A few years ago I attended an inspiring presentation at BYUI for business majors. The speaker (can’t remember his name) discussed the disappointing drop in empathy that he noted in return missionaries who entered the business field. He described how he had gone on a mission to a third world country and had seen first hand the devastating effects of poverty. The speaker shared many heart wrenching stories of righteous individuals stuck in circumstances beyond their control. He vowed to be empathetic to the plight of those in need when he returned to the states. After returning home from his mission the presenter obtained a business degree and started working for an international company. During his tenure at this company he was placed in situations where (to increase the bottom line) he had to take advantage of the poor. He eventually chose to leave and started his own company.
The speaker called on all present to:
- not forget the mission experiences had with righteous individuals in poverty
- not lose empathy towards those in difficult situations and
- be responsible businessmen by conducting “righteous business” that does not take advantage of the poor (such as advocating within your place of work so that decisions made do not inflict harm on vulnerable people).
The presenter went on to give several examples of RM’s who had turned away from their mission experiences by becoming ruthless and taking advantage of others.
I really enjoyed the lecture. However, several of the individuals sitting next to me (all RM’s) expressed disappointment in the presentation. They made statements such as “I didn’t expect moral coaching but rather hints about how to build a company and make money.” I saw in that interaction just what the presenter had expressed, a desire for an increase in business savvy at the cost of empathy for the poor. I was disappointed and somewhat crestfallen. During the same time period I attended several lectures from business professors at BYUI who contended that one needed to take advantage of cheap third-world labor whenever possible in order to stay competitive. There was no discussion of business ethics or when such practices could be harmful.
I have known many RM’s who have succumbed to the temptation of a quick buck at the cost of the vulnerable. A couple examples include a) RM’s selling shoddy items or services (door-to-door) with the same zeal they did preaching the gospel and b) starting and/or participating in pyramid schemes at the expense of family, friends, and the gullible. Not to mention high level executives that endorse contracting to sweat shops, cutting corners on products that could injure people, unethical lending practices, or strategically taking advantage of people who are uneducated.
- Have you noticed RM or LDS businessmen turning away from empathy?
- What do you think about the presenters suggestions?
- What makes a “righteous business” or an “unrighteous business”?
- Is having a “righteous business” even possible?
Wheat & Tares 
I remember when I got back from my mission, some guys in my student ward tried to recruit me to go sell alarms over the summer. I informed them that I was engaged and would be getting married right before summer hit. While my fiance was sitting there, one of them suggested that being married requires money and that perhaps I should leave my wife right after the wedding to go sell alarms and that my wife would be happier in the long run if I did.
Both my fiance and I wanted to punch him in the face so bad.
The Old Testament has some good advice about not harvesting all the way to the corners of your field, and not muzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn.
I’ve felt the muzzle on my kisser often enough to think that American business could probably stand a little more of the Old Testament’s reminders.
A mission is great training for this. You inure yourself to rejection. Many missionaries have great numerical success by seeking out the vulnerable for conversion. Of course there are golden converts, but there are also plenty of vulnerable people who got steamrolled.
People get so fixated. Too bad, really.
“During the same time period I attended several lectures from business professors at BYUI who contended that one needed to take advantage of cheap third-world labor whenever possible in order to stay competitive. There was no discussion of business ethics or when such practices could be harmful”
There is something to be said by outsourcing labor to less costly locations. For example garment workers in Haiti would love to have the jobs that those in the Dominican Republic have, even though both pay far less than US minimum wage jobs. Consider faithful members of the church in Haiti, where a living wage is $5.50 per day. Is it kinder to pay them $10-15 dollars a day, versus the $50 you might pay a US worker for the same labor?
I have the same sympathies as Jay. I think there is a difference between exploitation and paying someone what they’re worth. Now if the professors were calling it exploitation then they’re wrong, yes, I’m sure exploitation happens but not all companies that pay the going rate are exploiting.
I remember on my mission a missionary that would go around baptizing little kids. He had great numbers and even became AP (maybe so he wouldn’t be out there baptizing so many little kids?). I was in an area after him and we would go visit the kids but there was no way they were going to come back, they weren’t mature enough and didn’t have any support (besides us missionaries).
As for exploiters post mission I don’t know, what I do know is that I don’t just trust a person because they are Mormon.
Jay and Jon, Excellent points both.
I agree that using third-world labor can be either a positive thing for those employed in those countries or a negative one. What I found disconcerting was the lack of discussion about when it could be harmful (which it certainly can be).
But that’s not really the thrust of the OP. The main thrust is many RM’s turn their backs on the disadvantaged after returning home.
In part this post is about hoping missionaries don’t lose the perspectives on poverty that they gained on their mission. Interesting questions:
1) whether such lessons are really had by all on the mission. “There but for the grace of God go I” mingled with a little pity is different from a commitment to a helping over a lifetime.
2) whether the curriculum could foster serving the poor more, or could have richer and more complete discussions. The correlated curriculum does not distort or weaken the teachings of the scriptures on this important topic, but in my opinion it receives less coverage in the church curriculum than it does in the scriptures. In gospel principles, we have about 1/3 of the fasting lesson on helping the poor materially, 1/4 of the charity lesson on helping the poor materially, and a few sentences in the tithes and offerings lesson.
3) Whether or not and how often the church system sends mixed messages. For example, my mission president was wealthy and I remember his wife encouraging us to develop a desire for very expensive cars. The desire for wealth is often taught informally in church settings, though it has no place in the curriculum or the scriptures.
I hope this is not too judgmental. I know that if you are in business, your economic choices are constrained by what your competitors are doing, even if you would do something different. However, if you believe there are niches where one can treat others honorably and well and survive, you have a better chance of finding them.
Stephen
You mean “People get so fixated” on making money? I’m not sure I got exactly what you were meaning.
I taught a lesson once in Elders Quorum on honesty. I told a story about how someone I knew very well was shorted several thousand dollars on some work he had done by a well-known, prominent LDS businessman (and relatively high Church official). When asked about it, he said that it would cost about the same amount of money in fees to take him to small claims court – so he could either accept it, or go to court and end up with the same amount of money.
While the story in and of itself was bothersome to me, the response of the quorum was even more bothersome. At least half of the members said that that was just how business was done, that business honesty was different than life honesty, that if you didn’t “play the game”, you couldn’t compete because everyone else was doing it.
I didn’t really have much else to say for the lesson.
I think the OP generalizes the experiences and intentions of missionaries to an inappropriate degree. Who’s to say that missionaries are particularly empathetic? And even if that’s the case, don’t most mission programs encourage such behaviors as a means to the end of more baptisms? I know that when I was a missionary I was probably more empathetic, but that was largely a function of being face to face with situations that created empathetic reactions. I also remember having District Meetings where the lesson was about how to be more empathetic in order to be more effective in converting investigators. (As if such a thing is possible. What was being taught was how to ACT more empathetic). I also had experiences in my mission where we were explicitly forbidden from doing certain activities that I think were highly empathetic, because they were not fruit-producing. So maybe this big comedown isn’t as pronounced as it might seem at first blush.
Wow. You’ve really touched a nerve here. When we have numbers-driven baptisms, we shouldn’t be surprised by what happens in the business world. The sad thing is, some of these guys will end up serving as mission presidents.
Very good points. I suppose I did describe mission experiences in a bit of an idealistic light. (I did this probably because I was an idealist when I served a mission and that idealism influenced the experiences I had.)
Yet we are told that missions are “supposed” to be the highlight of our lives up to that point. Missions are supposed to help ingrain all the principles we have been taught in Sunday school: such as honesty, charity, empathy, treating others like yourself, doing good to all men etc.
Whether people learn empathy/charity on their mission (or in Sunday school) or not, their post-mission business practices still seem incongruent with gospel teachings.
I suppose I went the other way as my mission really turned me off the the “numbers” game in the Church. It reminds me more of a corporation than the gospel.
Even now, as an example, regardless of what I did or how many times I saw my home teaching family in any given month, I turn in a ‘N’ when they asked if I visited them. And this may even be a month where I went over at 9pm to give a blessing, talked to them 10+ times that month, etc.
The exploitation of labor is a tricky issue. Overall, the outsourcing of labor to third-world countries improves the living conditions of those employed, even though it may be unethical in most circumstances. Deciding what should be done about it, and actions cause the most harm or good, are matters for Governments, firms, and special interest groups. Calling a spade a spade on the other hand is completely fine. Taking your business oversea’s so that you can produce a good by compensating the true labor value relative to price (I could go into more detail, but to save space like the BoM writers, I won’t) well below a living wage, is unethical. Exploiting the relative wage markets of impoverished nations is hardly ethical in any kind of pure absolute and/or Christian sense, even though the opportunity costs to that nation’s people are greater when businesses don’t relocate to their country.
I think the empathy of the Missionaries depends on the Elders. Some of them are genuine people with real concern for the investigators and the people they serve, whereas others are ambitious and have agenda’s. Each person get’s what matters most to them from their missions, but the incentives offered by the missionary program are status/rank/position. The program is sales quota’s, with little control on quality. On my exit interview with my Mission President, he asked me who thought he should consider for future leaders – this was interesting because he knew that I had little regard for Mission leadership. The only suggestion I could offer was to choose those Elders who he could really invision being active and serving as Elders quorum President, when such leadership positions were more of a burden than ego boost. It never ceases to amaze me how many of the AP’s come home and drop the Church by jumping into their old clothes. I can name three that were close friends who were sexually active within less than a year from their return. I lost interest in the Church out of having been tremendously interested and involved in the Church. These guy’s never cared, and to this day many remain completely unawares of the regular issues and topics casually discussed here. They were just fake, yet rewarded with leadership – because they played the sales game. Everyone of these guys also had substantial baptism numbers.
“Have you noticed RM or LDS businessmen turning away from empathy?
What do you think about the presenters suggestions?
What makes a “righteous business” or an “unrighteous business”?
Is having a “righteous business” even possible?”
I Have seen LDS floks engaging in what I consider to be ovbiously unethical business practices. The previously mentioned pyramid schemes being a good example. I also knew a number of people in Salt Lake who were selling “dietary supplements” that were nothing more than snake oil. Thanks to Sen. Hatch’s years of advocacy the supplement industry continues to be protected from actual testing and prooving of their products. So these are unrighteous business folks being protected by unrighteous goverment. Both hell bent on making sure that industry has no enforacable standards for quality or the claims made about the products.
Its very difficult to have a “righteous business” because the underlying goal / need of any business (to make a profit) is an a-moral goal, that is sought after with great zeal.
More than that though there are many challenges to the bottom line of any business.For example, labor is often one of the largest items in any budget. So brining down labor costs becomes a goal, but how many people look at that goal from an ethical point of view? And even with an eye to the well being of one’s emploiees it does not mean that a good answer will be easy to find. I’ve been strugling with this exact issues for several months now.
In general though business is not a place one should look for examples of ethical leadership.
Douglas: You state: In general though business is not a place one should look for examples of ethical leadership.
This depends. In Buddhism, there is a noble eightfold path towards ending suffering. They are the fundamental precepts of Buddhism. One of the eight is “Right Livelihood”. In this view, it is better to be poor than to make money unethically.
It is actually a very profound way of looking at things. While there may be some guidelines, there is no outside person forcing a Buddhist to do this. There is no “temple interview” withholding blessings if someone doesn’t follow the precept. It is up to each person to individualize what it means in their life.
But the principle is FUNDAMENTAL to Buddhism. And there are businesses that at least try to be ethical. They may not be the “richest” in the world in terms of money, but they are rich in other ways.
In the LDS Church, at least in Utah, there is practically a great value placed on outward appearance (while not necessarily a “doctrine”). The richer people tend to be called to higher levels of the hierarchy.
There does get to be an issue of relative values: integrity/honesty vs making a living. That is actually the core of the illegal immigration issue. Can someone in the US illegally to make money to support their family say that they are “honest in all their dealings with their fellowman”? Which is a higher “good” – making money or integrity? It affects almost everyone from a migrant worker here illegally to the CEO of a company.
Thank you Douglas
“In general though business is not a place one should look for examples of ethical leadership”
Unless those people are our peers and leaders within the church as well. Shouldn’t they be the ones modeling how businesses can be run within the bounds of morality?
#18 Troth
They should be. Unfortunately, at least in Utah, there are many who consider it “moral” to take advantage and cheat in business. They don’t think it is dishonest, but merely “how the game is played.” And because everyone does it, and still goes to the temple / has high leadership callings / etc., it is accepted that this is a correct assumption.
#17 Mike
“While there may be some guidelines, there is no outside person forcing a Buddhist to do this. There is no “temple interview” withholding blessings if someone doesn’t follow the precept. It is up to each person to individualize what it means in their life.”
This is Kant’s notion of the autonomy of ethics. If a person only acts ethically because God or another authorty is watching and will dole out a punishment then the individual in question can not be said to be an ethical person. With or without the presence of an external authority, it is really always a matter of the individual. How hard is it to lie in a temple recomment interview? I think its incentivised.
“There does get to be an issue of relative values: integrity/honesty vs making a living. That is actually the core of the illegal immigration issue. Can someone in the US illegally to make money to support their family say that they are “honest in all their dealings with their fellowman”? Which is a higher “good” – making money or integrity? It affects almost everyone from a migrant worker here illegally to the CEO of a company.”
You are over simplifying the issues. I don’t think you can compare the plight of a subsistance farmer in Mexico who suffers a crop failure and has not safety net what so ever, with that of a upper middle class American business owner who feels pressuer to make the bottom line as strong as possible. Ethics do apply in each situation but they can’t be compared directly because they share no context.
#18 Troth,
In theory I agree with you, but MBAs like the rest of us are products of our education and our culture. I am encouraged by some of the things that are going on at places like Harvard and Stamford but in general business ethics are stunted by the fact that an a-moral goal is at the center of the endevor of being in business. Also some business people feel that the entire sphere in which they operate should be skewed to their percieved self interest. I think this is perhaps the biggest problem I see in the circles I travel in, business owners deeply resent the wages they pay, the regulations they follow, the taxes they own, etc. Because it “inhibits” their ability to do business.(There are times when I too am almost seduced into this mode of thinking.) Granted, these are not thinking people, but being LDS does not make one a thinking person, or an ethical person. These traits flow from different springs.
It is so easy to get focused on a single target and let everything else fall to the side. That is why Christ noted that it is impossible to serve two masters.
So one cannot serve God and Money. (Note the capital M) ;o)
Re: outsourcing, I suppose I should feel some guilt that Toyota decided to have my Camry outsourced to cheap redneck Kentuckians instead of expensive Japanese, but I don’t.
If labor costs in a place you’re considering outsourcing to are kept artificially low by, for example, government repression or substantial currency manipulation, then I can see how that outsourcing would be unethical. Otherwise, I’m not sure it’s any more unethical than buying a generic brand instead of Chloraseptic. (Of which I have consumed gallons this miserable weekend.)
“Have you noticed RM or LDS businessmen turning away from empathy?
Consistently
What do you think about the presenters suggestions?
Spot on yet idealistic.
What makes a “righteous business” or an “unrighteous business”?
Ethical behavior period.
Is having a “righteous business” even possible?”
Absolutely.
This thread has my mind racing with so many thoughts I do not even know where to start or end.
I can relate to so much that has been said here. I always resented the numbers part of my mission. My mission presidents were incredible men and my first was a wildly successful salesman however he taught us constantly that our goals in the mission and life would be met through obedience. All of the Assistants I had were clowns who fall into to category of (if I could somehow do baseball baptisms I would) except one.
Is Utah still the business fraud capital of the world? It held that esteemed position for years. I have witnessed very few wealthy church members who are gracious people. Now I know that is a wild generalization but it has been the typical experience throughout my life.
There does seem to be direct correlation in many places in the church, particularly Utah, where ones perceived wealth equates to leadership positions. Frankly it makes me ill. I completely believe in the literal translation of the “rich man eye of the needle” scripture.
Hey excessively wealthy people be careful, be wise and do not be stingy with the Lord.
Thanks for the post Thomas. I think we all have to strive to make our actions more congruent with our values to one degree or another. To me the incongruence expressed by dishonest through business practices by RM’s seems exceptionally glaring.
Why is it surprising that a self absorbed image consumed 19 year old, becomes a self serving numbers driven missionary and comes home to be a self promoting money hungry individual?
Missionaries that serve a mission to serve God will function differently in business than missionaries that serve a mission because their parents want them to and they will function in business differently than missionaries that serve a mission so that LDS girls will marry them.
As a sister missionary in Chile I watched a variety of missionaries, and had two very different mission presidents. The fault of the lack of morals does not reside in the church of the mission, but the nature of the individuals that serve. Those that embrace the natural man, need the glory, honor and respect of other 19 year old boys- in contrast to those that in quiet humilty serve the Lord in what ever capacity He calls them to. You won’t see the latter in an MLM.
Christians in general have a hard time with the pratical implications of their faith, it’s not a problem exclusive to Mormons or Returned Missionaries.
“Christians in general have a hard time with the pratical implications of their faith, it’s not a problem exclusive to Mormons or Returned Missionaries.”
True. As Jesus never actually said: “I never said it would be easy; I only said it would be worth it.”
Johnny come lately to the discussion:
1) I wish the lecture could be given at law schools, med schools, and especially to LDS big pharma business reps and CEOs. What is more evil that watching a waiting room filled with the poor, suffering and dying as the pharma rep cuts in line to see his golf-buddy and name-brand-pill-prescribing doc friend while wearing a rolex and sporting a gucci attache case? These are the rich men who often have natural leadership abilities and we can’t help but turn around and make them our Sadducees. We equate prosperity with righteousness, never thinking that it comes in another ways as well.
Would it help if we saw more righteous leaders who were ‘blessed’ in ways NOT associated with worldy riches? I’m cheering for the next low-income farmer, carpenter, or starving artist GA.
2) On the bright side, it is hopeful that the Y and church members will continue working and find ways to improve on social justice and econ projects with humanitarian ambitions such as micro-grants, playground generators/well pumps, fair trade, etc.
j.a.t.
welcome any time!
I had a previous post about this topic you may also find interesting.
http://www.wheatandtares.org/2010/10/27/the-mormon-wealth-attribution/
j.a.t.:
I think it might be a while. The numbers are fairly secretive, but the latest estimate for the Church’s mall in downtown SLC are in the range of $3 BILLION. From the Church’s own humanitarian website, in actual cash outlays, they spend just under $300 million over a 25+ year period, or around $15 million annually. I’m not saying this is right or wrong, but it does appear to suggest priorities.
mike S
IAM TROUBLED ALSO THAT THE QUORUM THAT YOU TAUGHT THAT LESSION TO THOUGHT THAT DISHONESTY IN BUSSINESS WAS OKAY. THEY SHOULD KNOW BETTER . IVE KNOWN AND IVE HEARD THE TESTIMONIES OF LDS BUSSNESSMEN WHO ARE HONEST, THEY DONT ALWAYS DO AS WELL FINANCIALLY AS THE DISHONHEST ONES BUT THE LORD DOES BLESS THEM AND THEY USUALLY DO MAKE IT COMFORTABLY. I GUESS SOME FORGET THAT ALL THE MATERIAL WEALTH WE GAIN IN THIS LIFE WE DONT TAKE WITH US. ONLY WHAT WE WERE INSIDE GOES WITH US WHEN WE DIE.