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James O’Toole The Executive’s Compass Business and the Good Society Ledaership III – Spring 2016 Prof. Stephen Adei Profile: James O’Toole • Born on April 14, 1945 • Holds a Doctorate in Social Anthropology from Oxford University (A Rhodes Scholar). • He served as a Special Assistant to Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Chairman of Task Force on Work in America. • He was the Director of Field Investigations for President Nixon's Commission on Campus Unrest. • He won a Mitchell Prize for a paper on economic growth policy • He served on the prestigious Board of Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Editor of The American Oxonian magazine. He also was editor of the New Management Magazine • He was the University Associates' Chair of Management at USC and served as Executive Director of the Leadership Institute. • Director of the Twenty-Year Forecast Project (where he interpreted social, political, and economic change for the top management of 30 of the largest US corporations). • 1994-97 was Executive Vice President of the Aspen Institute. He also has served recently as Managing Director of the Booz Allen & Hamilton Strategic Leadership Center, and Chair of the Center's academic Board of Advisors. • In 2007 he was named one of the "100 most influential people in business ethics" by the editors of Ethisphere, and one of "the top 100 thought leaders on leadership" by Leadership Excellence magazine. • He recently authored his new book Creating the Good Life and currently moderates leadership seminars at Aspen Institute. Main Message of the Author • We differ about the good society because we have different values and tensions between the elements of the good society namely: Liberty, Equality, Efficiency and Community • The way forward for leaders is to understand the complexity these present and to seek simplicity on the side of the complexity . Among the various ways to organize the good society, DEMOCRACY seem to offer the best milieu and like Churchil said, it is the best except that all others are worse. The power of the book lies in its critical examination of the great minds on the Good Society from Aristotle and Plato to Zaleznik Democracy and the Good Society COMPLEXITY IN THE DEFINITION OF THE GOOD SOCIETY DIFFERENT VALUES WITHIN A SOCIETY DEMOCRACY Presents a Good Framework for remedying the dilemma The Central Leadership Question is “WHOSE VALUES ?” Whose Values determine the way to organize the Good Society ? • We – all of us – will rule ourselves; yet we find we speak different tongues, desire different ends, have different basic assumptions about where society, and the corporations we work in, should be heading. The question indeed is “Whose Values ?” • A simple unidimensional way of looking at problems is unlikely to work in a complex, multidimensional world. • Experience in the Hard-Knocks School of the 1980s has taught us that the art of leadership requires the simultaneous pursuit of several values – values that, in the simplicity, this side of complexity, appear incompatible. The simplicity, the other simple of complexity, offers a different prospect: that incompatible values might be made mutually achievable and reinforcing. The leadership challenge, then, is to get to the other side of complexity. But how does one get there ? Only one sure route has been identified: the enhancement of understanding. • By studying of the great ideas of political, economy and moral philosophy • Gaining an increased awareness of the sources of both conflict and consensus in society, and thus are better prepared to navigate their institutions’ passage through the increasingly turbulent seas of social, political and economic change. That’s the stuff of leadership • As a guide to this vast historical and intellectual territory, we use a “compass card”, a quadrant on which the polar positions are the ideas of liberty, equality, efficiency, and community: The tensions among these four ideas create what historian James MacGregor Burns call ‘the deadlock of democracy’ • Our goal is to get past executives’ often-voiced frustration with this deadlock to an appreciation of the necessity of tension in the process of democratic change. First we will examine why these four great ideas are the major elements out of which a well functioning democracy might construct “the good society”; we then explore the implications for corporations and end with practical applications of what we have learned, • The ideas discussed in these pages are the grist of what Mortimer Adler calls “the great conversation across the centuries” • These are leadership issues because, in the final analysis, they require moral judgments on the part of decision makers. (Decisions based solely on technical knowledge require no leadership.) Moral choices made by leaders can be informed only by a deepened understanding of the ideas that history’s greatest political economists and moral philosophers explicated for the benefit of future generations. • Finally, if my bias is not already manifest, I m an unapologetic believer in democracy. I warn that my other intent is to convince them that the cure for the undeniable ills of our maddening democracy is, paradoxically, more democracy (extracts from the executive’s compass) The Four Poles • Liberty • Economic Liberty….. • Political Liberty….. • Religious Liberty…… • Contemporary Liberty …… • Equality • Aristotle’s natural hierarchy of the human race • Natural Right to Life • Contemporary Egalitarianism • Democratic Egalitarianism • Origin of inequality lay in right to property • The painful trade-off • Community • Efficiency • Trade-offs an the opposing views • Reasons for the break up of the community • Beliefs of the communitarians • Contemporary communitarians • Good society according to corporatists • Economic Efficiency • Leadership Division of Labour . The Contrast Tugging and Trade-offs between the Poles: • Liberty vs Equality • Community vs Efficiency • Efficiency vs Equality • Community vs Equality • Community vs Liberty • Liberty vs Efficiency What to Expect Under Each Comparison Opinions and arguments of each pole Relative Examples Philosophers who support and their opinions General Summary of the Poles and The answering of the big question Democracy - People Power Argument for: Majoritarianism in democracy can bring about a form of tyrannical rule. The solution is Pluralism which is an adherence to the belief in the validity of a diversity of views and practices demonstrated in a deliberate effort to see other points of view. Solutions that tackle two or more components should be aimed at; eg. free education encompassing equality and efficiency • It is therefore almost impossible to achieve a perfect synchronous society • Democracy is the best attempt to achieving a homogeneous society Democracy is the best attempt to a good society The Components of an Impeccable Democracy • Power • Voice • Respect Critique of works Positive: • Clear explanation of the poles of the compass • No evidence of bias • Indication of flaws in the proposed remedy -DEMOCRACY • Simplifies very complex concepts for leaders • The book is multidimensional and can be applied to different aspects of life Negative: • There is no focus on the nature of a good person • The book is not helpful in the analysis of religious concerns • A full understanding of fundamental ideas is almost impossible to achieve. • Democracy has not always been the solution to achieving the good society and it’s more effective in developed economies Implications for Contemporary Leaders: • Global repercussions of decisions taken locally • Consideration of various opinions due to unequal proportions of values • Strengthening Africa’s democracy towards efficiency