So what does business and religion have in common?

Posted by Brooke Clarke at Fri, 26/06/2009 - 10:38am in

On Wednesday night I attended a talk by Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Investment Bank, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach at St Mary’s Primrose Hill on “Taming Mammon: the moral dimension of money”.

Lord Griffiths is a committed Anglican and chairman of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Trust. He argues that in dealing with the present crisis it’s not enough to look for purely technical solutions. “What interests me are the ethical, moral and spiritual dimensions of money” he said.

Here is a link to his book on Capitalism, Morality and Markets.

The role of faith in business is an interesting one and seems to be to be conspicuously absent, particularly given the seemingly dominant influence personal religious beliefs play in government, perhaps most dramatically in the US, despite the US constitutional separation of church and state. 

Here in the UK, where that distinction does not exist and there is a constitutionally established state religion. Tony Blair has said "Politics and religion - it is not that they do not have a lot in common, but if it ends up being used in the political process, I think that is a bit unhealthy."

Lord Griffiths last night argued that the absence of ethics and morality are indeed key causes of the current crisis, and therefore faith and religion have a role to play in reparation. There are plenty of agnostics who have a strong moral compass, so the assertion that morality and ethics only exist in a religious context must be wrong. 

So what does business and religion have in common? 

Perhaps nothing.  But business and ethics must co-exist, particularly if our aim as a society is to learn from the past.

The tricky question, which was not surprisingly not answered, is ‘how’?

A fellow attendee noted “On real issues of morality, such as the wholly unacceptable distribution of wealth, Lord Griffiths said nothing. He did at least accept that rewards in the City are too high, but did not give any indication of how to address the obvious market failures that lie behind that -- lack of competition between banks on fees, the churning of financial products that are of no utility outside the financial sector, the sclerotic size of the banks.”

To me, the most interesting point made last night was the historical institutional emphasis of organisations on competency versus character in the race for talent.  As organizations, we all want the smartest, most experienced, most competent employees, and often the strength of a CV and a track record of success, can identify these candidates fairly easily. 

But how do we really know what someone stands for, and if their morale compass is strong enough to guide them through the ethical landmines that today’s world can often present?  How can we – or can’t we – identify a high level of morality in candidates?

That is the real question.

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