JUNE 2005 Nº 2
Universidad
de Navarra
Nafarroako
Unibertsitatea
Escuela Superior
de Ingenieros
Ingeniarien Goi
Mailako Eskola
CAMPUS TECNOLÓGICO DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE NAVARRA • NAFARROAKO UNIBERTSITATEKO CAMPUS TEKNOLOGIKOA
Cátedra Rafael Escolá
de Ética Profesional
Felipe Prósper
Presentación
Rafael Termes
Rafael Escolá y la excelencia profesional
Alejo José G. Sison
Presentación de Charles Handy
Charles Handy
The Moral Dilemmas of Modern Society
photo Elizabeth Handy
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Índice
3
Felipe Prósper
Presidente de la Fundación Rafael Escolá
Presentación
5
Rafael Termes
Profesor del IESE
Rafael Escolá y la excelencia profesional
9
Alejo José G. Sison
Director de la Cátedra Rafael Escolá de Ética Profesional
Presentación Charles Handy
11
Charles Handy
“The Moral Dilemmas of Modern Society”
JOURNAL -
Junio 2005
Dirección: Servicio de Comunicación TECNUN
Diseño y Maquetación: Sonia Uribe Garteiz
Fotografía: Archivo fotográfico de TECNUN
Elizabeth Handy
Impresión: Grupo Igara
Edita: TECNUN (Escuela Superior de Ingenieros
de la Universidad de Navarra).
Pº Manuel de Lardizabal, 13
20018 San Sebastián (Gipuzkoa)
Tel. 943 219 877 - Fax. 943 311 442
alumni@tecnun.es - www.tecnun.es
Delegado de Graduados: Gustavo Pego
gpego@tecnun.es
D.P.: SS-610/04
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Presentación
Felipe Prósper
Presidente de la Fundación Rafael Escolá
Ilustrísimas autoridades académicas,
queridos profesores y alumnos:
Buenas días a todos ustedes, a
todos vosotros, me corresponde hoy
a mí hacer una breve referencia a lo
que es, a lo que ha venido siendo, la
Fundación Rafael Escolá, dejando a
Rafael Termes referirse al propio
Rafael que da nombre a la Fundación
y a Charles Handy dictarnos la
segunda lección conmemorativa.
Idom–comunicando un
mensaje con valor añadido al estrictamente
profesional.
Desde hace dos años,
la creación de los premios Rafael Escolá han
permitido, por ejemplo,
la firma de más de
treinta acuerdos de
colaboración con las
Escuelas de Ingeniería
No me gustaría ocupar mucho de
Industrial, TelecomuniFELIPE PRÓSPER
vuestro preciado tiempo, especialcaciones e Informática
mente en un acto cuyo centro es
de España y la elevaesta 2ª Lección de la Cátedra Rafael
ción en ellas del conEscolá de Ética Profesional. Sin embargo, la
cepto de éxito académico más allá de las punoportunidad de ver a tantos amigos, colaboratuaciones de un currículum.
dores y personas relacionadas con nuestra Fundación, me ha parecido especialmente adecuaA día de hoy existen 24 premios Rafael Escolá
da para actualizaros, para poneros al día sobre
de todo origen y perfil con trayectorias contrasnuestros distintos quehaceres.
tadas de interés, formación y compromiso
social. Aún era el martes de esta semana, hace
Como muchos conocéis, el Patronato de la Funescasos tres días, cuando decidíamos y entredación encargó hace ya tres años a nuestro
gábamos los correspondientes a este año, la
anterior director, D. Fernando García Rivero, la
ganadora fue María Flores, ingeniero de telecopuesta en marcha, de una serie de iniciativas
municaciones de Pamplona.
encaminadas a promover la excelencia profesional, objetivo primordial de nuestra institución.
Por su parte, las becas de I+D y doctorado han
permitido la creación de diez equipos de investiLas acciones eran un compendio de actividades
gación alrededor de jóvenes ingenieros, arquide divulgación y formación que iban desde la
tectos físicos y químicos comprometidos todos
convocatoria de premios o la concesión de
con la mejora del entorno construido a través del
becas, hasta la organización de ciclos de confedesarrollo de conceptos y soluciones innovadoras.
rencias, seminarios y cátedras universitarias. En
todas ellas se buscaba promover los valores
Asesorados por académicos, especialistas y
inherentes a la excelencia y a la vez posibilitar el
profesionales de distintas empresas interesadas
acercamiento a ella mediante la formación y la
y de Idom, su trabajo ha permitido proponer
investigación.
envolventes vegetales, fachadas de vidrio electrocrómico, plantear sistemas de cuantificación
Con más o menos dificultades, éxitos y fracasos,
energética, y proponer mejoras en la iluminación
todas estas acciones son hoy una realidad de la
y la organización del espacio de oficinas.
que nos sentimos contentos y orgullosos, porque significa que el mensaje de la excelencia ha
Es obligatorio agradecer aquí la colaboración de
calado en muchas personas e instituciones de
las Universidades Politécnica, Complutense y
nuestro entorno, que muestran así una faceta
Europea de Madrid, el laboratorio Angstrom de
más de su compromiso con la sociedad de la
la Universidad de Uppsala, el Ciemat, las empreque forman parte.
sas General Electric, Espacio Solar e Intemper
Española y, en especial, la cesión de fondos por
Nos alegramos también porque ello ha permitido
parte de Guardian Glass, AF Steelcase, la Funla reversión en la sociedad de parte del capital
dación EHAS y, sobre todo, Idom, auténtico
no sólo económico y profesional que supone la
mecenas del programa. La ayuda de todas ellas
Fundación –y con ella todo el entorno de
ha permitido el crecimiento del grupo de I+D de
4 a 37 personas en tan sólo tres años, y
demuestra que el modelo de colaboración propuesto es una alternativa real a la investigación
universitaria, el trabajo de los centros tecnológicos o el I+D de las empresas.
Cómo no, destacar también la cátedra que hoy
nos reúne, producto del objetivo común de la
Fundación y la Universidad de Navarra en crear
una plataforma de formación deontológica con
proyección en el ámbito profesional y empresarial.
Como ya mencionó hace un año, en esta misma
sala, el Catedrático de Stanford, Jeffrey Pfeffer,
sólo con una correcta motivación ética en los
estudiantes –no nos olvidemos, los profesionales
del mañana– conseguiremos la ampliación de
los objetivos empresariales hoy en día demasiado economicistas.
Estas tres iniciativas –premios, becas y cátedra–
han sido además complementadas con conferencias en las que “profesionales excelentes”
como el biólogo Ginés Morata o nuestro patrono
el físico Pedro Miguel Etxenike, disertaron sobre
la importancia del rigor y la investigación para
alcanzar las metas más altas en cualquier disciplina. En conjunto con otros actos como la presentación de la biografía de Rafael Escolá, o el
recién creado ciclo de charlas sobre I+D, su
mensaje ha puesto el broche de prestigio a las
actividades de la Fundación.
En el marco de un acto como éste, no quisiera
terminar mi intervención sin compartir con
vosotros que, para los que pusimos en marcha
la Fundación, divulgar la excelencia profesional
ha sido un placer y una oportunidad para acercarnos más a la figura de Rafael Escolá; de algún
modo nos gusta pensar que los premios, becas
y cátedras a los que he aludido son, en realidad,
materializaciones de los muchos objetivos puestos por él en marcha durante muchos años en
Idom y su propio universo personal.
Es por ello que para los que, como yo, tuvimos
la suerte de tenerle como maestro, deciros que
ha sido un placer trabajar con tan magnífico
modelo y que sería un placer que siguierais colaborando con nosotros en el objetivo de la promoción de la excelencia profesional.
Muchas gracias a todos.
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Rafael Escolá
y la excelencia
profesional
Los organizadores de este acto han
decidido que mi intervención versara sobre Rafael Escolá y la excelencia profesional. Lo he hecho en más
de una ocasión, de palabra y por
escrito, bajo diferentes títulos que,
en el fondo, remitían al mismo principio. Principio que puede definirse
diciendo que, si la dimensión ética
debe formar parte de la cultura
empresarial, con no menos razón la
eficiencia profesional debe ser un
indispensable componente de la
preocupación ética del empresario.
El directivo de empresa que no se
esfuerza por adquirir la excelencia
profesional, no es un directivo ético,
por muy buenos sentimientos que
pueda tener. Y, viceversa, el directivo de empresa que pretende
desarrollar al máximo su eficiencia
técnica, pero no se preocupa de
respetar las normas de la ética realista, que se fundamenta en la libre
afirmación del ser del hombre y
conduce a vivir siempre de acuerdo
con la verdad, no es un directivo eficiente. Comportamiento ético y
actuación eficiente son los dos
componentes inseparables de la
excelencia profesional.
Como, pienso, es bien sabido en el
ámbito propio de los aquí reunidos,
Rafael Escolá y yo fuimos compañeros en la primera promoción, después de la guerra civil, de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros
Industriales de Barcelona. Terminada la carrera, nuestras vidas, en lo
que a residencia se refiere, divergieron, ya que él se marchó a Madrid
para participar en la creación de
Edificios y Obras, y yo me quedé en
Barcelona. Cuando fui a Madrid, él
hacía años que se había desplazado a Bilbao, donde fundó IDOM y
enseñó en la Escuela Superior de
Ingenieros de aquella localidad. A
pesar de esta distinta ubicación,
siempre seguimos unidos por la
estrecha amistad que, con identificación de ideales, surgió durante
los años de la carrera. Esto, el
seguimiento de su ejecutoria y los
frecuentes encuentros en tantos
lugares, me permiten afirmar que
Rafael Escolá practicó todas las virtudes humanas: fue alegre, trabajador, leal, sincero, austero y, convencido de la importancia que tiene el
prestigio para influir, para bien, en el
mundo en el que nos ha tocado
vivir, encaminó sus esfuerzos a
lograr la excelencia profesional, que
logró plenamente, conjugando perfectamente la eficiencia técnica con
la integridad moral. Pero lo que yo,
reiteradamente, he dicho y hoy
quiero afirmar es que la motivación
que impulsó la actividad de Rafael
Escolá fue siempre de naturaleza
trascendente.
Las motivaciones del
obrar humano
Por esto, las palabras que hoy se
me hace el honor de poder pronunciar, deseo que vayan encaminadas
a desarrollar el, siempre apasionante, tema de las motivaciones del
obrar humano. Pero no en abstracto, sino a la luz de la evolución del
estilo de dirección empresarial.
En 1878, cien años después del inicio de la revolución industrial,
desaparecida la producción doméstica, consolidada la separación
entre capital y trabajo, y en trance
de superación la vieja figura del propietario-gestor, con la aparición del
directivo profesional, el ingeniero
estadounidense Frederich Winslow
Taylor, uno de los profetas del tiem-
Rafael Termes
Profesor del IESE
RAFAEL TERMES
po moderno -cuya biblia, según se
ha dicho era el cronómetro-, da, en
la industria del acero, los primeros
pasos, de lo que se llamaría la
"administración científica". Administración basada en un estilo de
dirección autocrático -"un buen
obrero hace lo que se le dice, sin
contestar"- con total separación
entre planificación y ejecución, y
cuyo valor cultural clave es la competición. La obsesión de Taylor por
el salario basado en la tarea y la
prima, pone de manifiesto que este
paradigma de organización, que
con razón puede llamarse mecanicista, supone que la motivación de
las personas es del género de las
que mi colega, el Profesor Antonio
Pérez López, prematura y desgraciadamente desaparecido, buen
conocedor de las críticas de Abra-
hám Maslow de la Universidad de
Brandeis a los modelos economicistas, llamaba, en forma original,
motivaciones extrínsecas.
Por motivación extrínseca, Pérez
López entiende aquel tipo de fuerza
que empuja a la persona a realizar
una acción debido a las recompensas, o castigos, unidos a la ejecución de la acción; debido, en definitiva, a la respuesta que va a provocar dicha acción desde el exterior.
Ello quiere decir que, desde el
punto de vista de la motivación
extrínseca, lo verdaderamente querido por el agente no es la realización de la acción de que se trate,
sino las recompensas -en sentido
amplio- que la persona espera
alcanzar a cambio de la realización
de la acción. La ejecución de la
acción viene a ser una condición
impuesta desde el exterior para que
la persona alcance aquello que en el
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intrínseca del obrar humano,
entendiendo por tal aquel tipo de
fuerza que atrae a una persona para
que realice una acción determinada
-o una tarea concreta- a causa de la
satisfacción que espera obtener por
el hecho de ser el agente o realizador de esa acción. Lo verdaderamente querido por el sujeto, en la
media en que se mueve por motivación intrínseca, son las consecuencias que se seguirán del puro
hecho natural de ser el ejecutor de
la acción. Dichas consecuencias
pueden abarcar desde la satisfacción producida por la realización de
algo que le gusta hacer, hasta la
satisfacción ligada al logro de un
cierto aprendizaje, para cuya obtención es necesaria la reiteración de la
acción.
RAFAEL ESCOLÁ
fondo le motiva. La motivación
generada a través del paso de
incentivos, la atribución de prerrogativas o el status en las organizaciones, etc., suelen pertenecer a
este tipo de motivación.
Son evidentes las deficiencias de
este modelo mecanicista de
organización para lograr, no ya la
participación de todas las personas
en el logro del objetivo empresarial,
sino ni siquiera lo que Pérez López
denomina atractividad de la organización para que los individuos se
adhieran a ella por motivaciones
distintas de las extrínsecas; es
decir, en virtud de lo que una persona puede hacer allí y no por lo que
pueda recibir. Que es, no sólo
deseable, sino también posible
superar este modelo de organización mecanicista no es menos evidente, ya que, la experiencia nos
dice que el dinero -paradigma de
las motivaciones extrínsecas- no es
un motivador universal; y la gente
busca, o puede buscar, otras
cosas.
Sin embargo, hubo que esperar al
final de la Segunda Guerra mundial
para que la escuela de las relaciones humanas, iniciada hacia 1930 y
uno de cuyos adelantados fue Elton
Mayo de la Universidad de Harvard,
intentara poner fin a los fallos de la
lógica de la eficacia tayloriana. La
escuela de relaciones humanas
introdujo el análisis sociológico y
psicológico del que se empieza a
denominar factor humano, al objeto de insertar a los trabajadores en
el proyecto empresarial común,
mediante las llamadas relaciones
industriales, que en aquel período
se pusieron de moda.
Parece claro que la escuela de las
relaciones humanas había descubierto, por así decir, la motivación
Con la entrada de la psicología y la
sociología en el mundo de la empresa, la escuela de las relaciones
humanas había introducido el paradigma psicosociológico de dirección, que supone que los seres
humanos están movidos tanto por
motivaciones extrínsecas como por
motivaciones intrínsecas. Por ejemplo, el deseo de ganar un salario y de
ascender, por un lado, junto con el
afán de deleitarse en el trabajo y de
aprender, por otro lado. Hay pocas
acciones, si es que hay alguna, cuya
motivación pueda explicarse tan sólo
por un solo tipo de motivos.
Desgraciadamente, es cierto que el
paradigma psicosociológico de
dirección puede utilizarse no precisamente para promover la autorrealización de los individuos y el
desarrollo integral debido a su dignidad de personas, sino simplemente
como un medio de aumentar la productividad. Es decir, tratar a las personas humanamente porque hemos
descubierto que, haciéndolo así,
producen más. Y ésta es la crítica a
que se halla sometida, aún al día de
hoy, la escuela de las relaciones
humanas. Pero no es menos cierto
que, supuesta la rectitud moral de
los directivos, el paradigma psico-
sociológico supone una mejora
notable, precisamente porque aporta la dimensión que antes hemos llamado atractividad, que no se halla
en el paradigma mecanicista.
Pero más allá de la motivación
intrínseca está la motivación trascendente que es aquel tipo de
fuerza que se basa en el afán de
servir a los demás. Esta motivación
es la que determina que las personas en la empresa se adhieran,
cooperen, colaboren, o, mejor
dicho, se identifiquen con el objeto
final de la misma, que, sin merma
de generar rentas para todos los
que aportando trabajo, capital y
dirección, componen la empresa,
es precisamente prestar servicio.
Queda claro pues que esta motivación trascendente supera, en calidad, a la motivación extrínseca y a
la motivación intrínseca. Sin embargo es evidente que el hecho de que
una persona actúe por motivaciones trascendentes no excluye que,
simultáneamente, existan en la
misma persona otros impulsos,
intrínsecos y extrínsecos, que determinen su manera de obrar. Por
esto, el paradigma de dirección que
puede llamarse antropológico, por
tener en cuenta las tres clases de
motivaciones que empujan el obrar
humano, es el único paradigma
completo y el único que, sin obstáculo de atender a los objetivos instrumentales o subordinados, puede
conducir al logro del verdadero
objetivo final de la empresa: servir.
Y, lo que todavía es más importante, asegurar su pervivencia. Según
un estudio elaborado en la London
Business School, en Occidente, las
empresas que, frente a una vida
media de apenas 20 años, llegan a
centenarias, son aquellas que consideran a los trabajadores como
miembros de la organización e
implicados en la evolución de la
empresa.
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Valores de los actos
humanos
Definido el modelo organizativo
deseable para la empresa, como
sea que la función del directivo, en
el desarrollo del modelo organizativo elegido, se materializa en actos
que, por ser racionales y libres, son
humanos, me parece necesario
decir que todo acto humano, además y antes, ontológicamente, de
los efectos sociológicos, políticos,
etc., tiene, para el propio agente y
para las personas afectadas, tres
valores: económico, psicológico
y ético. Dichos valores corresponden, respectivamente, al valor de lo
que hace el sujeto en cuanto con
ello otra persona puede satisfacer
sus necesidades (valor económico);
al aprendizaje para hacer cosas
que el sujeto consigue por el hecho
de hacerlo (valor psicológico); y, por
último al cambio que se produce en
el sujeto en función de la naturaleza
moral del acto, de la intención que
tenía al realizarlo y de las circunstancias concurrentes (valor ético).
El valor económico de los actos
del sujeto tiene su origen y explicación en la satisfacción de las necesidades humanas y, en función de la
utilidad que proporcionan los bienes
o servicios producidos por tales
actos, se refleja, más o menos perfectamente, en los precios de mercado de dichos bienes y servicios.
Digo más o menos perfectamente,
porque bien puede suceder que los
precios no den una imagen correcta del valor económico real de las
actividades humanas a largo plazo.
Esta eventual incapacidad de los
indicadores del mercado -es decir,
los precios- para orientar sobre el
valor económico real de las actividades humanas -medido en términos de bien común, es decir, del
desarrollo integral de todos los
hombres- es la que obliga a pensar
en el valor psicológico y ético de
los actos humanos, como antídoto
de los efectos perversos que el acto
económico puro podría producir.
7
El valor ético de los humanos y
también el psicológico son valores
subjetivos, es decir, expresan realidades que se producen en el interior de las personas y, en consecuencia, no pueden ser objeto del
mercado. La confianza, el afecto, la
sinceridad, la lealtad, la honradez,
etc., no podrán ser nunca materia
de compraventa, pero la influencia
de estas cualidades personales es
decisiva para la generación de valor
económico real. Por ello, la correcta actuación del dirigente empresarial exige que el decisor, después
de analizar la factibilidad de las
alternativas, a la luz de su valor
económico, expresado por los indicadores del mercado, elija en función, además, del valor que las
alternativas en juego tengan para el
desarrollo integral de las personas,
incluyendo la del propio decisor.
Elegir en función no sólo del valor
económico sino además del valor
psicológico y ético de los actos
humanos, puede suponer un cierto
coste de oportunidad; es decir, el
decisor renuncia a un cierto beneficio a corto plazo que otra alternativa podía haberle aportado. Sin
embargo, al hacerlo, el decisor es
consciente de que ha elegido la
mejor alternativa para los demás y
para él mismo, en orden al desarrollo integral de las personas. La
experiencia y también la razón nos
dicen que, a la larga, los beneficiosos efectos psicológicos y éticos
de la decisión tomada, en todas las
personas que forman la empresa o
están en contacto con ella, conducirán a mejores resultados también
económicos. Así lo testifican multitud de profesionales y empresarios
que saben renunciar al enriquecimiento rápido o al beneficio inmediato en aras de la rentabilidad sostenida a largo plazo, que es la
garantía de la continuidad, el
desarrollo y la expansión de la
empresa entendida como comunidad de personas.
RAFAEL TERMES
RAFAEL ESCOLÁ
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Mi compañero y gran amigo
Rafael Escolá fue una persona
preocupada por adquirir la excelencia profesional, conjunción de
la eficiencia técnica y el comportamiento ético, cosa que logró plenamente. Su preocupación por la
técnica le llevó a crear, dentro de
IDOM, una "escuela" de postgrado para continuar la formación
de los recién salidos de las Escuelas de Ingenieros hasta que
encontraban un puesto de trabajo.
Su preocupación por la ética se
puso de manifiesto en la publicación -entre los seis libros que
editó- de una "Deontología para
Ingenieros" -"Ética para Ingenieros" en su segunda edición- en la
que trata de definir lo que es lícito
y lo que es ilícito en el quehacer
profesional, analizando el porqué
de las acciones.
Pero además, y sobre todo, Rafael
Escolá poseía esa característica
esencial del líder que consiste en
servir a los demás, motivándoles
para que, de propia iniciativa,
hagan lo que tienen que hacer.
Dios quiera que, con el esfuerzo
de todos los que colaboran en la
iniciativa, la cátedra Rafael Escolá
de Ética Profesional, de esta prestigiosa Escuela Superior de Ingenieros de la Universidad de Navarra, sirva para que todos los estudiantes que pasen por ella adquieran la excelencia profesional, tal
como la hemos definido, para el
bien del mundo de la economía y
la empresa al que, acabados sus
estudios, se integrarán.
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Presentación de Charles Handy
Alejo José G. Sison
Director de la Cátedra Rafael Escolá de Ética Profesional
ALEJO JOSÉ G. SISON
Cuando en plena crisis de los 50 años, Charles
Handy voluntariamente dejó la seguridad y la
comodidad de una carrera corporativa exitosa
para dedicarse sin más a pensar y escribir y, si
se diese el caso, llevar a cabo algún seminario o
alguna consultoría como freelancer o independiente, no se imaginó que, de nuevo, estaba llamado a ser pionero en lo que hasta entonces era
tierra incógnita para las legiones de trabajadores
y profesionales que vendrían después. Lo único
que sabía era que trocaba una vida laboral, que
había llegado a ser demasiado agobiante y opresiva, por otra, que prometiera mayor independencia y libertad, aunque con sus riesgos económicos concomitantes. No había nada en su
experiencia anterior que le preparase especialmente para ello, ya que siempre había llevado la
existencia de un "elefante", término que utiliza
para referirse a un habitante de una gran organización: se graduó en la Universidad de Oxford en
Clásicas, Historia y Filosofía, y estuvo trabajando
10 años en la Royal Dutch Shell, destinado primero en Borneo y luego, en Londres. [Cuenta
como en su primer día de trabajo, a los veintitantos años, entre los asuntos que trató ya estaba el plan de pensiones de la empresa]. Después
se marchó a la Sloan School of Management del
MIT para preparar, a su vuelta al Reino Unido, los
fundamentos de la London Business School.
De aquella apuesta fuerte al comienzo de la
década de los 80 hemos salido todos ganando.
Charles Handy mismo se convirtió —siempre
con la inestimable ayuda de su esposa,
Elizabeth— en un pensador, escritor y consultor
de renombre. Se hizo "pulga", término con el que
llama a los profesionales independientes, que
siempre son sus propios jefes y que eligen trabajar solos o en alianzas. El cambio le brindó la
oportunidad de abrir las compuertas de su propia imaginación y creatividad. En una época
caracterizada por las reestructuraciones y las
externalizaciones, nos ofrece una valiosa guía de
navegación no sólo en el mundo del trabajo,
siempre dinámico, sino también en la sociedad
en general. Fiel a su estilo ameno, sazonado con
anécdotas autobiográficas, nos explica en sus
libros cómo factores tan diversos como la educación, el matrimonio, la religión y el status social
condicionan la evolución del trabajo.
Es un gran honor y una enorme satisfacción para
la Cátedra Rafael Escolá de Ética Profesional
presentar esta mañana a Charles Handy como
ponente de la 2ª Lección Conmemorativa. Su
conferencia nos ayudará a entender el verdadero significado de esa meta tan ilusa, que todos
sin embargo buscamos, querámoslo o no, admitámoslo o no: el éxito. Sólo me queda agradecer
a Charles Handy y a su esposa Elizabeth la amabilidad de aceptar nuestra invitación y su generosidad en incluir la intervención esta mañana en
la categoría de lo que es, con mucho, el mejor
tipo de trabajo que puede desarrollar el ser
humano, el trabajo como don o regalo.
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photo Elizabeth Handy
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“The Moral Dilemmas
of Modern Society”
Charles Handy
Rafael Escolá Memorial Lecture
I feel it a great pleasure and
privilege to be here in this lovely
city with such lovely weather; a
shame we are inside!
I have to tell you that my mother
would be very pleased that I am
here if she were alive. When I went
to University to study Greek and
Latin and Philosophy she was a
little disappointed, because her
father was an engineer. He had
actually been responsible for
building the lighthouses around the
West Coast of Ireland. So if you sail
to Europe from America the first
light you see would be from a
lighthouse built by my grandfather. I
think she thought that studying
Philosophy was not as high a
distinction as building a lighthouse.
So she would be pleased to see
me if she were alive today, standing
in front of engineers and talking
about moral things. When I started
thinking about this talk, I decided
that really the more accurate
description would be the moral
dilemmas of a modern society,
which actually underlie what we
mean by success. And so I have
identified ten dilemmas, which I
am going to share with you this
morning.
I call myself a social philosopher.
Philosophers are people who ask
the difficult questions, and never
provide you with the answer;
because the answers have to be
made not by me or any
philosopher, but by you. And if they
provide you with the answer, it still
is not the right ultimate answer. For
instance, if Aristotle —who is in a
sense, the philosophers’
philosopher— were here today;
and you asked him; “Señor
Aristotle, what is the purpose of
life?” He would probably say to
you: “It is happiness”. But that still
leaves a question, what is
happiness for you? Actually, it
would be a mistranslation of the
Greek word that he’d use,
eudaimonia, which more accurately
translated, means “flourishing”.
So the purpose of your life and
success in your life is to flourish,
but only you can answer what that
means for you. I, the philosopher,
Aristotle the philosopher, can only
insist that you answer the question.
I can’t answer it for you. So I have
10 questions for you, and no
answers.
What is success today? Only you
can answer it, but let me go
through what I see as the moral
dilemmas of our modern life and
work. I have three sets. I have first
of all the dilemmas of
Capitalism: the big ones. Then
I have the dilemmas for a
manager. And then I have the
dilemmas for you as an
individual.
1. These are the big dilemmas of
Capitalism:
1.1 First moral dilemma of
Capitalism:
photo Elizabeth Handy
Adam Smith, in a sense the
founding father of capitalist
economics, legitimised selfishness
in a way. But the people who quote
Adam Smith and the Wealth of
Nations, his great book, should first
of all read his other book, the book
he wrote first, The Theory of Moral
Sentiments, in which he said that a
successful society needs to have
sympathy and care for one’s
neighbours. So he wasn’t actually
about selfishness. But one bit
nobody would have read, at least
nobody that I have met would ever
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buy these things. This has already
happened in Japan. For the past
ten years people have refused to
spend more money; they saved it
instead, because there was nothing
they wanted to buy. The Japanese
have invented a word for these
useless things. They call them
“chindogu”, meaning trivial little
things. But my favourite example
from Japan were windscreen
wipers for your spectacles, in case
you go out in the rain; the sort of
things you give people in their
Christmas stockings; things that
you don’t need and really don’t
want.
photo Elizabeth Handy
have read is something that Adam
Smith also said, because he was a
wise man: “a profitable speculation
is presented as a public good
because growth will stimulate
demand and everywhere diffuse
comfort and improvement. No
patriot or man of feeling could
therefore oppose it. But the nature
of this growth, in opposition, for
example, to liberal ideas such as
cultivation, is that it is undirected
and infinitely self-generating in the
endless demand for all the useless
things in the world”.
If you go into the average shopping
mall or airport shopping area today,
Adam Smith you would be horrified
at the clutter of useless things we
are asked to buy. There is a great
problem in economics. If we go on
trying to stimulate consumption by
manufacturing and selling more
useless things, we shall actually run
out of desire. We will not want to
Now I appeal to you as engineers:
please, make it your job never to
make anything useless. Please,
make only useful things. And
please, believe in cultivation. Please
make your cities beautiful. Please,
make things that are beautiful in
themselves, that are well designed,
that not only work well, but also
look good. Things that are pleasant
to feel, pleasant to use. Please
make no more useless things or
the world —the economy— will
collapse as we run out of desire.
This is a moral choice that you
could make. So, Adam Smith, we
will try to make sure that your
prophecy does not come true.
1.2 Second moral dilemma of
Capitalism:
Then we still have to deal with my
second moral dilemma and
that’s the Paradox of Growth.
It seems to me inevitably true —
perhaps “inevitably” is not the right
word, but so far, it has proved
true— that the faster an economy
grows, the bigger grows the gap
between the top and the bottom.
It’s not that those at the bottom
don’t get richer when the economy
grows. Everybody gets a little
richer. But the richer ones, the top
10%, get much richer than the
bottom 10%. And the bottom 10%
do not feel richer because we don’t
look backwards at what our
parents had. We don’t look
backwards to five years ago: we
look to our neighbours. We see this
growing disproportion between the
people who earn the money at the
top of our organisations, and those
at the bottom. Now you are a just
society in Spain. But you will know
that in America the average salaries
of the Chief Executive Officers of
the Fortune top one hundred
companies is now 450 times bigger
than the average wage at the
bottom. Plato recommended that
that should be 4 times. But of
course that was long ago and the
world was much smaller. But from
4 to 450, should that be right? So,
I appeal to you engineers, exengineers, managers, leaders;
please restrain yourselves. It does
not do you any good. Nobody
would admire you for the amount
of money you tuck away in your
wallets.
Capitalism may actually destroy
yourselves if it is seen that the
people that are at the top bit make
so much more than the people at
the bottom. What can you do
about it? First of all, I would say:
restrain yourselves. In Britain the
argument is: we must pay our top
executives as much as they pay
them in America, because
otherwise our top executives will go
to America. Well, actually, nobody
is asking them to come to America,
they are not that good. So this is
an excuse. As you know, in our
remuneration committees they are
always the same people, so if I get
20% more then I give you 20%
more. So restrain yourselves,
please, if you are at the top.
Secondly, is it moral to pay your
taxes? Because governments can
do something to make sure that
those at the bottom get richer
faster than those at the top.
Amazingly this has just begun to
happen in the last two years in
Britain. The bottom 10% have got
a little richer quicker than the top
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10% —the gap is still enormous—
but there’s still a little bit of
redistribution going on, and that’s
only possible if the people at the
top pay their taxes. So don’t get
your accountants working too hard.
It would be immoral to let them pay
your taxes.
Thirdly, if you have more than
enough, please use the surplus for
the benefit of others. Be
philanthropists. Elizabeth my wife
and I are conducting research for a
new book which is what we call
The New Philanthropists: people
who are making money young,
which is happening in Britain now,
and have more money than they
need at the age of 40 or 45. Some
of them are using that surplus
money, and some of their surplus
time, to make good causes happen
on the world around them; to start
things that the government isn’t
doing; to fill the gaps in social
provision; to actually take up
particular causes that are close to
their hearts. They are using their
entrepreneurial business skills, as
well as their money. They are not
waiting until they are long past
retiring to actually work and share
all as they used to do, or engage in
what is called post-mortem
financial planning: waiting until they
are dead to write out cheques.
Please, if you have more than
enough, do something useful with
it, for the good of others.
13
own the means of production,
because the means of production,
the assets of any corporation really
are here, in the heads and the
knowledge and the skills of the
people in their organization. You
are the means of production in the
modern world. Now, this produces
an interesting dilemma: who owns
you? Is it right that financiers;
people who own shares actually
own you, the assets of the
organization? When people own
people we call it slavery. Of course
this is mitigated slavery but,
nevertheless, I think we are going
to see a shift in the balance of
power from the people who finance
the business to the people who
make the business happen and
create the real value for that
business: the workers, particularly
the skilled workers. One other
interesting thing is going to happen
as a consequence of Karl Marx’s
prediction is that some of those
people with the skills and with the
assets in themselves, in their heads
and in their bodies and in their
hands would say “why am I selling
1.3 Third moral dilemma of
Capitalism:
The third great dilemma of
capitalism is Karl Marx’s legacy.
Karl Max said that the world would
be a better place when the workers
owned the means of production. Of
course, we all know that he meant
that they should own the factories
and that they should own the
shares that own the factories. But
that never happened. And probably
should never happen. But, if you
think about it, the workers now do
photo Elizabeth Handy
all my intellectual property to the
organization in return for a not very
adequate salary?” Aren’t they
getting too good a value? Since I
have contributed more to the
added value of this organization
than the financiers and
shareholders, shouldn’t I have as
much right to the profits and added
value of the organization as they
do? If they are not going to give
me a share of those profits, well
then, I think I might walk outside
the organization, and actually sell
my skills and my talents and my
intellectual property back to them
from the outside.
That’s what I did when I decided to
write a book. It’s not good, as you
will know, writing a book unless
you have somebody to print it and
someone to distribute it and
someone to sell it. So I needed an
organization. I found one, called
Random House, which is the
biggest publishing house in the
world. It is an elephant. But they
don’t employ me. I own my own
intellectual property and I have an
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2. Dilemmas for Managers:
Let me turn to your dilemmas as
a manager, because if you’re not
yet a manager I think that you will
soon be. Because, as I understand
it, the preferred route to
management in Spain has always
traditionally been through
engineering. In Spain, I understand,
engineers are highly valued people.
In Britain they are just mechanics.
In Britain, the preferred route into
management, until business
schools came along recently, was
through accountancy. That’s why
my best friends are accountants.
They are wonderful people but
accountants traditionally look
backwards not forward.
Accountants traditionally only look
at numbers or money and not at
people; and accountants don’t like
risk. Three things that make them
very bad people. So, you are
fortunate, in that you have
engineers at the top of your
organizations whereas we in Britain
for a long time only had
accountants. Nevertheless, we still
have these dilemmas, when you
get there, whatever you are,
whether an engineer or not.
photo Elizabeth Handy
arrangement with them whereby for
every book that they sell I get 10%,
a share of the added value. And
when you come to think about it,
all the intellectual property of
Random House, this huge
elephant, is outside the
organization. None of the authors
are employed by the organization.
Increasingly I can see architects,
lawyers, engineers, doctors, all
sorts of people saying “I think I’ll
take my skills outside and send
them back to you in return for
share of the added value”, and
they’ve improved. So organizations
have a moral dilemma. Do they
keep these people inside of them,
and try to buy their loyalty for a little
money, or do they actually treat
them as the real owners of the
assets of the organization and give
them a share the money? Because
if they don’t then they will leave.
These will become the affluent
successful fleas that I write about
in this book, The elephant and the
flea. My prediction is that there are
going to be more and more fleas in
the world. Governments don’t like
that, organizations don’t like that,
and not every individual would like
that because you are swapping
freedom and independence for
security. At a certain stage in life
you would prefer security to
freedom, but you are selling your
assets cheap if you do. This is the
interesting moral dilemma for
individuals and for
organizations.
2.1 First dilemma for Managers:
Jeffrey Pfeffer, St Augustine and
George Bernard Shaw. What,
you may say, an unlikely trinity is
that. But, actually, they are all
connected, let me explain.
Jeffrey Pfeffer, as those of you who
were here last year will remember,
said quite correctly that the ends of
the operation do not always justify
the means. It’s not enough to
pursue the right end: you must also
have the right values, and do the
right things, to get there. He gave
lots of nice long words for it, but
that was basically what he was
saying. You must do right as well
as doing it for the right purposes.
But actually, it is more important
than that. He was saying that
making money does not justify
anything; you still have to be good
while you make money. I think that
making money is not an end for an
organization. It is the means to
something bigger. In an
organisation, be it a business or
not, we need money. We have to
make money and we have to make
more money next year than last
year in order to grow and in order
to survive. But that is not the
purpose of the organization, nor
should it be the purpose of
business. The purpose of business
should be bigger. The profit is the
means to growth, to survival, to do
it better than you have been doing.
It is not the end. St Augustine said
it was a moral sin to confuse the
ends and the means. And that, I
think, is what a lot of our business
people do, at least in Britain. The
profit is the means and not the
end. The end should be something
bigger. If I can give you a more
homely example. We need food to
live, but if we reverse it and make
the food the object of life. If we live
in order to eat —after two days in
San Sebastián, I think it will
happen— we would get very large,
we would become gross. It’s the
wrong way round: we eat to live,
we don’t live to eat. We make
money to do better business. We
do not do better business to make
money. That is the corruption of
capitalism.
George Bernard Shaw wrote: “this
is the true joy of life, the being used
for a purpose recognised by
yourself as a mighty one; the being
thoroughly worn out before you are
thrown on the scrappy, the being a
force of nature instead of a
feverish, selfish little clod of
ailments and grievances,
complaining that the world will not
devote itself to making you happy
…The only real tragedy in life is
being used by personally motivated
men for purposes that you
recognise to be base”. Now, I have
to say, it’s a very odd thing,
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because George Bernard Shaw
never went further than the garden
shed where he wrote his great
plays and he never worked in a
business organization. But,
nevertheless, what he says rings
true in my ears. I have myself seen
people working in a business
organisation where they feel they
are being used by personally
motivated people for purposes that
they consider base. So, the
challenge —the moral challenge—,
I think, for any leader in any
business is to have a mighty
purpose that will motivate and lift
everyone up. It becomes what our
previous speaker (Rafael Termes)
so well said, an intrinsic motivation
rather than an extrinsic one. If you
look at all the studies of the great
groups in the world they didn’t
work for money. They worked for a
cause. They worked for something
they believed in, something they
were passionate about. The
challenge for leaders, and you will
all become leaders, is to create a
mighty purpose, to lift your people
up and, without that, capitalism
becomes a base activity in my
view.
2.2 Second dilemma for Managers:
Now, we’ve got number five of
my ten dilemmas: Pope Leo X
and the doughnut. Again you
may think this is an unworthy
comparison of the great
Renaissance Pope, the Medici. As I
understand, Pope Leo X was the
first one to publicly promulgate the
doctrine of subsidiarity. You are
now all familiar with it, of course,
and its political use in the European
Union. And none of my working
friends can spell it or understand it.
They call it “subsidiary” and they
wonder why I cannot spell it
properly. But you will know that
Pope Leo X said that it is against
right moral order for a higher body
to take unto itself responsibilities
that properly belong to a lower
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body. Or the example that he used:
it is wrong for the State to do what
the family does better. Now I’m not
talking politics, I’m not talking
about the European Union, or
about Spain or the Federation of
Spain, I am actually talking about
the organization and I translate
subsidiarity to be stealing people’s
choices is morally wrong.
Let me give you an example. Our
daughter, aged 23 some years
ago, decided to go into business.
She was a masseur at the time.
She was very good at making you
feel good with your body. And she
decided to set up a little business
in which she would hire a lot of
other masseurs who would go into
organizations, particularly banks,
and places where people sat at
their desks all day long, and rub
their shoulders and it would be a
fringe benefit, a health benefit from
the organization. At one time, she
had something like 80 people
working for her. As a parent I was
very worried about this because,
though she was a good masseur,
she knew nothing about business
or about management but, luckily,
she had a father, didn’t she? A
father who wrote books about
business and management. So
maybe she would come and talk to
her father. No, nor did she ask for
my books. So what does one do?
I thought “well, I’m worried,
I wonder if she’s got the right
insurance policies, I wonder if she’s
charging the right rates, I wonder if
she’s paying her people properly,
I wonder if she knows anything
about running a business”. So then
I thought “well, I’d better go to
her”. But then I drew back, and
I said "what if I go to her and try to
tell her what to do, she may well
say two things: ‘Dad, if you want to
run it, why don’t you run it, if you
know it so well?’ or she would say:
‘I don’t want to speak to you
again, it’s my business’. In other
words, I don’t think I would have
helped. Then I remembered Pope
Leo X and I thought, “If I go and
interfere with her business I am
stealing her responsibilities, I am
stealing her choices”. And I made a
rule to myself: I would never give
her advice unless she asks for it,
which is very difficult to do if you
are a worried parent of a 23-yearold daughter, I promise you.
I think a lot of organizations are full
of false subsidiarity, of people who
are stealing people’s choices. And
that is a moral problem, says Pope
Leo X. I have to say, a lot of
organizations that I know in Britain
are full of sin in that sense: a lot of
people are being acquitted of their
responsibilities. So what do we do
about it? Now this is where the
doughnut comes in. This is my
favourite management theory.
This is an English sort of doughnut;
this is the jam in the middle of the
outer circle and this is the space in
the centre (the inner circle). This is
a very respectable way of
describing it but it’s very important.
Now, this is your job, this is the job
for your group. In your job there will
be a core (the inner circle), which
you have been told to do and, if
you don’t do that, you would have
failed. In a smart organization you
would have some kind of job
description or objectives or
something: it will be written down;
but even if it isn’t you will know
what it is, what you’ve got to do or
you would have failed. The snag is
that even if you do all, you will not
have succeeded, because you will
have been expected to fill up the
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photo Elizabeth Handy
rest of your doughnut. The trouble
is: no one knows what’s there (the
outer area). If they knew what they
wanted you to do there, they’d
have told you. You have to use
your imagination and your initiative:
this is your responsibility. And from
your outer limits to it, you are
expected to fill it, not just to do the
job. This is what people like.
I once had a job —I think I recount
it in this book (The Elephant and
the Flea)— when I was working for
Shell, back in London, and it was a
very grand title: I was regional
coordinator, oil, Mediterranean
region, excluding France. I
impressed my friends at dinner
parties when I was 27 years old. I
had three pages of a job
description. Those three pages told
me everything I had to do. This
was the core of my doughnut.
Then at the bottom there was a
paragraph. “Authorities”, it said,
“Authority to initiate expenditure up
to a maximum of 10 pounds”. This
was the outer area in my doughnut.
I did not think they understood me
properly. I did not think they were
practising subsidiarity. I was bored,
I felt cheated, I left. Oh but before I
left I had a chance to make sure
they noticed me. One of my duties
was to take all the requests for
capital expenditure from the
different countries and forward it to
the right committee. One day I got
a request from the Italian company
to build a new refinery in the Bay of
Naples. Now I knew the Bay of
Naples, my classical education had
imprinted its history on me. For the
oil company to build a refinery there
would be terrible! But I had no
authority to take the decision: ten
pounds; and this was going to cost
more than ten pounds. But I could
do something else. This was long
ago, before e-mail. I took the
requisition paper, tore it up and put
it in the waste bin. After six weeks
they thought something had gone
wrong with the Italian mail and they
sent it again with more copies to
everybody and eventually they got
the refinery, but for six weeks I
delayed. I had negative power, not
positive power. If you do not
practise subsidiarity in your
organization you are not only in sin
but you are laying yourself open to
other people using their negative
power. It’s a moral dilemma.
If you wish to be a successful
manager today, practise large
doughnuts. And in order for that to
happen you have to trust people.
You have to rely on their loyalty and
that they share your values and
that they understand what success
means for their organization. If you
are a manager or a leader you
must communicate all these things
and you must be well enough
known to them so that they can
trust you. You can’t trust them
unless they trust you. It’s difficult
this subsidiarity thing. Very
important, I think.
2.3 Third dilemma for Managers:
The sixth dilemma, the third for
the manager. The Sigmoid curve
and Rachel Whiteread. Now, this
is your responsibility as a manager.
This is your organization’s chart.
Ok, the times may vary but,
basically, in any organization that
starts, there would be a dip where
you spend more than you get in, by
way of returns. In my case, this is
the education bit, as it were. And
then there is success. I don’t know
how long it takes, but one day you
and your organization will go down,
unless you do something about it.
Just doing the same will not work
for very long. You have to be
different. Otherwise, you die too
soon. In your organization and in
yourselves, you have to start a
second curve. But, the trick is, you
have to start it before the first one
peaks, because otherwise you
won’t have enough resources to
start the second curve. If you wait
longer, because you are frightened,
then you are too late. You won’t
have enough money; people would
have left. It’s difficult to start later.
But how do you know when you
are there? Everything is going well;
you haven’t seen the curve ahead.
As far as you are concerned this is
going to go on forever, in your life
or in your organization. So you
have to be alert to the fact that at
the moment of the greatest
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success you should be thinking
how to be different.
This brings up the challenge that
you have as a manager, that of
Rachel Whiteread. Rachel is a
British sculptor. She does very
unusual works of art. This is one of
them. Look at it carefully. Can you
imagine what it is? What Rachel
does is that she fills the spaces
that we don’t see with a cement or
plastic. What she’s done here,
she’s found a staircase and she’s
filled the space underneath with
cement. Then she’s taken the
staircase away. She’s made visible
the empty space underneath the
staircase. Very odd. Not really a
thing of beauty but something that
makes you think. I think that this is
one of the functions of great art, it
makes you think. It might have
been beautiful as well but it is
important that it makes you think.
Why am I showing you this?
Because Rachel has found a way
of seeing something, of making us
see something that wasn’t there.
This was empty. She’s made
space, emptiness, become visible.
Now I am arguing that one of the
responsibilities of managers is to
keep the organization going
forward. One of the responsibilities
of an entrepreneur, of a great dean
is to glimpse something that isn’t
there and fill it.
Recently, I had the great privilege of
interviewing Jeff Skoll. He was one
of the two people who started
eBay. Only 8 years ago, by the
way, isn’t that amazing? Jeff was
just finishing business school at
Stanford University when he met
Pierre Omidyar. Pierre Omidyar was
a genius with little gadgets,
electronic stuff. Pierre said to Jeff:
“wouldn’t it be nice if people could
buy and sell things on the
internet?” And Jeff had just finished
business school and said: “that’s a
stupid idea” —he was a good
business school student. But then
he went to work for a newspaper
company that wanted him to put
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some of their paper on the internet.
This was back in 1995, ten years
ago. And Jeff thought the most
obvious thing that you would put
on the internet would be the
classified advertisements. But
when he went to the people in
charge of the classified
advertisements in the newspaper
room, they said: “don’t be
ridiculous”. And Jeff thought “if
they think it is ridiculous maybe it
isn’t”. And he went back to Pierre
and he said: “I know it’s not there,
and nobody is doing it but I think it
is there: Let’s do it!”
As you know it became the fastest
growing business in the history of
the world: First to reach one billion
dollars in sales in under four years.
They created a kind of social
revolution, only because Jeff —not
really Pierre, Pierre was good with
the gadgets— saw the business
potential. Jeff thought that,
basically, people are good and that,
provided there is total transparency,
they will trust other people to be
good and that the best way of
establishing meaningful
relationships between two adults is
to trade. If everybody gets a good
deal out of it, you have built a
relationship, and the world is a
better place. Ah but eBay makes
money, but that was not really what
they started to do. Jeff had no idea
he was going to create the fastest
growing business in history. In fact,
after five years, he left. He recruited
Meg Whitman to run it and said “I
am leaving”. Meg said, “How can
you leave the most successful
business in history just when it is
taking off?” “Well, I’ve made more
money than I ever needed, I’m
bored. I’ve got other things I want
to do”. He wasn’t about making
money. What I am saying is that he
and Pierre, but basically Jeff, saw
something that wasn’t there and
made it happen.
Now, in a much smaller way, I think
it is the job of leaders to glimpse
that second curve, to find
something that isn’t there and
make it happen. That is a moral
responsibility because otherwise
the organization will die.
Organizations are the only things, if
you think about it, that could have
immortality, that could live for ever,
but only if they create endless
second curves. And very few do.
When Shell had to round up all the
publicly owned companies that
were more than one hundred years
old in the world, a few years back,
they found 28. I suppose the
Catholic Church is the best
example of a lasting organization.
My Oxford College is 750 years
old, not bad, but most
organizations die. They could be
immortal. And part of our
responsibility, I think, is try and
make them so.
3. Dilemmas for the Individuals:
3.1 First dilemma:
Now, finally, we have the
dilemmas for the individuals.
First one: Delhi, John Mc Laren
and Elisabeth my wife. Again, an
odd trinity, but let me tell you why
they are connected. Elisabeth and I
were in Delhi not too long ago, and
we went into this little call centre.
As we walked into this call centre
in Delhi, you see over it, it says
AOL and Dell. These are the
companies that they worked for. All
their customers, basically, are in
America. The people in the call
centre come to work at 8 o’clock
at night because that’s when
America is waking up. And they are
Indians, they are qualified graduate
Indians: a lot of women, and young
men. And they come in dressed in
their saris, with their nice Indian
names and nice Indian voices and
within half an hour they have
practically become Americans.
They wear jeans and T-shirts and
they change their names to
American names and they start
talking with a slight American
accent; because if you are an
American in Kansas and you are
calling a number that you think is in
Kansas but actually is in Delhi, you
really want to think you are
speaking to an American. They are
trained to watch American soaps,
learn American geography,
American words and become
Americans. I think this is horrible
because here are Indians becoming
Americans while they are working
in this call centre, and they have to
change back to being Indians in
their homes. Then I thought: “Aha,
aha, when I see people wearing
funny clothes when they walk into
their office; they actually talk with a
different voice and they behave
slightly differently. Are you the same
person at home and the same
person in the office? Do you have
the same values when you are a
father or a mother or a brother or a
sister? Or when you are the boss
or the supervisor? Or are you two
different people? Who are you? Are
you changeable? Do your values
change? How many people are
you?”
This is John McLaren. You will see
three people here. Three different
people, but no, they are all John
McLaren. John McLaren is a
partner in a small tiny boutique
investment bank. That’s him in the
dark suit at the back of this (Handy
is pointing at a picture). But John
McLaren is also an enthusiastic
amateur musician who actually
launched a wonderful world wide
competition to pick out the top
seven new classical composers
around the world once every three
years, for a master a prize. But the
largest bit of John McLaren is a
prize-winning novelist. So they are
all John McLaren but they weren’t
three years before this picture was
taken by Elisabeth. John was
working all his time for Deutsche
Morgan Grenfell as an investment
banker; doing very well, I may say,
but his whole life was taken over
by Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. Then
he decided “there’s more to me
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than the man in the dark suit. I am
also a musician who wants to
make a difference in the musical
world; I’m also a novelist who
wants to write books”. So he left
Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and
became three different people but
still one person. Now the great
danger with organizations is that
we capture you and we don’t allow
you to be fully yourselves. This is
why someone like John becomes a
flea. He doesn’t have to be a flea.
Do you allow people in your
organizations to be fully
themselves? And who are you
really anyway? Which is the bit of
you that matters?
This is a self-portrait by Elisabeth
my wife of herself. You can see the
bit of her that she regards as the
most important. This is Elisabeth
the photographer. This is Elisabeth
the homemaker and this is
Elisabeth my manager, agent and
office worker, the bit that is a
necessity but is not at all important
in her self-image of herself.
18
about 61 (in the last century, of
course) And that’s indeed how my
mother looked when she was 61. A
nice lady but slightly, shall we say,
old. This is what 61 looks like these
days. This is one of a group of 28
women, that Elisabeth and I
researched, and she photographed
for a book that we called
Reinventing Lives: women at 60.
What we discovered for a whole
generation of women in Britain a
few years back, who had married
in their twenties, had children and
now are 60. In a sense they were
relieved: they had no jobs, were
retiring, the children had left home,
the husbands had been parked
and their dog died. They were free,
and what did they do? They didn’t
sit like Whistler’s mother, and wait
I would like to challenge you all to
compose a photograph of
yourselves and parade it around
the place so that we really knew
who you are, because you are
probably three people. And a bit of
you is a bit of you that you would
rather not be doing, but you have
to do because your material needs
have to be met. You have to earn
some money. But you are lucky if,
while you are earning money, you
are actually doing what you believe
in. This is very important, to do
what you really believe in.
to death sitting in an armchair. They
started a new life. Somebody
founded a restaurant, somebody
founded a law firm, somebody had
married another man, somebody
divorced her husband. They
reinvented their lives. They started
new lives. Now, these were women
at sixty. We now encourage every
man we meet aged 58 to read this
book, because we discovered that
whereas women live for
themselves, men on the whole do
not. They just slow down. This is
very interesting because we now
have an extra ten years of life,
somehow, this generation. If you
are now thinking of retiring at 65 or
maybe 62 or maybe you are being
very adventurous and wish to retire
at 60. You have 20 to 25 years left.
Do you want to play golf everyday?
This is your chance to have a
second chance. In a sense this is
your chance for redemption. If you
haven’t got your life right the first
time, now you can do it.
This is where Jeff Skoll comes in
again. Jeff Skoll, he said to me:
“you know, when I was 14 my
father came home from work (he
was a businessman) and he told us
that he had just been diagnosed
with terminal cancer” (in his forties)
And “my father”, he said “was not
upset about dying. He was upset
because he hadn’t done all the
things, in his life, that he had
wanted to do”. This is the
challenge. So many men I meet
and some women, by the time they
reach seventy or something, they
still haven’t done many of the
things they wanted to do in life.
And now they are too tired. But we
have the trust to make sure that we
do not die without having done all
the things that we ever dreamt of. I
am going to make the pilgrims’
way to Santiago de Compostela.
So this is your chance and, if you
do not take it, I believe you are
immoral, because you are not
making the most of your life. It is
your chance for redemption.
3.3 Third dilemma for Individuals:
The ninth dilemma is David
Charter’s still-life. In this little
book that Elisabeth and I are
writing about philanthropists,
people who have more than
enough in middle life and are doing
something with it. We asked them
to give us, to give Elisabeth, five
objects and a flower to describe
their values in life: the things that
matter to them. She then
composes them into a picture of a
still-life, after the Dutch paintings of
the XVII century. Now this is David
Charter’s. I have to explain. This is
a photograph of his parents. They
were very important in his life and
the still are: they gave him his basic
3.2 Second dilemma for
Individuals:
Next dilemma is Whistler’s
mother, Joanna and Jeff Skoll
again. You may have seen this
portrait, Whistler’s mother. It is a
famous painting by Whistler of his
mother. She is a precious lady
aged, as far as I can calculate,
photo Elizabeth Handy
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19
you may not be able to make the
world or even San Sebastian a very
much better place; but my God,
you could have a try, and you don’t
have to be wonderful.
photo Elizabeth Handy
values. These are little bronze casts
of his little sons, because his
children, the next generation, are
very important to him. The lily
represents his love for his wife. The
pen there represents how he made
his money, because he was an
investment banker and every time
they made a deal in Japan worth
many millions, of which he got a
share, they gave him a pen, so he
has a lot of pens. But the things
that intrigued me were this and
this. I said to David “what are
those?” and he said, “well, these
are my mother-in-law’s poker chips
and that’s a bottle of the best
champagne”, and I said, “a
gambler and a drunkard? Not my
image of you, David”. He said “no,
no: the poker chips, they represent
risk”. In everything you do in life,
even in financial things, if there is
not a risk of failure you haven’t
pushed it far enough. You’ve been
too comfortable, too safe; you
haven’t mixed with all the
possibilities. There must be risk in
everything you do. Not too much
risk, but risk. The fear of failure
must be there. Secondly,
everything you do must be worthy
of public celebration. You must be
proud of it when it happens. So
risk and public celebration should
be a measure of everything you do
in life, otherwise you are not living
life to the full. It’s a moral problem, I
suspect, and success is all about
all these things.
3.4 Fourth dilemma for Individuals:
And, finally, another trinity, Marsilio
Ficino, Aristotle and Rabbi
Susa:
You can just remember rabbi Susa.
He said in a moment of selfrevelation: “God will not ask me
when I go to heaven why I was not
Moses; he will ask me why I was
not Susa”. Our challenge, our
moral imperative in life, is to be fully
ourselves, not someone else. I
spent so much of my life
pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
In the end the truth is being true to
yourself, your full self, your possible
selves; and as Keats said: “Truth is
beauty” even though you may not
look like it, as in my case, “and
beauty is truth”. Be yourselves as
full as possible: that, in my view, is
the new meaning of success in life,
and always has been.
Thank you for being so patient with
me.
Marsilio Ficino was the tutor to
Cossimo de Medici and Lorenzo
Medici. They had a little group in
Florence in the Renaissance days
of the XV century. He was the
moral guardian, the guide. They
asked him one day: “Marsilio, what
is our duty in life?” and he said “it is
your duty to bring your soul to light,
so that all may see it”. Like all
philosophers’ questions, this only
begs another question. So “what,
they said, is the soul?” “Ah!” he
said, and they were expecting, I
think, a great religious answer. And
he said: “the soul is that which is
potentially the greatest thing within
you: your unique talent and gift;
you must bring that to the light of
day”. He would conclude: “that is
your duty in life”. In those days:
they were rediscovering the
Greeks; he may have been reading
Aristotle who had said, that the
purpose of life is eudaimonia,
properly translated as “flourishing”:
using your talents to the full. And
I’m trying to say to you: you may
not be able to change the world;
photo Elizabeth Handy
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Cátedra Rafael Escolá
de Ética Profesional
Universidad de Navarra
Nafarroako Unibertsitatea
Escuela Superior de Ingenieros
Ingeniarien Goi Mailako Eskola
Paseo de Manuel Lardizábal, 13. 20018 Donostia-San Sebastián.
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