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Business Leadership: A Call to Save T&T

by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI

A physician once said: “The best medicine for humans is Love.” Someone asked: “What if it does not work?” He smiled and said: “Increase the dose.”

The only way to save T&T is for all of us to increase the dose of love for God, each other, creation and self. It is a lack of love that has led us to this juncture in our history.

There are many social ills that need to be addressed in T&T and while some believe that we should seek solutions from experts abroad, I believe that transformation of our society resides largely with those of us who live here. There is much that each of us can and must do to save T&T.

The Business community, in particular, must step up to the plate to devise, fund, and help implement programmes that will pull us out of the morass in which we find ourselves.

They must ensure that they themselves are “servant leaders”; that there is no split between the faith they say they profess and the way they live their lives/run their businesses (see Gaudium et Spes); and that they are concerned to promote the social teaching of the Church, for example, respect for human dignity and pursuit of the common good.

They must use their knowledge and skills to lobby our Government to ensure that the resources of the nation are used to lift all our people to a higher, more noble place (Martin Luther King Jr).

While it is true that the various Chambers of Commerce and many businessmen and women can be commended for their good works, more can be done by them, for example, to examine the strategic role of corporate social responsibility in their organisations and to promote ethical behaviour at all levels of society.

Pope Benedict XVI said in his encyclical Charity in Truth: “The economy needs ethics to function correctly… Efforts are needed…to ensure that the whole economy – the whole of finance – [be] ethical.”

His encyclical makes it clear that the business community must not only be concerned about the bottom line (profit).

Business policies and economic policies must be sensitive to the needs of workers, families, those in need and the environment.

We need people-centred businesses and principled leaders.

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It is being organised by the Community of the Companions of the Transfigured Christ (CTC) – John Paul II Centre on Fatherhood. The minimum contribution is TT$600. This is the third such event. This year CTC will be focusing on the theme Business Leadership: A Call to save T&T. The primary purposeof the event is to promote aCatholic corporate identity inT&T. CTC says: “The event willfeature business networking,social justice discussions, and asignificant corporate socialresponsibility opportunity.”

Speakers include Mikkel Trestrail, Director/Co-Founder, JPII Centre on Fatherhood; and Deacon Mike James.

Proceeds will go towards the building fund for a Second- Chance Residential Facility for At risk Adolescent Males. Contact Matthew Hall, Project Coordinator, at 221-9033 for further information or to book a place at the forum.

Read Cardinal Peter Turkson’s 2012 document, “Vocation of the Business Leader: A Reflection.”

Reflect on the six practical principles for business contained therein. There are some memorable quotations in this document:

See No 1 in the Introduction: “Business people have been given great resources and the Lord asks them to do great things. This is their vocation…”

See No 3 in Introduction on page 4: “When managed well, businesses actively enhance the dignity of employees and the development of virtues, such as solidarity, practical wisdom, justice, discipline, and many others. While the family is the first school of society, businesses, like many other social institutions, continue to educate people in virtue…”

See page 2 Executive Summary: “When businesses and market economies function properly and focus on serving the common good, they contribute greatly to the material and even the spiritual wellbeing of society. Recent experience, however, has also demonstrated the harm caused by the failings of businesses and markets…

The transformative developments of our era – globalisation, communications technologies, and financialisation – produce problems: inequality, economic dislocation, information overload, financial instability and many other pressures that interfere with serving the common good…

“Obstacles to serving the common good come in many forms – corruption, absence of rule of law, tendencies towards greed, poor stewardship of resources – but the most significant for a business leader on a personal level is leading a divided life…”

See Executive Summary under “Seeing’” (Cultural Changes): “Business leaders increasingly focus on maximizing wealth, employees develop attitudes of entitlement, and consumers demand instant gratification at the lowest possible price. As values have become relative and rights more important than duties, the goal of serving the common good is often lost.”

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