ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

From Elearningpost, May 27, 2005:

This is interesting, but very, very counter intuitive:

“In their book Moral Intelligence (Wharton School Publishing, May 2005), Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel say there’s a correlation between moral principles and business success. The companies that perform best, they believe, have leaders with not only a strong moral compass, but also the good sense to follow it.”

Actually, I’m NOT surprised by this.

YES, WORLDLY INTELLIGENCE often suggests that one needs to strategize (or plot), position (or present) oneself and manage (or manipulate) others.

However, the importance of moral intelligence IS intuitive to people who believe strongly in God (or karma) and ethical behavior (or cause-and-effect). On a non-religious note, as customers, wouldn’t (and don’t) we patronize repeatedly those who give good honest value and avoid those who don’t?

N.R. Narayana Murthy (chairman of Infosys Technologies), by the way, had spoken on the correlation between good business and moral principles when he gave a talk at NUS one or two years ago. This article, dated June 1999, gave a glimpse of this and reported how “Leading Indian business houses are witnessing a resurgence of values and ethics that may, in the long run, help turn the tide of recession.”

Another article from Strategic Marketing, dated Oct 2004, also highlighted the importance of moral intelligence. Smart companies, it says, “have a long-term approach to business. Customer retention is the purpose of their business. Profit is just the by-product… In business context, building lifelong relationship between the supplier and the customer means creating a strong bond - a strong bond of love and trust that cannot be broken by any competitor; a strong bond that grows stronger everyday.”

A key difference between Lennick & Kiel and the other writers is perhaps credibility (or authority)?

According to editorial notes at Amazon.com, “Doug Lennick led 14,000 professionals and support teams at American Express Financial Advisors to unparalleled success. Today, in addition to his work as managing partner of the Lennick Aberman Group, he continues to work directly with American Express Company’s CEO, retaining the title of EVP and focusing on workforce culture and performance. He is known worldwide for his expertise in driving business results by improving managers’ emotional competence.

“Fred Kiel, Ph.D., co-founder of KRW International, Inc., brings over 30 years of experience to his work with Fortune 500 CEOs and senior executives on building organizational effectiveness through leadership excellence and aligning organization with mission. Kiel is often called the “father of executive coaching” for his pioneering work in this field. Before founding KRW, Kiel worked with senior executives in private practice, developing a rigorous data-gathering and customized development process designed to provide executives with transformative feedback.”