We watched Schindler's List last night with my daughter who was experiencing it for the first time. One of the movie's interesting yet subtle narrative arcs involves the transformation of Oskar Schindler as a businessman. Through the course of the movie, the character evolves from self-interest toward a deep understanding of the fundamental difference between profit and value. The strategy he undertakes to create value results in the dissolution of his business -- inevitable in any case, since it depended on Nazi war contracts -- but even more importantly of course it results in generations of lives that otherwise would not have enriched the world.
I find most striking that the film makers resisted the lazy path to this transformation, either by softening his self-interest in the beginning, or using the easy device of a conversion scene. Instead, what makes him a really good businessman enables him to become a good person. The character's singular strength, my husband pointed out to me, is his ability to read people. From the first scene in the nightclub, where he begins the evening an outsider and ends it owning every important Nazi business contact in the room, commences with him simply observing the players from his solitary table. Through the rest of the movie, he watches and analyzes every relationship around him. In the end, his amorality crumbles with the weight of his analysis, and he breaks through to understanding the difference between value and profit.
Of course the film is about much more than Oskar Schindler; it is really about the list, and the human lives both on and not on it, as the title makes clear. But in this story of one businessman, I cannot resist seeing an archetype of business' obligation to create value. We often hear that every business exists to create profit; that is, move cash in a zero sum transaction from one party to another. Someone loses; someone wins. Where is the lasting value in that? Yet, value and profit are not mutually exclusive:value can create more for you and more for me. For instance, as a customer of the press, I profit from reading the newspaper in print and online, and am happy to pay for it. I hope that the newspaper enjoys profitability so that it can continue to bring value to me and our democratic society that depends on a knowledgeable populace. The profitability of newspapers is now at risk, and we will see a transformation in the media as it seeks new models that support both the vision and the commercial requisites of funding independent journalism. Jettisoning the journalism and the independence could create short-term profits, but will destroy potential value to the customers, to society, and ultimately to the corporation.
Is any industry today not in need of transformation? Health care. Banking. Energy. Retail. Education. Housing. Transportation. Technology. Manufacturing. Is any industry not experiencing the rapid and chaotic winding-down of old models that no longer create value? Unlike Schindler we don't need the catalyst of a war; the widening gyre is manifest in every news report. We do need to attend to creating real value, for business owners, workers, and the societies in which they exist. I hope that leveraging talents well-suited to business will enable this transformation, as long as we confront honestly the reality that is not of our making, and which exists outside of the paradigms to which we are long accustomed.
Monday, June 8, 2009
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3 comments:
Interesting topic, and important on a broad scale. From what I recall of the film, the way I interpreted it, the character, Schindler, falls in slow motion through a kind of ethical looking glass. It is a gradual, and not always conscious, process. His original talent for reading people is dependent on a gift for empathy, I think. I think that this is probably the foundation for much of what we call 'people skills'. But being able to sense and understand what others feel is not always coterminous with caring about those feelings and impressions. The Schindler character in the film began to care, and this was both his undoing and his salvation. He had the opportunity to cash out and move on, but he did not do so. The enterprise became 'what he did' rather than what he did for money. There's a great line in the film: At the point where things are collapsing and Schindler is considering cashing out, Stern, Schindler's captive co-conspirator and accountant, played by Ben Kingsly, gives him a look of unequivocal disapproval and says "(But) You have a business to run." What a great line. This is where Schindler becomes a human being fully immersed in his life rather than a man playing a role in the world around him. This is the event horizon, the threshold of the ethical looking glass and I think that this encompasses at least to some extent the difference between 'old' paradigms (we're talking decades here, not eras), where all that really seems to trickle down is the greed - never the money - and the even older paradigms in which people saw their work as a much deeper and more complex engagement with the broader society. In other words, I think that much of the time people do want to 'do good.' Not just through the random act of kindness but as a way of living. Doing good in this way is contextual, it occupies social space and time. People often place this desire above that for instant gain. It is an instinct older and more ingrained than that of belief systems which may or may not mandate such valuations. The problem, I think, that Ms. D brings to the discussion table using Schindler's List as an example, is one of degree. Where are the boundaries between 'enlightened self-interest' and the plain old self interest of unattenuated greed? Is greed really good? Is there a difference between greed and the desire to make money? Michael Lewis, who wrote Liar's Poker, and who worked on Wall Street during the long and foreseeable run-up to the current debacle, was interviewed on CNN the other day. There, too, is a conversation that broaches this subject. It's an important, if complicated, issue and this is the time to have it.
Dionne, I enjoyed your observations about Schindler, how he became transformed by his business experience, and your call to look at business in a more enlightened way, as organizations whose real contribution and existence is to create value. The notion that every business exists to create profit is certainly and understandably the paradigm of the shareholder who is in most circumstances a passive investor in the business. It's where most of us business people live unless or until we've experienced enough enduring dis-satisfaction and lack of meaning in just making money. Moreover, how do you create meaningful alignment and engagement in a workforce with such a self-interested purpose?
Don't get me wrong, I understand the importance of profit. And whether or not we agree that business exists to make a profit, we can surely agree they can't sustain existence without it. But as a CEO of a small business,now in my fifties, I can say that it has taken me this long to truly understand this paradigm of value and the significant opportunity (albeit nothing like Oskar had) our business has or any positive institution has to create value. As I grow older, I find I desire more than just creating wealth (through profit) for my family (though there's nothing wrong with that). I just don't want to come to the end of my days as a business person feeling Oskar's terrible lament, "I could have done more."
Once I could confront this, as you say, and then articulate to associates an overarching purpose as to how we were going to create value for our customers, it created the possibility of more meaning and value in THEIR lives. Like Oskar, when I changed, our culture began to change, more employee engagement, more customer engagement, and oh, by the way, ahem, more profit.
But I didn't see this connection the first time I watched the movie years ago. I'll surely appreciate it so much more next time thanks to you.
Thanks to both commenters for your insightful and provocative responses. This is a fundamental discussion, and imperative for creating sustainable business models. I have little expectation it's getting the time it deserves in a larger context, but am grateful for your participation in this small discussion. Individuals can make huge differences, as this story illustrates.
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