Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 9 — The Georgia Bulletin, February 15, 1990
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
■ Some people work alone in their jobs. But for all those who
don’t — whether they work with a few or many people —
workplaces are important settings for human interaction.
People share many of their best, most creative ideas at work.
The stories of the major events in people’s lives frequently are
shared at work. People cooperate in setting priorities for their
workplaces and work together to execute plans for achieving those
priorities — plans on which their livelihood depends.
The workplace is a workplace is a workplace! Yes. But it is a
human place too.
So a key factor in determining whether a workplace is an ethical
place lies in the respect shown for this human element in rela
tionships among co-workers, between employers and employees
and with outsiders it serves or who serve it.
How the human element gets respected in all the unique and
complex situations that arise in workplaces often is decided in
meetings, planning retreats and policy-making sessions. As usual,
decision making becomes a vehicle for ethics.
An opportunity exists to contribute to the ethics of the
workplace whenever you are involved in making decisions that
affect people.
David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!
Paradox in the workplace
By Father John J. Castelot
Catholic News Service
Happiness means different things to
different people. Naturally, how a
person defines happiness determines
how that person will try to attain it.
For the early Israelites happiness con
sisted in health, prosperity, security
from enemy attacks, long life or
numerous progeny.
As time went on and the attainment
of such goals often left them disap
pointed, they sought happiness in other
areas: justice, love, harmony — all those
things summed up in the word “shalom,”
usually translated, quite inadequately,
as “peace.”
Like any sincerely religious people,
the Israelites were countercultural. Not
that they disdained the marketplace of
human activity or hated “the world.”
Rather, they realized the risks of accept
ing society’s value system, of simply
adopting all the ways of people who
followed a different ethical system.
In the marketplace of business and
commerce, then as now, the common
goal was profit. At times that meant
“using” other people, depersonalizing
and dehumanizing them.
But it was noticed by some that this
approach depersonalized and dehuman
ized those who followed it and robbed
them of the very happiness they hoped
to attain through their work.
The prophet Amos voiced that con
cern: “When will the new moon be
over,” you ask, “that we may sell our
grain, and the sabbath, that we may
display the wheat? We will ... fix our
scales for cheating. We will buy the
lowly man for silver and the poor man
for a pair of sandals” (Amos 8:5-6).
Jesus stated it bluntly: “What profit
is there for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:37).
The goal Jesus held out to his
followers was the same: happiness. But
he realized where true happiness could
be found and suggested the ways to
achieve it. These ways, so different from
the commonly accepted ones, appeared
downright paradoxical. How can you
Business and values
By Katharine Bird
Catholic News Service
Four business leaders agreed in inter
views that they carry their values as
Christians to work each day. They dif
fered on how receptive the marketplace
is to those values.
“Some people say personal life and
work life have to be kept separate. In
our company we say no, there’s only one
life,” said Ron Nahser, chief executive
officer of Frank C. Nahser Advertising
in Chicago.
His company’s experience has shown
how important values are in creating “a
deeply committed people working in a
supportive community” to achieve com
pany goals.
“Christians have no choice if they are
truly Christians” but to bring their
values to work, said Gregory F. Pierce.
It is part of what Christians do to make
the world “a better place.” He is co
publisher and editor of ACTA Publica
tions and head of the National Center
for the Laity in Chicago.
Values and beliefs filter down into the
principles guiding business and attitudes
toward employees and customers, said
Tony and Roni Bird, my brother and
sister-in-law. They are the owners of Com
plete Office Supply in Indianapolis, Ind.
Taking values to the marketplace
doesn’t mean Christians are supposed
“to force their values on everybody
else,” Pierce said. “It’s a matter of give
and take, listening to others, putting
your own values forward and figuring
out what can be done.”
How a person’s values fare in the
marketplace may have something to do
with a company’s environment or cor
porate culture, established by its
governing principles and policies.
Employees need to realize that there
already is a culture operating in a com
pany, Pierce said. The corporate culture
affects the employee and the employee
affects the corporate environment.
Nahser teaches part time at a Chicago
university. He tells students that “the
values of an organization will have a
deep impact on them.” So students need
to check out how their values “can be
lived within the organization.”
Bird told of leaving a job when he
discovered that meeting sales objectives
could mean selling more products to a
customer than the customer needed or
could afford, a practice he considered
dishonest.
How else do Christians bring values
fulfill yourself by “denying” yourself?
But paradoxes, seeming contradic
tions, often express valuable truths. The
truth of Jesus’ teaching is borne out in
actual human experience over and over
again.
—People whose whole goal is self-
fulfillment alone end up selfish, crabby,
disillusioned, wretchedly unhappy.
—People who make it their goal to help
others achieve fulfillment expand and
grow themselves, attaining a fulfillment
that all the world’s money cannot buy.
All Jesus’ true followers have set this
as their goal, in the marketplace and
elsewhere.
Is his route to happiness counter-
cultural? Yes. But it is interesting that
people who do not acknowledge its
validity for themselves seem to recog
nize its validity in a person like Mother
Teresa of Calcutta, who lives the
paradox of faith so convincingly. They
even gave her the Nobel Peace Prize.
(Father Castelot is a biblical i ’
scholar and free-lance writer.)
FURTHER NOURISHMENT
■ “If people like myself and my col
leagues do not take the principles (of
the U S. bishops’ pastoral letter on
economic justice) off the printed
page and put them to the pavement
in the work-a-day world, then what
difference will these pronounce
ments make?” writes Thomas
Paulick in On the Firing Line. Written
by the Business Executives for
Economic Justice, a Chicago group,
the position paper provides a prac
tical example based on personal
experience of how managers
terminate or lay off employees as
justly as possible. (ACTA Publica
tions, 4848 N. Clark St., Chicago, III.
60640. 1990. Paperback, $3.95.)
CNS photo of scene from “The China Syndrome” by Columbia Pictures
into the workplace?
In most instances, Nahser said, it is
done subtly. At his agency, each
employee is given a card stating the
company’s personal and organizational
values. The personal values are attitude,
integrity, hard work and talent. Nahser
said they reflect his father’s views on
what it takes to succeed in advertising.
The organizational values are growth,
fairness, responsibility and respect for
people, Nahser added.
Pierce told of a Chicago group called
Business Executives for Economic
Justice. Invigorated by the U.S.
bishops’ 1986 pastoral letter on the
economy, the group is studying how to
relate their work to the church’s social
teachings.
The group wrote a position paper
recently called “On the Firing Line, ” dis
cussing ethical considerations when firing
an employee. Companies have to fire peo
ple at times, Pierce noted. The question
is “how you do that as a Christian.”
He told of a Chicago company where
supervisors must tell employees face to
face when they are being terminated.
The rule ensures it is done in a way that
respects the employee’s dignity, not
through a pink slip in a paycheck, Pierce
said. It also “lessens the eagerness” to
fire people.
Because of the rule, the company
takes greater care when hiring people,
Pierce added. Supervisors try to
forestall problems later by responsibly
hiring people with an eye to long-term
employment.
(Ms. Bird is associate editor of Faith
Alive!)
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Faith Alive! is published by Catholic News Service, 3211 Fourth St. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20017-1100. All contents copyright © 1990 by Catholic News Service.