2008 Women and Management Dinner - 'The power of two'

Aug, 2008

Two influential women speakers, lectured, cajoled, argued and touted one message, many examples and calls to action at the annual Melbourne Business School Women and Management dinner last week.

Their message? "When people suffer we can not remain indifferent."

Laura Hartman, Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business and Associate VP, Academic Affairs, De Paul University said, "We have abilities which create responsibilities and our care has to be followed by action or it doesn't matter at all."

Fellow speaker, Pera Wells, Secretary General of the World Federation of the United Nations Associations agreed. She said that as women and as management it's up to us to become more creative, imaginative and bold in thinking about how we can affect change.

With the Olympics just days away, Pera echoed the sentiments of the French baron Pierre de Coubertin who is well known for his Olympic-inspired phrase to sum up what she believes about corporate responsibility-the important thing is not to win but to participate.

Corporate responsibility means different things to different people

Pera believes the concept of corporate responsibility means different things to different people. "Some people freely admit that they don't like the concept of responsibility saying it reminds them of their Mum," she said. "It's what your parents used to say you had to do. And it invokes the response, ‘Do I have to, Mum?'."

But she is not convinced that leaving it all up to corporations, governments and organisations such as the United Nations, is working either.

She cited the collapse of world trade negotiations concerning food security in developing countries last week as an example.

"Basically the position taken by developed countries was that the principle of free trade must over-ride any effort by developing countries to have discretion to increase their tariffs in the event that they are concerned about the food security of their people.

Sustaining profit and goodwill

Laura also tackled how multi-nationals can strategically align their interests with poverty alleviation.

She argued that a corporation should alleviate poverty as part of its own strategic interest because if it does it simply out of charitable interest, its actions will not be sustainable.

"We have to answer the question, what are the needs of the poor?" she said, adding that it can be as easy as Unilever partnering with advertising agencies to teach people that washing their hands creates healthy children.

"It also happens to sell a lot of soap," she added.

A mega community generates network capital

According to Pera, a single business model is not enough. Instead she supports the borrowed concept of creating a mega community-one that brings together leaders of three organisations-government, the private sector and civil society-to create network capital.

"As a group of people here we represent these three sectors so we potentially have an enormous amount of network capital to build on," she said.

But first the group must share a vision of what it can do to make a difference.

She suggested one such vision could be based on the announcement this week that Australia's richest man, Andrew Forrest, has pledged to create 50,000 jobs for aboriginal people.

"We must make sure that at least half the jobs found are for aboriginal women and that the indigenous people personally respect this value themselves and don't just view it as something they need to do to demonstrate how they are succeeding in our way of life," she said.

Passing on responsibility

Laura also extended a call to action noting that each year measles kills around 800,000 children worldwide and those who survive may be left with life-long disabilities.

There's a measles vaccine which costs $40 to protect 50 children, which can be accessed through the US UNICEF web site.

"With this web site and with this knowledge right now you have the ability to protect 50 children from dying from this disease ever. Yes they might die from something else but they would otherwise die from measles.

"Let's say only 500 out of the 700 people here tonight click, we can save the lives of 25,000 children."

Every woman is a hero

Laura advised that once we do act, it is also critical to draw attention to our actions.

"The problem is that women's actions are not always perceived in the same manner as mens. For example, research shows that among those awarded the Carnegie Medal, which is given to people who risk their lives trying to save others, men vastly outweigh women.

"Yet research also finds that women are far more likely to engage in heroic acts than men-such as non-Jews risking their lives to save Jews in the Holocaust, kidney donations, and Peace Corp volunteering among other things."

Events like the Women and Management annual dinner, are so important because women do not draw attention to their actions or honour each other as leaders.

She said, "We have abilities which create responsibilities. Care has to be followed by action or it doesn't matter at all. We have to choose against indifference. And we must engage in heroic action then call attention to our actions.

"We have a lot of impact individually and as a mega community. Perhaps 25,000 children is one way to start because it's attainable. And it's attainable before tomorrow."