Manila Standard Today

March 25, 2013

On three occasions, I gave a talk to the AB Consular and Diplomatic Affairs graduating students at De La Salle College of St. Benilde. Some of them asked me how they can be employed by a multi-national corporation (MNC); others were wondering about what are expected of them in the corporate world. How I wish I had a crystal ball for accurate answers.  As I sensed the pressure – self-imposed, peer-driven, and family expectation – on these graduating students, I asked myself: At what price are they willing to pursue success in their respective careers?  Since I am no spiritista nor manghuhula, I told them that the future of work described by Carsten Serensen and Gillian Pillansas is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.  But for some concrete examples, I used my own experience and that of my daughter in the corporate world.

I thought the expectations of the corporate world for a De La Salle-Benilde graduate was easy to answer. However, I realized that my corporate life ended a decade ago when I retired from Metrobank.  During that period, I experienced the beginnings of computerized banking operations and the introduction of ATM banking. In my time, the mandate of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to strengthen the banking system led to the merger of Solid Bank and Global Bank with Metrobank.  These developments kept me busy, doing an orientation for new employees (ONE program), professional enrichment program (PEP) and teambuilding program (TBP).  When they were about to be promoted, they underwent a basic supervisory program (BSP). Finally, a  management development program (MDP) was required to become a second-raking officer.

The new graduate needs an entry level education when joining the corporate world and later a continuing corporate learning. The generic nature of our Philippine college education does not automatically ‘fit nor match’ the student for a specific job.  Practicum, as a bridge between the academe and business world, is an excellent way to ‘break in’ the graduating student but it is not enough.  Already, some corporations have “in-house” universities.  For example, Metrobank has a CHED accredited college designed to attract students who will be future Metrobankers.   

One student asked: We have a degree in liberal arts major in consular affairs; it provides us plenty of theories, but our concern is how do we apply these at the workplace.  I answered with this scenario. How would you react to a situation where you are hired to work in Philippine consulate and in the absence of a secretary.your boss requests you to make coffee for him and his guest? Those who looked beyond the coffee situation saw it as a temporary assignment and considered it as “work” experience, listed by HR as a task under “others you may be required to do.”  Some viewed it as a breach of professionalism; they considered the task beyond the raison d’etre for being hired.

There were those who retreated from the challenges in the workplace.  One endorsed the idea of pursuing further studies.  So, I clarified.  For an MBA, I  informed than that experience of at least three years is a requirement of many universities.  If it is pursuing studies leading to a law degree, it is justified to continue study.  Another opted to be an entrepreneur by starting a business.  When I asked why a diplomatic course and not business, he answered that he was previously enrolled in business but he had a tussle with his professor.  So, he took another degree for family compliance.

On how to get into a top corporation, I related the experience of my daughter who, while in college at the Ateneo de Manila University, took every opportunity to exposed herself to the corporate life.  Her practicum was at Ayala Land’s marketing department. She joined the Ayala Young Leaders Program, the Accenture Leadership Program, and Unilever Business Week.  To enrich her undergraduate management course, she applied at the National University of Singapore and received a marketing scholarship.  In high school at the Assumption San Lorenzo, she went to Melbourne, Australia as an exchange student.  She joined the Cathay Pacific essay writing contest that won her a trip to a student conference in Lapalala,  South Africa.  She actively participated in student government and organizations. Bottom line is: Early on, the student must market himself / herself to the world.  By intent and design, one has to show polish her/his talent to be recognized.

Today, Julie is Director of Human Resources of Unilever for the United Kingdom and Ireland. She shares the following advice. “In your senior year, all you can do is find a way to tell your story the best you can.” 1. Write your CV so it shows not just names of orgs or titles you’ve held, include highlights of key achievements. 2. Learn to write an essay properly to get your story across in a few paragraphs. Most MNCs ask you open ended questions on the application form e.g. Give an example of a time when… What do you want to achieve in the next five years. and 3. Do practice interviews; get feedback, then try again and again refining your style. Do it with someone who’s had an interview with an MNC; some schools also offer this service.

“But you can’t invent the story in the final year. Creating that story starts from freshman year, even in high school.” 1. You want to build a strong CV by collecting experiences that demonstrate leadership, initiative, creativity, and skill. These can be in student orgs but also part time work, sports, church, family business, and local community. It’s not enough to hold titles, e.g. president of an org — be sure you can talk about what exactly you did that had great results. 2. You want to network and get exposure. Do practicum even if it’s not required by school, join student contests or workshops or conferences especially those run by MNCs, chat with people already working in MNCs, look for study abroad sponsorships etc. and 3. Ask professors and other adults in your target industry for feedback on your profile — Are you marketable for the jobs you dream of? Then do things to close gaps they identify and note the strengths they see — amplify these in your applications and interviews.

“Finally, students, and their families and the academic institutions that support them, need to realize that planning and preparation for entry into the corporate world needs to happen much earlier than the final year of university. Those that have an early start will have a competitive advantage over others and are more likely to have the opportunity to make their dreams come true.”

Reflection Paper

Dr. Emiliano T. Hudtohan

December 5, 2012

Ateneo Graduate School of Business

Rockwell, Makati City

Introduction

Congratulations to the Ateneo Graduate School of Business for bringing us together to address Green Innovations and Competitive Advantage.

My reflection is an appreciative inquiry. It is intended for personal action and collaborative action research among us who are consciously and, more importantly, viscerally challenged by Professor Panahon’s presentation on green business.  The challenge involves a shift in our ‘inner space’ and a new behavior we bring to our ‘outer space’. The challenge touches the innermost quarks and ions of our bodily system and urges to address the planetary survival of the earth in our galaxy.  The graphic warning of Professor Panahon, taken from Rio + 20 briefing says it all.  We are squeezing dry the planet earth. Visually, if this orange were the earth, we can peel it, slice it and eat; we can virtually preserve it; or consume it and make sure the seeds are planted back to the earth for more oranges.

Time Line

I ask myself and I ask you:  How much time do we have to change?  Chronologically, Erwin Laszlo sees 2012 as the maximum limit of Chaos Point.  Thus, this conference is a giant step forward for the Philippines to awaken and reach a Decision Point.  The promptings of Professor Panahon qualitatively and quantitatively tell us that we must take action now to take the triple bottom line seriously.  Yes, to  economic gain; yes, to concern for people as precious capital and yes, to total care for the environment which is the platform of our existence.

Culturally, Catholic Philippines must assert a new theocentric view as the fourth dimension of business.  There is a call, in the words of William Blake:

To see the World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.

Blake, an 18^th century British poet, through symbols and metaphors teaches us today the transcendental meaning of ecology in nature:  To see the [Earth as an Orange] and hold [sustainability] ‘in the palm of [our] hand’.

There is a call to see our civilization in the evolutionary time line of the Alpha moving toward the Omega, as Teilhard de Chardin sacralized the whole of creation and our human existence.  Today, the Asian Social Institute ventures to add a fourth P to the business triple bottom-line if Profit, People, and Planet. The fourth P is prayer, our asset of the oldest Catholic nation in Asia.

The challenge to Catholic universities like the Ateneo, De La Salle University and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas is to provide an encompassing theological perspective not only on Green Innovations and Competitive Advantage, but likewise the greening of the Earth and the galaxy so that all of His creation will sing the glory and wonder of the Intelligence has been embedded in our civilization

The call for ‘sacralizing the earth and the galaxy’ is a call for a Human Race Church as envisioned by Br. James Ebner, FSC and AQAL theorist Ken Wilber.  Beyond competitive advantage, the global business awaits a massive partnership among business sectors, civil societies, and governments.

It appears that the impact of business management on educational institutions over the past decade or so has successfully transformed ‘charitable’ schools into efficient institutions with excellent bottom-line results so that schools are run professionally like a business.  It is about time, and the time is now, for Philippines educational institutions to return the favor by infusing into business corporations the transcendental values in management and governance to complete the 4-P bottom line.

In educational management circle, Laura Nash,  Newstorm,  Naughton, Dyck and Neubert are including ‘spirituality’ as legitimate management concern.  I understand De La Salle University and Ateneo are in collaborative partnership in bringing to the Philippines Catholic social teaching gurus.

A Caring Consciousness

The 21^st century has been hailed as the century of women.  Rightly, so.  Carroll Gilligan’s feminine voice is heard by men and women today in advancing the ethics of care in opposition to Bentham’s utilitarianism, Kant’s Rights, John Rawl’s Justice, and Aristotelian-Thomistic virtue ethics.  Christine Page announced the return of Mother Earth, a Gaian concept of caring for the earth and more, the galaxy where the earth is part of the whole system.  Gilligan and Page are asking our civilization to shift to a feminist mode in viewing our survival.  Biologically, the women are advance in this regard but it does not mean that mean cannot be feminine in care.

Philippines is no stranger to gender equality.  Sociological studies have empirical shown that we are a maternal society.  As we allow our women and our feminist capabilities, I believe we can more forward to a faster pace of greening.  Maybe, Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian approach to The Wealth of Nations will eventually be rewritten as The Health of Nations, with feminist care and compassion.

A 2025 Vision

The call to partnership and global collaboration will spell out the difference in caring for the earth.  Erwin Laszlo says, “There are many things that differentiate people in the year 2025: religious beliefs, cultural heritage, economic and technological development, climate, and environment.  But a new consciousness enables them to agree on principles that truly matter:

1. It is immoral for anyone to live in a way that detracts from the chances of others to achieve life of well-being and dignity.
2. It is better to exercise responsibility trusteeship of the human and natural sources of wealth on this planet than to exploit them for narrow and short-term benefit.
3. Nature is not a mechanism to be engineered and exploited, but a living system that brought us into being, nourishes us, and given our awesome powers of exploitation and destruction, is now entrusted to our care.
4. The way to solve problems and conflicts in not by attacking each other, but by understanding one another and cooperating in ways that serve the shared interest.”
5. The universal rights… in the 20^th century – apply to everyone in the world, and deserve to be respected above and beyond considerations of personal, ethnic, and national self-interest.

His latest book, Worldshift 2012: Making Green Business, New Politics and Higher Consciousness Work Together is ‘a frightening but calm’ description of world scenario.  But his redeeming statement is that we make or break our future now by making a choice.  I began this reflection with an orange metaphor for a green consciousness; I end by tossing this orange into your hand.  It’s your choice.  What do you do?

Manila Standard Today

January 28, 2013

Chiarra King of Ateneo de Manila University invited me to speak on business ethics at the national conference of the Association of Legal Management on February 2, 2013. Knowing that my audience are students who will soon work with lawyers in a corporate milieu, I pondered upon on what is legal and what is ethical.

Ethics and Moral

On what is ethical, I recall the distinction made by Fr. Belita, CM who said that “ethics is a universal or philosophical system of principles and their application, whereas morality refers to standards or values of a social group, like a religious group, or simply as individual.”  Admittedly, he concedes an overlapping because “some would just interchange the two concepts.”

My take is that the generic ethical principle on determining what is right or wrong in practice requires the individual to makes use of her/his presence to the situation based on her/his nature (DNA) and nurture (external influences).  And a major influence, I believe, is cultural. Our 450 years of Christianity have molded the Filipino to interpret right or wrong in accordance with her/his religious upbringing.  In this sense, practical ethics is applied Catholic or Christian morality. A case in point is the struggle we experienced on the issue of RH bill.  The legality of this bill immediately touches the morality of all concerned. In another case, the right of a mining company to explore and exploit [make use of] mineral resources has created extreme reactions from the pro and con advocates of mining. Recently, the act of the senate president to give year-end gifts to fellow senators may have had legal basis but its propriety, ethically speaking, is being questioned.  These examples tell us that choosing or determining what is right or wrong puts the individual into a dilemma.  How does one then hold the two horns of the tamaraw to wrestle with the dilemma and come out with the right decision?

Years back, as I began teaching the course on business ethics and work-life balance at De La Salle MBA, I wrote an article on “The Leader as a Moral Agent.”  It was my version of Trevino, Hartman and Brown’s idea that a business executive must develop a reputation for ethical leadership.  I think today each one from all walks of life is called to “be good and do good.”  The divide between being and doing is easily seen when unethical and illegal business deal is made and a photo op is published under the heading of corporate social responsibility endeavor.  Can a grandiose donation of a philanthropist be considered ethical when the internal business practices of his company do not comply with legal standards?

Ethical Choice

In many precarious situations, we find ourselves in an ethical dilemma.  Atty. Julius Babista, former Dean of Student Affairs and business and law professor of Adamson University, in his report to my PhD in management class at the De La Salle Araneta University shared Rushworth Kidder’s dilemma paradigms. One must choose between truth and loyalty because it is right to stand on one’s truth and it is right to be loyal to a person. One must choose between individual interest and common good of many.  One must choose to think and plan short-term or long-term satisfaction. And one must stick to the principle of justice and enforce it or exercise the right to be merciful and charitable.

To make the right choice, Kidder offers some tests to determine if one’s behavior is ethical: 1. Obey the law test by complying with the law; 2. Front page test: See your self in a broadsheet or in digital media; 3. Mom test: What will your mother say? 4. Gut test: What does your ‘kutob’ say? 5. Golden rule test: What is good for me is good for them; and 6. Greatest good test: Follow the Rotarian type of common good.

Highly Evolved People

A dilemma requires Solomonic wisdom but it does not come easy because we are socially conditioned by our family upbringing, schooling and corporate culture.  But maybe if we allow our DNA to balance all the externalities that shaped us, Ken Wilber, Peter Senge, Brian Hall and Stephen Covey among many will be able to help us determine the right choice that comes from our DNA and from divine origin.  Then we can become what Neil Walsh calls  highly evolve beings (HEB). May I say, Filipinos are highly evolved people (HEP).  We forgive; we forget.  We laugh; we cry.  We live; we let live.  We receive; we give. We play; we pray. When we feel good and victorious we shout, “HEP. HEP. Hooray” let it be a celebration of our being highly evolved people, capable of living within a legal framework, making ethical decisions, and being conscious of transcendent nature.

Conclusion

The problem with universal principle in ethics is that when the principles are applied to a here-and-now situation, the decision maker makes a local interpretation according to her/his mode of interpretation.  My contention is that our 450 years of moral training under a dogmatic Church developed in us a code that triggers a knee-jerk interpretation of an ethical dilemma.  Immediately, the ethical [and legal] issue becomes a moral issue and the choice will be made in accordance with a recording from a ‘conscience’ voice of a religious authority.  To give a universal flavor to our interpretation of what is moral and legal, we need to reframe our ‘old’ interpretation and create a new science of ethical and moral hermeneutics.