Doing Good and What That Means
Faith in responsibility, belief in opportunity, and ability to unite around common values are what makes this nation great.
—Barack Obama
At this point it is pertinent to remind the readers that the purpose of this book is not to provide them with all the answers, but to create a debate about a possible alternative. Consider for yourself what a doing good agenda might involve and question what alternatives might be appropriate in the context of an antithesis to the profit agenda currently pursued by capitalism. Defining “doing good” for society at this stage of debate would be rather like the author suggesting what good food is. It is a matter of taste and up for discussion. However, as an offering as a foundation of a new way to think about business, there are universal truths as to what “good” constitutes regardless of the cultural, social, or economic background that you occupy. It is therefore important in proposing Temperatism that the idea of doing good isn’t dismissed simply as something to be explored later, but also examined in regard to its basic premise upon which more meat can be added at a later date.
Meyer (2015) defines “doing good” as “undertaking actions to create a beneficial and sustainable situation for a company, the stakeholders and the community, the environment, and for society as a whole.” The definition, arising from an exploration of positive business, examines how the fair distribution of wealth, “supporting ecologic and social justice” and ensuring that the wider community and natural environment flourish, is part of the equation of doing good (Meyer, 2015). Furthermore, treating employees fairly, with a strong emphasis on the development of wellbeing, inclusiveness, and sustainable work practices, is advocated as a way to develop a positive organizational system focused on improving long-term functioning both of the organization and of the society as a whole.
Another proposal or consideration for determining what constitutes “good” is offered by Skidelsky and Skidelsky (2010), who probably explain better than anything found in the research what a doing good Temperatist agenda might consist of in regard to their description of “‘Basic Goods’—the goods that constitute living well. Health, respect, security, relationships of trust and love are recognized everywhere as part of a good human life; their absence is recognized everywhere as a misfortune.” They go on to list and explain basic goods as including:
- Health, which relates to our physical and mental wellbeing and those things that relate to sustaining human life.
- Security, which relates to our expectations regarding our safety and protection.
- Respect, which relates to individual views and interests being treated as worthy of protection.
- Personality, which relates to autonomy for an individual to be who they are.
- Harmony with nature, which relates to reducing the external cost of human activities on the environment.
- Friendship, which relates to both personal and political union for the common good.
- Leisure, which relates to the opportunity to pursue activities or pursuits that have no other purpose than for our own sake, as well as time off from toil.
They also state that “although moral variety undoubtedly exists, it is less extensive than is often supposed . . . communalities define the distinctly human form of life” (Skidelsky and Skidelsky, 2010). Like an argument over what type of food dish is best, the output, that it is tasty, that it fills us up, that it satisfies us, is the same regardless of which dish you may promote as the best. Doing good in Temperatism can be defined by the outcome of an action, just as capitalism is focused on the profit outcome. However, unlike capitalism and the pursuit of profit, it is the doing in the doing good agenda that also covers the external costs of achieving the outcome, as requiring being good as well as the good result that is achieved.
Temperatism does not offer a utopian vision of what good looks like, beyond the protection of basic goods, that all human kind should be entitled to a minimum standard of living and an improvement must be made in regards to the distribution of wealth. This is different from previous socialist and communist attempts to introduce a doctrine of what utopia would look like. But as humanity, culture, and our environment change and adapt, our vision of what utopia could be would also shift. What was good in car design even 10 years ago is not the same as today. Temperatism does not advocate getting stuck on one form of doing good, since humanity does vary and does differ in its choices, hopes, dreams, and desires. But there are basic things that all humanity needs regardless of our culture, language, or country of birth. We also have within us, which capitalism has tried to deny, a capacity to do good and an underlying morality that goes beyond societal norms. Although capitalism has attempted to produce a system that is amoral, morality still impacts the market dependent on the strength of feeling and unity of society at any given moment.
Doing Good in Organizational Life
For too many years, organizations have been steadily marching to the beat of the capitalist drum. Finance and wealth creation has become gods, and humans have become the sacrificial lambs at the altar of shareholder’s value and profit. The organization has within it the capacity to achieve the Plato ideal of devoting their purpose to that of public wellbeing. Corruption will still exist, mistakes will be made, and dishonesty will occur. Temperatism doesn’t expect any organization to be perfect, and part of being human is that we have a capacity to make errors of judgment or take unnecessary risks. It is easy with hindsight to wish things were done differently or better. But the congruence and interdependency between economic, political, and social spheres supports the notion that no single entity has all the answers. Ideas about what doing good means will change over time, and as basic goods become the norm, our ideas regarding “minimum” standards of living will also increase. The difference is Temperatism demands that the truth of humanity’s capacity and potential for doing good be released and freed from the shackles of monetization as a task.
In essence, Temperatism as an ideology advocates not just transforming but replacing the current capitalist market-led system and adopting a market system, which ensures that organizations and government have at their core a socially pursuant purpose and an ethical and values-driven agenda with performance measures composed of a primacy of societal measures rather than those that are purely financial. The desired result will be that doing good in regard to a socio-humanist context becomes the measure of success for organizations. This, however, does not mean that profit or the ownership of the means of production becomes transferred to the state or is owned by society as a whole. Instead, organizations and entrepreneurs will continue to be able to pursue business but in return will be restricted to an un-excessive and moderate return on investment that will be regulated only if necessary. What does this mean in practice? Individual property rights will still exist, but must be used in a balanced manner, with a purposeful pursuit of doing good in the wider social context. Profit can be made, but must not be the primary purpose of the organization or a result of a profit-centered self-interest.
This means that organizations become a people-centric environment where the true value of humanity, talent, inventiveness, and innovation is enjoyed for the good of all those within the organization and not just as a resource to be exploited. As people matter, people-first mind-set and approach to all decision-making will replace shareholder return and quarterly profit statements, which result in short-termism and represent the rising inequality of wealth distribution within the capitalist system. Profit share paid to shareholders has continued to rise steadily, while wage share has continued to decline. The results are a society out of balance. Is it right that shareholders get greater levels of return at a time when those working to produce value for the organization get such a low return on their effort that they can’t afford to eat or pay their rent? Is the idiom of bleeding a stone dry over-zealous when discussing employee effort, remuneration, and shareholder return? If this disparity is not appropriate, then what is?
Temperatism is not adverse to shareholders receiving a profit share from the investment that they have made to a business, but under Temperatism, profit share would be a secondary objective after wage share in regard to distribution of surplus. However, Temperatism is concerned with more than just simple economics. Doing good covers a whole range of basic goods, so for employees as well as improved wages, there would be a requirement for organizations to improve the working conditions of their employees to an acceptable standard, including a restrained and sober approach to work–life balance—on the part of both the employee and the employer, as described by the basic good of leisure explored earlier.
Temperatism is not socialism; it rails against the idea that “the state” knows best and argues that state socialism is not the most efficient form of planning and decision-making. However, power in society must not reside in the hands of the tradition capitalist property owners. Instead social and communal agreement of what represents equable and fair distribution of wealth in regards to doing good would ensure that as well as organizations reducing income disparities and supporting the employee population in regard to training, education, and wellbeing, there is also a fair and equitable recognition of the investment return required for the owners of the means of production and the contribution organizations should make in regard to the wider societal good. Organizations should be supported to adopt a bottom-up rather than a leadership-focused approach to strategy and planning, reshaping command and control to a community-led movement. The question is what support is needed and in return for what?
One of the biggest issues that the UK will face in the next few years is possible power cuts and the continuing increasing disparity in access to energy. The current situation demonstrates the harm that short-term financial reporting and a profit agenda creates. The infrastructure required to deliver an adequate response to the energy crisis in the UK requires a large upfront capital investment with return over decades. In the context of capitalism there is little incentive for energy companies, who are posting large profit figures, to seek to invest heavily in the infrastructure when it will have a significant impact on their bottom-line profit not just this year but for years to come.
The fact that the energy companies will receive a return on that investment over a period of 50 years is of no comfort to the shareholders or the CEOs of the energy companies today and is not in their interests now, when the investment should be being made. The alternative energy proposals are costly and the cost of producing “green energy” is significantly more than fossil fuels, therefore making margins smaller. At the same time, the energy companies or organizations who use large percentages of the energy supply don’t want to pay additional taxes, which would be needed if the government were to commit to building the infrastructure themselves. Quite frankly, the situation is that the energy companies want their cake of profit today and they want to eat it by getting the “government” (read taxpayer) to pay for the capital infrastructure upon which they will make their profits tomorrow. All the while, the organizations want to reduce the level of tax they are paying.
A Temperatist approach would seek to involve a partnership between government and energy companies paying for and keeping up to a high standard the infrastructure needed for energy production. If energy companies want to “sell” energy, they need to make it here, and they need to do so in a way that will have a reductionist impact on the environment. It is not as insane as it sounds to suggest that it should be organizations who should make the decisions in regard to investment, even in the context of the previous critique of organizational motivations. The government does not have the capacity to innovate and invent the processes and infrastructure needed for such a challenge, and the people best placed for delivering efficient energy supply in the UK are the organizations that have an interest in producing energy efficiently.
Big energy companies may choose to take their ball home, if required to invest heavily for the long term. They may even threaten to leave if regulatory frameworks affect their short-term profit measures. But we should not fear ultimatums because where a void in the market is created, entrepreneurs will fill the space. That is why Temperatism isn’t a socialist or communist movement. The market is a great mechanism for innovation, advancement, and wealth creation. Temperatism doesn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But doing good has to come before profits. So yes, an organization needs to make profits to survive and make a contribution in order for good to be an achievable outcome. The government has a role to play in supporting large public projects in regards to planning agreements protecting investment in public infrastructure and where appropriate with tax relief or government sponsorship to support organizations, which are taking big risks. But under Temperatism, an organization posting large profits at a time when the infrastructure is failing and societal good is threatened would not be tolerated, because in this situation, as today, profits are being put ahead of doing good and, even worse, mortgaging the future long-term sustainability of the organizations to produce a shareholder return today. The current system allows profits to get in the way of our progress, security, and societal sustainability. Therefore, Temperatism challenges the primacy of shareholder return ahead of the rights of society as a whole.
Temperatism is therefore maternalistic, but it is not socialist or communist in its construction. Regulation is important, but only insofar as ensuring that doing good is applied equitably to all in society. The government must and should protect the rights and lives of those they are called to serve; this means that the government, regardless of politics, is always on the side of society as a whole, never any one group or individual. Like capitalism, Temperatism will reward those who innovate and there will be an emphasis on encouraging innovation and investment in new ideas. Furthermore, improvements in efficiency and effectiveness will be supported and change encouraged in the never-ending pursuit of doing good. There is no restriction to what good looks like or what good can be achieved. The only limit is our imagination.
Orthodoxy and Doctrine
Of obvious concern is that the idea that doing good becomes a political doctrine or a religious orthodoxy, which rather than improving the lives of humanity oppresses it. There are plenty of moral conundrums in society, such as abortion, and enough historical evidence even in the last century that demonstrates that good can be twisted to incite hatred and harm to others. Once again, the emphasis on the basic goods must be the center stage. Whether or not you agree with someone’s choices of lifestyle is not for Temperatism to decide. Like capitalism there is freedom of choice in regard to how you live your life. The proviso, of course, is that it should not impinge on the freedom of other people to live their lives, or on the societal norms of basic goods as outlined previously. Constitutional protections are important in this arena and many already exist, but it will be the regulation of the market in regard to the purpose of organizations in society that will bring the biggest protests and have the most dramatic effect. Temperatism is in effect a planned market economy in that it continues to support the market economy as long as it supports the societal goal of doing good. The ideology does not support government planning, because it would simply transfer wealth distribution from the power of the market to the political power of the day.
Creating a societal culture where doing good for the wider social context is considered more important than individual self-interest and rewards and encouragement for placing society interest above the need to consume will be in the hands of the government and organizations. Enjoying the good life and enjoying material things shouldn’t be the be all and end all of our culture. There is nothing wrong with an extra pair of shoes or a new gadget that makes your life easier or more enjoyable, but they should no longer be the driving force of our lives. The commercialization of Christmas is a contemporary example of a shift that needs to be reversed.
Christmas used to be about family time. Gifts were exchanged, but were not the central part of the holiday. The pressure on families now begins as early as September. Christmas displays in shops, with all that glitters and plastic that buzzes and beeps, arrive before the kids have returned to school from their summer holidays. Twenty-five percent of the year is devoted to selling consumers stuff that they neither really want, nor probably, almost definitely don’t need. Parents who both work full-time to keep up with their consumer life style are made to feel guilty if they don’t buy their children the latest fashion or toy craze, all of which cost hundreds of pounds. Christmas has become a festival to the consumer culture and that culture is being passed onto the next generation. Is this how we wish to live our lives? Is this the purpose of our time on earth, to consume at greater and greater levels until we die? Is that all that a human life can or indeed should represent? Temperatism isn’t a doctrine that declares material goods as being bad, but that the pursuit of materialism and the place that consumerism has in our society is no longer good for us. Like the role of alcohol in an alcoholic’s life, it is not that alcohol is necessarily a bad thing, but that it needs to be taken in moderation to avoid it being “bad.” Material goods are the same. A little bit of what you fancy never does any harm, but what is preventing working hours from falling, driving criminals to pursue crime, and leading to alienation and societal breakdown is too much of a good thing, and the things we are pursuing contribute to unhappiness rather than improving the quality of our lives. Temperatism doesn’t hate wealth, but it does seek to change our relationship with wealth, to question the purpose of wealth in our society, and to pursue a purpose for the wealth that we create that is good. Most of all, Temperatism wants to make sure that we all benefit, equitably, if not equally from the possibilities that wealth offers.
Impossibly Possible Endeavors
I write the above knowing that many people will argue that Temperatism is idealism and that we can’t change the economic, social, or political system. My response is to remind people that societal shifts are possible. William Wilberforce and the abolition campaigners ended 200 years of British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. The impossible is possible. Tolstoy observed that it is “an infinitely large number of infinitesimally small actions” that make us all potential history makers. Temperatism is based on the whole of society all working together, all pulling together in one direction. It becomes possible in the first place through a joint endeavor, and its very continuance relies on each and every one of us doing good in small ways, as well as collectively delivering doing good in an organized way to be possible or successful.
Consider for a moment the well of kindness that resides in all of humanity. Think of the last time that you experienced a random act of kindness that completely changed the situation in which you found yourself. It might have been someone offering you a seat on a crowded train, someone returning something that you had been unaware you had dropped, a helping hand or a more substantial gift of generosity that was game changing to your circumstances at the time. Notice how those random acts of kindness all happened at a time when you were in need, when you were lacking and someone else stepped in to fill the gap. Temperatism isn’t based on cloud cuckoo land thinking. It is a reflection of something that happens in every part of the world, every single day, and is increasingly present in our consciousness. It is a scaling-up of those opportunities we experience when we allow ourselves to give and receive Good.
The moment I began to think such a thing was possible was during the London Olympics 2012, which demonstrated our ability as a society to pull together, and the resulting “high” we felt as we discovered we were part of something bigger. As well as a celebration of the brilliant sporting achievements of all the athletes regardless of which nation they represented, it was the volunteer game makers who were applauded for their efforts in connecting with visitors and helping to make their experience a good one. The result was an atmosphere that was like no other. It felt good to be part of something where people were doing good. It is true that humanity is imperfect and we all have the ability to do bad things to each other and to get it wrong. But Temperatism is based on the belief that inside each individual is the ability to do ordinary things extraordinarily well and that we all possess an in-built desire to do Good.
The Economic Agenda Is Not Inevitable
The good news is that we are not subject to the whims and whimsy of those who are currently in power. They only have power, because we as a collective allow them to retain it. The 1998 Disney Pixar film Bugs Life may seem like a strange place to draw inspiration for societal reform, but there is one line in there that serves the purpose of reminding us all what we are capable of: “Ants are not meant to serve grasshoppers. I’ve seen these ants do great things and year after year, they somehow manage to pick enough food for themselves and you. So-so who’s the weaker species? Ants don’t serve grasshoppers! It’s you who need us! We’re a lot stronger than you say we are. And you know it, don’t you?” The financiers in the city, the CEO, the political leaders, they all allow us to do extraordinary things year after year. They take our inventiveness, innovation, abilities, talent, and hard work and exploit it for their own ends. Society doesn’t serve the market, or the government; they need us and we are all a lot more valuable and stronger than we have been led to believe. It is time to break free of the shackles of capitalism and demand a future worthy of humanity.
In their book How Much Is Enough? Skidelsky and Skidelsky write, “Making money cannot be an end in itself . . . And what is true of individuals is also true of societies. Making money cannot be the permanent business of humanity” (Skidelsky and Skidelsky, 2012). Cunningham goes on, “The human being is more than an economic being; we are social, aesthetic, cultural, sexual beings and we have many selves, many intelligences and many rationalities. There is more to life than work that has been commoditized and defined by commodities” (Cunningham, 2004). A core belief of Temperatism is that human beings are more than, that is at its heart Temperatism is a new way to think about business which is rooted in an old idea, the socio-humanist pursuit of the meaning of life; the belief that at work and at play people are more than machines or consumers and are socially interdependent.
Temperatism argues that the pursuit of the current market-led system by organizations and governments is fundamentally flawed in delivering effectiveness and long-term value and releasing the potential of the wider human community, as well as damaging the future prosperity of the human race by encouraging “the view that our natural environment is merely a factor of production from which maximum utility is to be squeezed, rather than accepting that as a species we are no more than part of the complex ecosystem” (Hart, 1993). It questions whether the managerial, strategic, and control-focused approaches to organizations and government are the only option available to humanity.
Temperatism suggests that the economic agenda is not inevitable, although many assume it is. Organizations have the capacity to be a force for good in our society. The philanthropic pursuits of individuals—such as the Lever brothers, who built Port Sunlight; the cooperative nature of John Lewis; the work of charities; and the voluntary, community, and not-for-profit sector—and the pursuit of corporate social responsibility may not be perfect, but all demonstrate that a different agenda is possible. The human race has a large capability to be flexible and adapt to the environment in which we find ourselves. As problem solvers and improvers, we are restless in our pursuit of betterment. At times, such as these when we find ourselves stuck in a hole, we challenge our thinking and our assumptions until eventually a new imagining of what is possible emerges and the old ways fall away.
Temperatism does not advocate that scarce resources and organizations should be owned or controlled by the community as in socialism or by the state as in communism. The history of these ideologies appears to lead to other inequalities, namely, in regard to power and corruption. “Communism was seen as modernity’s main model of opposition to capitalist economic and social organisation, but it falls into the trap of outlining a society in which man is not seen as an individual anymore, but as a commodity whose labour is bought and sold on the markets” (Suciu, 2009).
Temperatism argues that the owners of production should receive benefit for the risks they take and leaders rewarded for good stewardship, delivering sustainable performance that secures jobs and improves the lives and wellbeing of employees. But when profits aren’t being made and largesse of pay still exists and the gap between employee and senior management pay continues to grow while employees struggle to put food on the table, then the balance between reward and effort has gone wrong. Rather Temperatism promotes a more temperate approach to the means of production, distribution, and the exchange of wealth and, most importantly, the human condition. It advocates a more calm and moderate approach to economic, social, and political efforts and a focus on doing good. What Temperatism is not is a social form of capitalism, or a synthesis of some of the more moderate forms of socialism and capitalism. Instead, it promotes an economic system that has at its center an ethical, moral, and values-driven approach, which can “be a positive and productive force in society, it should not be the only (nor even the most important) influence on societal values” (Hart, 1993). Temperatism advocates an agenda, where doing something because it is the right thing to do provides a nonnegotiable moral compass in both organizational and government decision-making.
What would it take for organizations and government to pursue a genuinely ethical and values-driven agenda? What if organizational purpose was not ultimately about delivering shareholder value but about furthering the health and wellbeing in society? Should society exclude economic and political activity that does not build community and do good in the wider societal context?
Temperatism proposes that the biggest challenge our world faces is not the ending of the pursuit of profit, greed, self-interest, criminal activity, slavery, child abuse, violence, or any of the hundreds of violations and hurts that humans have the capacity to inflict on each other and our planet, although these are all issues that are important and need tackling. Rather it will argue that the biggest issue facing the world today is simply the lack of doing good because we have been believing it is a viable outcome.