One of the things I enjoy most about working in the world of communications and public relations is exposure to new and inspiring people from all over the world.

The latest one for me has been British corporate philosopher, writer and researcher Professor Roger Steare. A 21st century EF Schumacher (Small is Beautiful), Professor Steare is working to transform our growth-obsessed economic culture into one where people are returned to the economic equation. 

I have been lucky enough to work with Professor Steare as part of promoting the upcoming Human Resources Institute of New Zealand Annual Conference, 1-3 Sept, Wellington at which he is a keynote speaker. The theme is timely - restoring trust - and five stars to HRINZ for hunting out such a fantastic array of ‘on to it’ people to inspire and motivate our businesses leaders.

Professor Steare, a most affable and charming British gent, is completely comfortable with making bold statements about the ethical corruption of today’s growth-obsessed economic and democratic systems. How can a world be sustainable when the dominant ethos is to maximise profit in business and maxmise personal economic happiness in the voting majority? The minority interests are left to supposedly be protected by social legislation and personal conscience… 

Of course, that doesn’t work. As Professor Steare says, the evidence lies in the financial, environmental and social meltdowns that now challenge us. 

At the basis of it all are serious deficiencies in the moral character of senior business executives and politicians which trickles down to affect the morality of all of us. And, Professor Steare has the research to back it up from his ongoing online moral character survey with results so far based on a very robust sample of more than 7,000 respondents across cultures, sectors and genders. (And, he’ll be releasing his version of the New Zealand moral character profile when he’s here - so watch the HRINZ space! - though he tells me Kiwi men have more in common with the morally dubious British male than they do with Kiwi females!).

One overriding conclusion of his research is that senior executive teams of corporates (which he sees as the most “dysfunctional form of human association”) have been dominated by “arrogant and greedy middle-class, middle-age males” whose key goal, guess what, is profit.

Indeed, he has done in-depth studies on the differences in the moral character of men and women and the results are scientifically robust - women score significantly higher than men on ethics tests and very much higher than men when it comes to making decisions that are inclusive and good for all. No surprises that the finance sector is dominated by male executives!

On a practical level, Professor Steare is working to rebalance things in his professional capacity as a corporate philosopher/‘ethicability’ consultant. He challenges executives and leaders, who are enlightened enough to realise they need his help, to ask themselves not just “is it profitable?” and “is it legal?” but also “is it right?” He helps them develop the answers through a well-developed system based on three key questions:  

• What is the purpose of our organisation? Is it moral, does it add to the quality of people’s lives?
• Do all the people who form our organisation feel a sense of belonging? 
• Do we have a clear understanding of what our moral values are?

Indeed, the biggest challenge for all of us is to ask ourselves “what is right?” or else we’re headed for collapse, because as Professor Steare says quoting 20th century ‘anti-anthropocentric’ writer and environmentalist Edward Abbey,  “growth for the sake of growth is like the philosophy of the cancer cell”.