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2. His thoughts
The Passion and the Romance
Turning our Values into Value
Don Bosco runs [was sold-out as of this writing] the much-talked about Amici Restaurant. Aside from well-loved Filipino dishes, we serve original Italian cuisine. One day, a French chef from one of the sparkling hotels in the Metro dropped by to grab some bites. In his analysis, he remarked: “Your food is qualite` but your price is charite`.”
We humans often find it confusing to make qualite` and charite` [ or love ] a perfect pair. One is the pill and the other is the headache.
A six-year old girl submitted the following composition on “People” to her teacher: “People are composed of boys and girls, also men and women. Boys are no good at all until they grow up and get married. Boys are an awful bother. They want everything they see except soap. My mom is a woman, and my pa is a man. A woman is a grown up girl with children. My pa is a nice man that I think he must have been a girl when he was a little boy.” My goodness, when did quality ever become gender sensitive?
And dig this. “What does college-bred mean Dad?”
“College-bred,” replied the father, “is a four-year loaf made from the flavor of youth and his old man’s dough.”
So? Quality is not simply that stamp of approval or high rating brightly printed together with the packaging. There’s something more to quality.
Louise is spending the week-end with her very strict aunt who is a member of the board of the local Quality Society. One evening after a trying day when she had been reminded and scolded for her small faults even more than the usual, she entered her room to say her evening prayers. As the aunt passed the bedroom door, she heard: “… and please make bad people good, and make good people a little easier to live with.” In her fun-filled ways, Louise reminds us that quality is at the service of human life. In layman’s terms, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant places quality as one of the defining elements of what is really real. Going back to our Frenchie chef, qualite` is not the antinomy of charite`, rather qualite` to be genuinely so, must make our lives more human, more livable, charite` at its operative best.
And when we talk of the dignity and value of human enterprise, we do not talk merely of what is measurable. Human toil is always a community affair, a network of people working for the same ultimate goals. Work finds its quality in the dignity it bestows upon us, that is, the deepening of our connections and service to others. Work is never a solo performance; work is always working for people, working with people.
In fine, only a business environment fitting for human life, at the service of human life could claim the term “quality products and services.” And that means human values respected and lived consistently by everyone. That shows in the efficiency of systems, up-dated technology, the gung-ho spirit of everyone involved, a clear and compelling vision. But above all, quality lives are enthusiastic hearts that shine with smiling faces.
I refuse to make a litany of values that make for quality lives and business. I do not want to fall into the trap of Brian Hall who listed 125 values to lead us to fullness. Suffice it to say that the seeds of values are inherent in our human nature. Men and women are basically good. We simply have to nurture these seeds to effective values. My intention is to share with you some simple reflections on the themes of inspiration, passion, romance and enthusiasm as basic dynamics of one’s own value system.
Business, by its very nature, stands on human values.
Johnson, a business writer reminds us that “although some bigness is desirable, an over-abundance of bigness is not necessarily good or better.” Business is not all about market share. The sooner we learn from the dinosaurs, the better for us all. Where are these gargantuan behemoths of early ages? Gone. Extinct. Nada mas. Nicht. The dinosaurs’ life systems have developed to be so complex that they proved to be cumbersome vis-à-vis the climactic changes that came about. Only in cartoons do dinosaurs dance to the music.
There’s something more to business than hard cash and headaches.
Message from the Publisher
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