Greek Rationalism In Business Management

Greek Rationalism in Business Management: Managing Truthfully Truthfulness as a Business Philosophy Presented By: Domshell John Cahiles

Greek Rationalism in Business Management

Socrates (c469-399BC), Greek Philosopher Remember how little you know, question everything, and keep your mind open to other possibilities. Plato (c428-348BC), Greek Philosopher Be kind and courageous, and you will always win the day. Aristotle (c384-322BC), Greek Philosopher If you love what you do, it will reflect in your work.

Greek Rationalism In Business Management •

The insight of the 3 philosophers is to cultivate an ongoing atmosphere, so that the important and difficult decisions will largely take care of themselves by a workforce that is already loyal, productive, and ethically-minded

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You can’t separate ethics, loyalty and long-term productivity. You either talk about them all together, or not at all. Ethics is the positive cultivation of a certain kind of environment where we can flourish as individuals and as a community

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If a business wants to cultivate productivity, loyalty, and ethics in the workplace, it will need to focus on cultivating three things: (1) the pursuit of truth; (2) the pursuit of a “we-self”; and (3) the discovery of creative ways of expressing good will.

Business Ethics as Cultivating an Atmosphere of Truth •

The Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle understood that, in the absence of information, humans will tend to fill the void with all kinds of worst case scenarios .

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Speaking the truth to each other is a matter of trusting each other with information, and empowering others to contribute their own insights.

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Socrates’s insight is that we never need special reason to give truthful information to others. Continually sharing as much information as possible with others should always be the fallback position, the normal course of things.

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So perhaps it’s no surprise that these early philosophers emphasized the cultivation of truth, as a key to developing a citizenry—or, we could add, a company workforce—who are productive, loyal, and ethically-minded.

Truthfulness as a Management Culture •

Truthfulness is the quality of being truthful; the behavior of consistently being true; synonymous with honesty; Straightforwardness along with the absence of lying , cheating or theft

Untruthfulness in business

Truthfulness in business •

Steadfastness

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Delays The Truth

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Straightforwardness

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Present only part of the truth

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Consistent behavior

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Chooses to whom it tells the truth •

Thus, Partial Disclosure or NonDisclosure

Truthfulness Practices 

Access to company information is easy in search engines

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Third Party are furnished or presented verified information on system reliability and uptimes

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Support documentation is made public.

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Free trial of products or services with guaranteed return of products or full payment arrangements

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Testimonial videos are real and voluntary customer feedbacks

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Disclosure on product value chain

Why Is Honesty Important in a Business? •

It Establishes Your Work Culture

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It Creates Consistent Positive Workplace Behavior

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It Builds Trust With Your Employees/ Customers

It’s nearly impossible for a business to build trust if honesty isn’t a guiding principle in how that company handles every aspect of its work process. In business, honesty isn’t only about doing things the right way, it’s also about expressing the values in which a company is founded.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRITY •

When you study great leaders you see one consistent character trait in each of them – integrity.

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Great leaders model integrity by standing by what they say they’ll do and doing what’s right no matter the circumstances

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Having integrity means putting personal agendas aside to focus on the greater good of your company and the people it serves

HOW TO INCORPORATE HONESTY AND INTEGRITY INTO YOUR BUSINESS 1. Keep your word 2. Keep your commitments 3. Pay attention to your environment

4. Stay focused 5. Surround yourself with honest people 7. Take responsibility

8. Respect your employees

Truthfulness as a Management Culture in Business World •

For CEOs, Integrity Is the Best Policy (Case Study) MAY 24, 2019

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Objective of the Study: to quantify CEOs’ integrity by capturing the degree to which their actions live up to their promises

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A new study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Thomas Steffen analyzed tens of thousands of shareholder letters to reveal whether executives’ actions typically live up to their promises. It found that firms whose CEOs scored well on this measure of integrity tended to perform better, while facing lower audit fees.

Truthfulness as a Management Culture in Business World •

Findings of the Study

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Behavioral integrity is closely linked to the concept of trust

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Older CEOs typically offered fewer explanations. If a firm had performed poorly during the year, had higher levels of debt, or had greater variation in sales, the letter tended to carry more explanations.

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CEOs who offered more residual explanations—and thus likely had lower behavioral integrity—also tended to have lower ratings, and employees expressed more negative reactions to these workplaces.

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Those firms whose CEOs scored lower on the behavioral integrity metric indeed tended to pay more for audits. But firms that paid more didn’t have more fraud investigations or shareholder litigation

Class Activity •

Two Truths and a Lie •

One of the more classic ice breakers in the list, Two Truths and a Lie can be used anywhere from family parties to company events. To play, you simply ask each person to brainstorm three "facts" about themselves -two of the facts will be true, and one will be a lie.

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For instance, I might say, "I once auditioned for the TV show Zoom. I have three brothers. I Ziplined in Switzerland once." Coworkers can take turns guessing which the lie is. (FYI, I have two brothers, not three, so that's the lie. Unfortunately, I did audition for Zoom.)

Thank You!