Stave One
This is a timeless tale for now and every Christmas, about a lonely man — tight-fisted, wrenching, grasping — who has let his heart grow flinty, hard and bitter. Scrooge cared only about his company. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. Milton Friedman was his guide. A company’s purpose was to increase profits, he believed. And he loved only money.
Scrooge fell asleep. He woke as the curtains on his bed were drawn aside by a figure not quite child nor old man.
“Are you one of the three spirits it would profit me to listen to?” he asked.
“I am,” replied the spectre, who Scrooge recognised as Standard Life Aberdeen’s former co-chief executive, Martin Gilbert. He was embracing the company’s new textbook of good behaviour: Principles for Purposeful Business, by The British Academy and academics at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Together, the two passed through a wall and approached a large pavilion. “Quick!” said the phantom, ushering Scrooge into a lavish party at the Chelsea Flower Show. And, amid the scene of merry making, he could hear a choir of communications officers singing about charity and corporate restraint.
“Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
But time it is to change your ways when things have gone astray!”
Alan Jope on his Unilever soapbox — another believer in corporate purpose — led the descant: “Companies should not profit from causing problems. We call for companies to solve the problems of People And the Planet before profiting”.
“Sounds like Pap!” barked Scrooge.
“Adopt the seven principles for change: Corporate law; Regulation; Ownership; Corporate governance,” urged the choir.
“What crock,” interrupted Scrooge.
“We should all State Purpose, Align Management,” sang the carollers.
“Spam!” said Scrooge.
The spectre looked back at Scrooge as the seas rose and the gulf between rich and poor widened.
Stave Two
Scrooge layback in his bed, prepared to be visited by the second spectre. He awakened to the sight of SLA’s now sole chief executive, Keith Skeoch, a jolly giant with brown curls, and on his head a holly wreath with shining icicles.
“Are you the Ghost of Christmas Present?” asked Scrooge. “If you have ought to teach, let me profit from it.”
“I am and I have — more than Martin did,” said Mr Skeoch, leading Scrooge to the street. Greggs the baker was still open but the grocers’ shutters were half down. “Society needs to trust business again, rebuild customer loyalty, engage with employers, suppliers,” Mr Skeoch said. “It needs to understand the purpose of companies.”
But the spirit did not tarry. Without warning, they were on a bleak moor where the miners live. Then above a black and heaving sea. They stood beside the helmsman of a ship, as the icebergs broke, the oceans rose and the polar bears drowned. And, then, they were in the house of Scrooge’s nephew, who had long challenged his uncle’s mean spirited ways: “Uncle Scrooge even claimed climate change was humbug, as I live!” he said.
“I am sure he is very rich,” replied his wife, in defence of the old man.
“What of that?” Scrooge’s nephew continued wolfishly to his cousin, Larry Fink from BlackRock. He felt that Mr Fink, as a serial letter writer to chief executives about ‘A Sense of Purpose’ in business, would concur. And so he continued in his appraisal of uncle Scrooge.
“His wealth is no use to him. He does nothing with it. His is a capitalism of weakened competition, feeble productivity, high inequality. It is the opposite of what it should be where we all share in the benefits. Instead, politicians allow individuals to extract rewards above those necessary to secure the supply of goods, services, land or labour. It is a socially-useless pursuit of profit where corporations, instead of feeding growth, skirt capital reinvestment and exploit cross-border tax loopholes. It is rentier capitalism.”
Stave three
The clock struck and Scrooge beheld a third phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like the mist, towards him.
“Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas yet to come?” asked Scrooge.
He trembled as he followed the grey eminence, who looked not unlike SLA chairman Douglas Flint. The spirit stopped by a knot of richly-caparisoned businessmen, standing in a churchyard and eulogising a corporate titan for pursuing “purpose” over pay. Some protesters, led by Mr Jope, dismissed it as “Woke washing”.
“What has happened to his money?” asked one of the businessmen.
“He left it to his company,” claimed another.
“By that, you mean investors alone or staff, pensioners, customers, suppliers and the wider community who benefit from the taxes paid?”
“Hah. That the lawyers will decide. Be sure, they will debate the definition of a company and its purpose for years to come — and all profit mightily along the way.”
kate.burgess@ft.com
"profit" - Google News
December 24, 2019 at 02:26AM
https://ift.tt/2sYrcY0
Corporate Scrooges shown spectral vision of purpose over profit - Financial Times
"profit" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2sPbajb
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment