Spirituality and business

"Dili moasenso ang negosyo kung magtinarong." This is I guess what most Filipinos think - that cheating is part of the whole business process. Most of you might trivialize the weight of such argument, but you know what, cheaters were probably created in schools long before they get to businessmen.

A recent study published by The Badger Herald just came out that more than half of students in the US cheat their way out to get a graduate degree in business schools. And according to Donald L. McCabe, professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School and co-author of the study "Academic Dishonesty in Graduate Business Programs: Prevalence, Causes, and Proposed Action" said cheating is "part of the nature of business schools."

I just hope that the same thing is not happening here.

Well, unfortunately, honesty seems to be the hardest part for most businesses to live with today knowing the dog-eat-dog competition. In most cases, businesses do not only lie about their taxes they don't also keep what they promise to their consumers.

In the cosmetic industry for example, I've seen women fell in to the hands of false advertising on astringents, whitening creams, anti-wrinkles and etc. And none of these manufacturers would ever want to take a peek on the number of women who have burned their money and faces for the lies they say on TV.

It's already self-evident, that many businesses today use "a fair amount" of dishonesty and sometimes they justify them as another form of persuasion to lure their markets or as a way to preserve corporate survival like Enron for example. But dishonesty in whatever form is still dishonesty - and is never and will never be ethically acceptable. In short, it's totally bad business.

But what about mixing business with spirituality?

We used to think you can talk about and be good about you're spirituality today, and you're out of business tomorrow. And we have traditionally held a solid policy on separation between church and office. But recently, in a growing number of firms especially in the US, that wall is coming down.

There's a new paradigm that's said to impact on society at large which will soon be felt anywhere. Those who already recognized the need for this dramatic shift and are taking action upon it believed that they will be rewarded with benefits beyond measure says Dr. Ken Blanchard, lecturer at Cornell University author or co-author of twelve books, including the One Minute Manager series.

According to CNBC and MSNBC Starbucks is reportedly planning to include a spiritually-inspired quotation on its coffee cups. The coffee company wants customers to think as they drink, but the words, which will come from Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the inspirational best-seller "The Purpose-driven Life," look set to take the strategy to a higher level by invoking the name of the Almighty for the first time.

Companies must ask how far down the path of spirituality they are willing to venture says Laura Nash of Harvard Business School. "And while it's tough to calculate a return on investment a company derives from or spirituality, companies that are embracing these values are convinced that, in the long run, they can do well by doing good."

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