I recently had a difficult conversation with an investment banker friend who has been looking pretty grim and grey for the last ten months. He expressed his belief that the economic situation was beginning to improve. He also said how relieved he was that the basic banking model had turned out not to be totally flawed.
I asked him what kind of people would be needed at the top of financial institutions in the future. I suggested we needed leaders who were more rooted in reality and therefore more responsible and aware of the consequences of their actions.
My friend knows that I am far from anti-bank, but I could hear him curdle. He countered with the age-old argument that the people at the top of enterprises would always be motivated primarily by making money, and that there was nothing wrong with this.
He's right. There is nothing wrong with being motivated by money in society (quite the opposite), but it's his use of the word "primarily" that's the problem for me. I think it belittles enterprise. I have long understood the role of enterprise to be wealth creation and the delivery of goods and services that society needs. Only with the energy of people motivated by money and creating value do enterprises emerge and thrive. Societies thrive along with them. Enterprises create jobs and raise standards of living.
This is a fine objective for enterprise, one that puts it at the heart of society. Narayana Murthy, Chair of Infosys Technologies, a huge Indian IT company, told me he built his firm for wider, social needs that "transcend" personal gain. He explained: "Many people wondered why I wanted to take such a risk, to create, at that time in India, a company that would set a new standard of ethics in business. I had a good job, I was married, I had a small child, and I was brought up middle class. It was no easy decision. But all of us are driven by factors that transcend the hygiene factors: money and position. We all want to do something noble and make a difference to the context."
This view of enterprise is glorious and grand and is delivered the world over by people motivated not only by personal gain but also by the needs of their communities and countries. It is enterprise at its best—enterprise decoupled from self-interest. Bankers who are motivated by money are what the economy needs right now: they will play a crucial part in getting us out of this mess. But let's not have the "primarily" band again.
Julia Middleton is chief executive of Common Purpose
Posted 22 July 2009 : Director.co.uk
