Kharma-capitalism May 8, 2007

"Karma-Capitalism – Values instead of Prices" Keynote-Speaker: Prof. Muhammad Yunus,
Nobel Peace Price Laureate 2006

Hollywood stars are exchanging their swanky BMWs for fuel-saving hybrid cars. Al Gore has made a film about climate change. The American edition of Vanity Fair recently even dedicated a cover story to the phenomenon: “The Green Issue”. Over the next few years, Lidl is aiming to make 20% of its sales with organic products. Ecology is suddenly chic. And the new target group already has a name: LOHAS – Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability. But today, instead of striving for a better world, it’s all about self-improvement. For the first time in its history, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to an economist. Muhammad Yunus is head of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which gives microloans to the poorest of the poor, thus making a major contribution to fighting poverty in Third World countries.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. A huge and radical change is quietly announcing itself. A massive shift in the values of consumers and corporate decision-makers is observable. A new realisation is asserting itself: in the long term, the only successful players will be those who do not leave a trail of scorched earth in their wake. The stakeholders are gaining influence again, undermining the dominance of an orientation geared solely towards shareholder value. What’s really new is that companies are no longer only assuming social and ecological responsibility so as to make positive headlines and improve their own image, as called for by the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. Instead companies are systematically using this approach to develop new areas of business and market solutions for social problems. They are thus increasingly taking on tasks that governments and politicians can no longer solve. Corporate Social Opportunities are becoming an important new area of business.

One area where this change in values is becoming apparent is literature. In the 1980s, “The Art of War” by Chinese general Sun Tzu, a book dating from 500 B.C., was the absolute No. 1 management read. It was about destroying one’s opponent as effectively as possible and strengthening the discipline of one’s own troops. Today it is being replaced by Indian Hindu philosophy. The belief in permanent reincarnation calls for every individual to do good because, at the end of the day, everything we do will eventually reflect on us. Some important ideas can be derived from this. Anybody that strives for a good karma is investing in his own future. This approach is currently also evident at the most prestigious international business schools where, more than any other ethnic group, it is Indians who are shaping the way the management elite of tomorrow is trained. Professors of Indian extraction such as Vijay Govindarajan or Ram Charan are advising Fortune 500 companies and CEOs and teaching at top business schools like Harvard or Dartmouth. They are picking up on the idea of a good karma: “Put purpose before self.”

The idea of doing good is also the most important answer to the current changes. Due to specialisation and outsourcing, most companies today are very closely interconnected and dependent on one another. Companies’ research and development departments often form part of innovation networks and thus have much stronger ties with one another than they used to. In addition, consumers are increasingly becoming co-producers involved in the development and marketing of products and services. In an environment like this, any display of bad behaviour in the present can become a fatal stumbling block in the future. Companies that have come of age in the network economy thus take a totally different approach, most strikingly coined in Google’s mission statement: “Don’t be evil.”
He who does good to the best of his knowledge and conscience today can trust that luck will stay with him tomorrow.

Official Website: http://www.trendbuero.de/index.php?f_categoryId=338&lang=en