How to Build Value Through Values
Fred Kofman | Sounds True Press
What would happen if all the conscious energy we put into our personal lives was funneled into our professional lives? According to Fred Kofman––visionary teacher, business consultant, and now author of Conscious Business, a book that outlines the importance of emotional engagement in the workplace––the result would be higher levels of efficiency, profitability and, not necessarily dependent on these two things, happier people.
We've seen the positive effects of developing skills of observation and careful decision-making in our daily lives. Conscious living, once a mere catchphrase, now describes an entire movement in which one chooses a lifestyle and behavior that is consistent with their personal values. But value systems, notes Kofman, should not be checked at the door when entering the office. In fact, it is even more important to maintain a strict code of moral behavior in the professional world, a concept that has thankfully recently gained some popularity, at least in external affairs.
But happy people are not made by “better business” alone. The key to healthy interpersonal practices within organizations is actually awareness of the needs of others and being able to express your own. Leading the reader step by step through examples of miscommunication in the workplace and creating a contrast with improved dialogue of request and response, Kofman offers up the possibility of erasing all of those muddled business interactions that stand in the way of the success of so many businesses and, more importantly, leaves a negative impact on the involved parties, turning a 'good day at the office' into a work-related nightmare of frustration and anger.
Interspersing his practical guidance with such inspirational quotes as “Work is love made visible,” to soften even the most hard-hearted of suits, Kofman creates a rather idealistic model for conscious business practices that some will truly find hard to follow to a T––particularly those who are so busy making money the hard way that they haven't the time to get past the first paragraph. If they do, however, perhaps they'll be reminded of a few of their own ideals. For more information or to order copies, please visit www.soundstrue.org. -Ana Yoerg
Banker to the Poor:
Micro Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty Muhammad Yunus | PublicAffairs
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus is truly a visionary and a tireless voice of compassion in leading the path to relieving poverty in even the most destitute villages. Working in 1976 in the Economics department of a Bangladesh university, Yumus became disillusioned and frustrated. He was teaching students economical theories, while outside the university campus famine was ravaging the surrounding communities. In a discipline that often operates from a theoretical bird's eye view––which Yunus warns can often lead to arrogance––he instead opted for what he calls “the worm's eye view.” He wanted to become a student of real life poverty, to learn what daily living is like for one single poor person.
When he visited the poorest households in the neighboring village Jobra and made a list of their debts, it amounted to less than $27. It would have been easy to hand over that amount of money, feeling good about the charitable act, but instead Yunus took steps to start Grameen Bank––a bank dedicated to providing the poor with miniscule loans that would help them break the cycle of poverty. Through relentless hard work, dedication and much resistance, Grameen Bank went on to provide $3.8 billion to families in rural Bangladesh, and his micro-lending system of credit has been adopted in nearly 100 countries. Yunus' approach to eradicating poverty is based on a fundamental belief in the power and desire of all people to make a living for themselves, and the idea that access to credit is a fundamental right for all, not just those who are wealthy and have a good financial track record.
Banker to the Poor offers a challenging look at the way we reinforce poverty––offering welfare instead of encouraging self-sufficiency, only offering loans to candidates with a 'safe' risk factor (what Yunus calls a “financial apartheid”), believing that the poor lack skills and can only be worthwhile contributors to the economy after extensive training. Yunus lays out a convincing argument for the need to nourish and better understand the “people's economy,” or in other words, the people's own efforts to create their own jobs––a concept seemingly foreign to the American corporate world. A hopeful and inspiring read, even for those who, like me, have little prior knowledge or understanding of financing and credit loans. To order copies, visit www.Publicaffairsbooks.com, or learn more about this innovative concept at www.grameen-info.org. -JD