Gandhi was right: “The only devils in the world are those running around in our hearts”. We cherish them, encourage them, feed them and then blame them for all the ills we suffer. In business, as in life, we create or condone these devils. We fail to see the ones that matter, devoting time to irrelevant misdemeanours and errors, leaving serious problems to multiply and take over. How can religion help?

Perfectly adequate societies exist without religion. People lead lives of unblemished goodness and value without believing but a strong faith helps those of us who find the world complex and sometimes purposeless. Religion can be one of the building blocks of a sustainable society, at the heart of business.

A belief in a creator, a source of energy and wisdom beyond ourselves, can help us focus on a good life dedicated to helping others and leaving our planet in at least no worse shape than we found it. Such faith may be helpful; it is not essential. It works when we have the humility to acknowledge that all faith involves doubt, however strong the belief, however committed the believer.

The social side of religious belief has benefits ranging from communal interests and standard-setting to inspiration for mind-stretching pictures and music. Would the arts have developed so well without the prompting of religious images and thoughts? Are our standards of personal morality improved when religious faith is abandoned?

The foundation of religion, however, is the very human need to look up to (in religious parlance ‘worship’) a being, person, place or ideal to whose standards we aspire. We define those standards ourselves and properly change some of them from time to time as the world changes around us. The desire to worship can be a force for good when translated into generous-spirited behaviour. It is unacceptable when promoted as the only basis for a good life.

Today’s imbalance in religion has been created by faulty definition of standards, leading to false measures of adherence and behaviour. This applies as much in our personal lives as it does in business. We seek adherence to procedures and measures which are themselves often flawed; implemented because the measure was possible rather than because it was relevant.

The absurdities of the legal definition of the corporation as an individual without individual responsibilities, of liability limited to protect the guilty, not the innocent, and of the externalisation of effort and cost onto the customer and the unprotected have all contributed to business being amoral.

That is why the worthy concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is untenable, except as another public relations gimmick, until the idea of Personal Social Responsibility (PSR) is first accepted and attained. PSR will come about when we recognise the corporation as a purely administrative convenience and not some flawless entity whose demands override the needs of fellow human beings.

We will not correct the religious imbalance in business by greater regulation or by the promulgation of ‘more business morality’. If it is to come about it will do so because individually we trust more and regulate less. That requires the trusted to accept their responsibilities just as much as it requires the person placing the trust to have the courage and self-confidence to give it. Since people are fallible they will make mistakes, sometimes deliberately. The proper influence of religion on business is to make the correction of those errors a stern act of learning forgiveness.

If each forgiven mistake is a step towards understanding and practicing better behaviour we will have a fulfilled life with a religious element of its own, whatever our personal beliefs and hopes.

The reason for so many imbalances in our lives is the pace at which the world changes. When life developed slowly and time was seen as something to be enjoyed and not something to be defeated we could catch our breath, reflect, ruminate and digest what was happening to us. “What is this world if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” – remember that? A wise precaution against thinking we are too important to enjoy it all. Movers and shakers, desist – at least occasionally.

Technology has brought so many benefits that we often forget its disadvantages. Capitalism, the engine that has driven material success, is now driving the world, without the restraints necessary to control any powerful man-made system. Where Rothschild beat the stock markets by using carrier pigeons, we now lay cables across the globe to shave a fraction of a second off the time it takes to transmit information.

It is small wonder that the world is getting increasingly unbalanced in so many ways that affect our happiness and the purposeful running of business.

A vital part of a balanced life is the most private of all events – our sexual relationships. These, too, are unbalanced, with consequences that impact everything from productivity to harmony in the workplace. The reason for imbalance in sex is poor education and not – as some popular belief would have – too much activity.

We try to deal with one aspect of sexual education – the physiology of sex – and generally fail to discuss the emotional side of it. We are not even very good with the mechanics, although it is hard to imagine that anyone over the age of ten who is exposed to the mass media and the internet could possibly fail to understand how sex works. It seems inconceivable that parents today are so prurient that they cannot openly discuss the mechanics of physical love with their children. Amazingly, some still fail to, leaving their offspring ignorant even, occasionally, into their twenties.

More important than the mechanics is the emotional or love side of sex. Where are the classes that teach boys about girls’ attitudes and responses towards sex and what their first experience of it means to them? Where are the lessons explaining to girls the completely natural predatory and exploratory nature of boys? Such understanding promotes good behaviour rather than promiscuous activity by enlisting ‘the support of the one for the other’ – a phrase used in virtually every marriage service. It also helps to explain, without condoning, misdirected sexual behaviour.

Understanding another person’s feelings and expectations always helps us to be more responsible towards them.

We know so much today about our world, about our bodies and about our minds that we are now just beginning to realise how much more there is to learn. Our need for transparency in business and social dealings will only ever work if it starts with transparency in our personal lives – and that involves understanding as much as we can about our own make-up and about that of our fellow human beings. Comprehending the frightening revelations and developments that are about to arrive in the next twenty years, and coping with them successfully, requires all the knowledge we can absorb – most importantly about how to live together.

At the heart of happy lives are happy relationships, both platonic and sexual. They are achieved by parents, teachers and mentors being role models and teaching in an open and decent way, not by concealing the issues or pretending they don’t exist.

John Bittleston mentors people in their businesses, their jobs and their personal lives.
Caring deeply about other people always improves your own welfare – John Bittleston

“The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks”, John Bittleston’s children’s books, are shortly being launched as high quality, educational, travel games – free to play online. The trailer can be downloaded at
http://www.media-freaks.com/work/azreal/W&W trailer_rev05_subtitles-Desktop.rar (47.9MB)