THE CONFIDENT LEADER

THE CONFIDENT LEADER

How the Most Successful People Go from Effective to Exceptional

Larina Kase

Tata McGraw-Hill Edition

Pp 271       Rs.375

“This groundbreaking book,” says Kevin Hogan, author of The Psychology of Persuasion, “will become a classic.” You can’t miss it emblazoned as it is masthead-like on the front cover. Is the conversion of a book into a 'classic' the same as leading people from ‘Effective’ to 'Exceptional'?

Chambers Twentieth Century defines a classic as ‘any great writer, composer or work’; in its adjectival form it refers to a work “of the highest class”; it is also equated to “chaste, refined, restrained.” Perhaps Kevin Hogan had some other meaning running through his persuasive psyche when he commented on The Confident Leader. The book is at best an aid to personal change.

This does not by any means trivialise the extensive research that has obviously gone into the making of the book, and the wealth of wisdom that can be drawn from it. It is only the claim of ‘classic’ that needs to be decried. In the fertile and apparently boundary-less field of personal change and achievement of a positive mental attitude, many have sown – and reaped aplenty. The Carnegies, Hills, and Robbins’ and a myriad others have delved into soul-searching analyses on the ground that all change starts from within us. The ‘field’ then metamorphosed into Management related activities, 'leadership' being the most attractive cash crop yet. Studies came to be conducted, experiments were carried out and impressive conclusions arrived at which helped classify executives into anything between three to twelve zodiac-like categories. Some even spoke of clusters of competencies within each identifiable quality of the ideal leader. The samples were small or large depending on the nature of the hypotheses and the funds available for the research. Truly, leadership is the most fertile of the fields – fed by the perennial theories of obfuscation and constantly nourished by the alluvium of self-doubt.

In this crowded field the making of a classic is … difficult. Larina Kase has made an attempt in that direction if Kevin Hogan is to be believed. Though no such claims have been made Kase herself, the subtitle promises to show How the Most Successful People Go from Effective to Exceptional.  “How” indeed!

Kase has divided the book into two parts, the first of which deals with the six growth steps said to be used by confident leaders – covering six chapters. The second part seeks to show How Confident Leaders Turn Problems into Dynamic Opportunities. A cursory glance at the chapter headings would show that the there is more of internal personal change envisaged here than anything else. The first chapter (Step 1) for instance, is entitled Get Your Exceptional Vision with the sub-title: What Change Do You Want to Make, and Why Is It Important to You? Step 2, contained in chapter 2, carries the sub-title: Are You ready to Make This Change Right Now? Shift now to the sixth step (chapter 6): Make the Change Stick by Using Your Natural Strengths Instead of Overcompensating for Your Weakness. Gibberish if you are not on the self-improvement wavelength. Let's talk about “Olivia, a bright, ambitious attorney, who worried about whether people would like her... tried to  make sure she didn't offend people, but, sadly, her fears became her reality.” Or, does this sound like a recipe for a confident leader: “if you're unwilling to experience discomfort, you'll probably have more discomfort because you'll try to control it with actions that end up increasing it.”

Part 1 of the book is liberally interspersed with 'Action Steps' for every one of the six growth steps described – and parts thereof. The sixth step/chapter has a part devoted to Focus, so there's a box entitled 'Optimal Focus Action Steps'. Then there's a section called A Counter-intuitive Way to Harness Your Strengths followed by 'Harnessing Your Strengths Action Steps'. Such Action Steps boxes continue into the second part of the book. What is a little more interesting in Part 2 is the Expert Interviews appended to each chapter. There's Michael Port, the best-selling author of Book Yourself Solid (2006), Joe Vitale who was a major contributor to Rhonda Byrne's The Secret , David Allen author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, and Mark Levy co-author of Accidental Genius: Revolutionize Your Thinking through Private Writing, among others.  There are oodles of guidelines meant to get the reader into the frame of mind for change; these action steps and exposure to experts are largely meant for the average executive who is looking for some long lost  secret that would get him above that mark.  Classics are made of sterner stuff.

WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGES

WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGES

CHANGE EVERYTHING

In A Time Of Turmoil, A Pathway To Peace

NEALE DONALD WALSCH

Hodder & Stoughton

Rs.295 Pp 300

The title of the book calls to mind several similar publications like ‘When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going,’ and ‘Failure is Never final, Success is Never Ending.’ Umpteen others have written on the crying need to come back from the edges of life – so that "A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, / Seeing, may take heart again." From Longfellow to Neale Walsch. With his own footprint in the shifting sands of modern times: Change Everything!

There is a strong tendency to have a smirk on one’s face when there’s talk of books on personal change, and ‘the kind of people’ who read them. But the fact is that a huge portion of homo sapiens is apparently in search of that indefinable treasure lost somewhere, sometime; some panacea that will ensure abundance of health and wealth for all time to come. The rational knowledge that there is no such thing doesn’t deter, though it may temporarily discourage, our efforts. It’s the delightfully annoying vagueness that keeps us searching, hoping to recognize it when we find it.

When sent out to find the herb Sanjeevani Hanuman was honest enough to admit his inability to identify it – it helped that he could carry the whole mountain down! Neale Walsch, it appears has found his own brand of sanjeevani and like so many of his kind, feels compelled to share with the rest of the world. And what better time to come out with that wonder drug than in times of recession/depression/melt-down? Walsch has been really quick on the bat. After all, marketing is only a matter of accurate timing, even if one has to let the material ferment in the cellar till such time as something like sub-prime lending comes to one's rescue.

So what's so special about this book? It starts with an urgent request to the reader not to throw the book away, not to throw away a chance to get out of the overwhelming morass that surrounds... and this attitude of bending over backwards to make sure the reader is at no time overwhelmed by the book, continues throughout. The chapters are kept short, the instructions to the reader are straight and clear. There are pointers in the midst of chapters for the reader to go and take a breather – or else continue to the next stage. He tries to bring his written communication as close to a counselling session as possible; but a book can help mental depression arising out of a pervasive feeling of failure just as much as it can help cure virginity.  In case the reader still feels the inadequacy of the written word, Walsch has a website called http://www.changingchange.net/ which has a visiting membership as well as enrolled membership – a clear case of counselling going hi-tech.    

The book suggests nine changes that will change everything in your life – the first of which is to change your decision to ‘go it alone’. The feeling of being alone in our trouble is dangerous. The last of the nine changes is to change your identity i.e. change the way you have thought of yourself. These few words can hardly describe the depth of these transformative decisions. In the journey through these nine changes, Walsch speaks of the need to accept the difference between Actual Truth and Apparent Truth, and between Apparent Truth and Imagined Truth. The first pair is the difference between Ultimate Reality (what is) and Observed Reality (what we perceive); the second pair highlights the conversion of our perception by our imagination into Distorted Reality.  Change number Eight is Change your idea about life – a superb study of the functions of the Mind, the Body and the Soul. The sad part of it is that neither the title of the book nor the introductory chapters gives any inkling of the veritable treasure available here. There is also a section in this chapter for those frustrated in their attempts at meditation – it brings the concept and its practice, down to earth. Very impressive.

What started off as an attempt to guide the down-and-out turns out to be a book with profound ideas about our relationship with our selves, and with the Ultimate Being (by whatever name we may call Him). How far a troubled soul who has ‘lost everything’ would care to read about such relationships is doubtful, but if he does he has much to gain. Truly, if you leave out the mountain of reader-friendly tactics used in the book, Walsch has come close to finding his Sanjeevani.

DOING BUSINESS IN 21ST CENTURY INDIA

DOING BUSINESS IN

21^ST CENTURY INDIA

How to Profit Today in Tomorrow’s Most Exciting Market

Gunjan Bagla

Hatchette Book Group USA

Pp 254       Rs.495

What with WTO and the on-rush of globalisation, the cry of the seafarers of old was bound to take on a new gusto. Eastward ho! And thus the quest began for a new ‘treasure island’, newer fortunes (this time at the bottom of CK Prahalad’s pyramid and in a world as ‘flat’ as Friedman would have it). And of course the East, as hospitable as ever, obliged, bent over backwards …while the son of the local tailor spoke with a Yankee twang. Our markets explode with things ‘phoreen’ ranging from the use-and-throw to the throwaway. And along comes Gunjan Bagla adding to India Inc’s collective come-hither.

The book carries endorsements of the Chairman, American Chamber of Commerce in India, a Professor of Marketing somewhere out there who is also a founder of India China & America Institution in Georgia, a director of RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy and a President of US India Business Council. Perhaps an endorsement or two from acknowledged experts on Indian culture (few as these may be!) or history would have lent credibility – but then perhaps Bagla’s audience would not be bothered with such trivialities as unqualified generalisations and unconfirmed sources of information. But even that audience (particularly that audience) would certainly react to the Apostle Judas Thomas being referred to as “Doubting Thomas” from the Last Supper. A minor inaccuracy in a widely documented event. Does it lend credibility to the less verifiable statements?

The book has a glossary of around 18 pages. The terms range from catchwords of regional languages of India that do creep into our English conversations (Baap re, Badmash, chamcha, Tharra, double-roti – words that are hardly likely to get into international business discussions) to the totally unnecessary. Surely the run of the mill businessman / industrialist knows what an ‘annexure’ is; and do words like Britisher, Calling Card, Car Park, Christian Name really need to be explained? Okay, the average American (if such there be) may need to be cautioned that a ‘Dicky’ or ‘Dickey’ refers only the boot of an automobile. But by far the strangest (and perhaps the most shocking) entry in the glossary is “Mahatma Gandhi” the man about whom Albert Einstein had said: ‘Generations to come… will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth’. There may not be many educated persons in the world today who have never heard of Mahatma Gandhi. Would a similar work on the United States of America or on South Africa carry George Washington or Nelson Mandela as an item in the glossary? If Bagla had felt the need to introduce Gandhiji in this magnum opus of his, he could certainly have done better than relegating him to an entry in the ‘Glossary of Indian English.’

The book otherwise reads easily in near-conversational tone. The most realistic act of Bagla in this book is his quotation from John Godfrey Saxe’s poem about the elephant and the six blind men. The poem is an indication that India (far more complex than an elephant and as inscrutable as they come) cannot be understood or explained away without experiencing it. Talking about elephants, Louis V Gerstner, who led IBM through its end-century historic turnaround felt bold enough to name his book: Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Dr. Manmohan Singh may, self-effacingly, agree: the wonderful elephant of India is dancing; the cash-cows are a-traipsing. Hordes of ‘foreigners’ will come as thousands have already. They will live here, and learn how to flourish in this ‘functioning anarchy’ as John Kenneth Galbraith indulgently called it. We need not call anyone here nor caution them over cultural pitfalls; Indian culture does not snigger at a faux pas. Publications like the present one smack of inferiority, an apology for our way of life. Our traditional “welcome to our humble abode” is uttered only to give voice to our ancient belief: Atithi Devo bhava – a reflection of our respect for the guest, not a reference to any inferiority of our abode. We need not take it to the extreme!

The concluding chapter entitled The Song Behind the Words to some extent removes the bad taste of the previous 210 pages. The true Indian spirit does attempt here to sing, though weakly, a new song.

EXECUTIVE WARFARE

10 RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR WINNING YOUR WAR FOR SUCCESS

DAVID F. D’ALESSNDRO

WITH

MICHELE OWENS

Tata McGraw-Hill

Rs. 350  Pp 265

The old order changeth… shifting battlefields closer home. To our workplaces. And if you ever thought that it is a jungle out there. Get real. Out there it’s war, out-and-out. The silent, dog-eat-dog variety. A war replete with trenches and snipers and missiles that home in on you at the best of times. You don’t know about it until you are hit – shrapnel would be more obvious. Shell-shock, more subtle, more effective – kills your ambitions. No wounded to carry home. Ugly and in business suits.

David D’Alessandro and Michele Owens in this their third book on corporate goings-on (Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand: 2001 and Career Warfare: 10 Rules For Building A Successful Personal Brand And Fighting To Keep It: 2005, being their earlier acts of bravery) covers the stage when, having risen to a certain level, how the ‘truly ambitious’ can learn to survive there AND move higher. The three books cannot strictly be called a ‘trilogy’ insofar as that term would mean that Executive Warfare is the last of the three. With their ‘war’ mongering tendencies the team will surely find newer battlegrounds…

For the present, however, they work on the premise that as you go higher “there are more and more people standing in your way” and the rules of the game change substantially. While you had a single (however indescribable) boss earlier, you now have several persons to please, involved in an incredibly tricky network.

D’Alessandro and Owens start the analysis of the ‘enemy’ on unlikely aspects of office life: Attitude. Attitude, with Risk and Luck, are said to be the “most influential bosses.” The analysis is an account of everything but. Attitude for instance goes from getting your head into the game, avoiding fear and sloth, greed, arrogance and childish lack of discipline.  Your ability to ‘present well’ comes next followed by mastering the art of ‘learning what nobody else has even considered.’ Hire well, motivate your employees, convince your boss to trust you, bring in truck lads of money and get to a point where people start thinking they cannot afford to lose you. The best part however, is: you will have to not be stupid. The account rambles on for another seven pages till we come to the section on Risk. It all goes to show that just because the section heading says, ‘Attitude’ that is no reason to dwell upon what attitude means.

Subsequent chapters cover the handling of bosses, peers, rivals and your team Interesting areas covered thereafter are “Outsiders with Influence” (Clients, Donors, Vendors) and  “New Bosses” (Journalists, Regulators, Prosecutors, Wall Street Analysts, Boards, Shareholders, Everybody with an Internet Connection).

The book ends on a cryptic, near oracular statement: “… the only way to learn how to lead is to live.” This comes at the end of a short four-page essay on the need to become a ‘Person of Presence’ – which manifests itself in our offering “something substantial and not just self-importance,” being true to yourself, not having your life revolving around your job, keeping your sense of humour, and above all, avoid being isolated by your success.

All told, the book has little to do with warfare; it is rather an urge to excel and win, AND play to win. If you were looking for arms, ammunition, tactical devices to handle your daily skirmishes, you’ve got the wrong book. There’s strategy though: personal, professional excellence. The authors had promised in the introduction that this ‘book will tell you how to lead all your many bosses to the inevitable conclusion that you, and you alone, have what it takes to run the show. Doesn’t quite reach that level. Perhaps all’s fair in books on warfare too.

Great ideas to Get Your Life Back

WORK LESS, ACHIEVE MORE

Great ideas to Get Your Life Back

Fergus O’Connell

Headline Publishing Group 2010

Rs.225     Pp 228

In Stephen Covey’s book entitled First Things First (1997) the Introduction says that no one at his death bed would say that he should have spent more time in the office, and then goes on to speak of the need to manage our life rather than just indulge in what popularly goes under the name of Time Management. Several thousand books later comes Fergus O’Connell with this book. ‘If you are not happy with the way your life is at the moment, if you want to make a major change in the amount of time you spend at work, readjust your work/life balance or reshape your entire life, this book will give you the tools to do exactly that,’ says the Introduction.

There is however a subtle twist here. The emphasis in not on ‘Work Less’ – for no one has yet come with a perpetual-free-lunch sort of activity, just as none could in the pre-medieval search for ‘perpetual motion’. The focus is on ‘Achieve More’. But again, this ‘Achievement’ is not as the world knows but as Fergus O’Connell intends but does not care to define. It is a vague kind of whittled-down level of achievement in careers and personal wealth which one should decide upon without placing too much stress on the health of one’s mind or body or both.

Therefore one of the major exercises stressed upon in the book is that of eliminating stuff that you don’t really want to do. That ‘really’ is a matter of personal definition and understanding. According to that definition and understanding, the reader needs to decide how many days or hours he has available over a fixed period of time (6 months/1year or whatever) and determine the ‘things’ he wants to accomplish during that given period. On analysing the ‘supply and demand’ of time available versus things to be done, one then has to decide which of the things he will defer or delete. The author thus speaks of Extreme time management, which the author says, goes beyond conventional Time Management in that “we’re not going to do lots of things.”

Divided into five parts, the book starts with description of the basic philosophy and key concepts of the book, along with some tools to get started. The subsequent parts initially focus on the concept of extreme time management at work which can then be translated to our ‘whole life’.  Can we draw a list of all the things we ever wanted to do? That’s to be done immediately. Can we then (assuming we are successful with the list) drop out things that need not be done, or cannot be done? Will our ego allow it? Will the circumstances which brought about the conditions which led to the making of that list allow the dropping of any of the items? 

Maybe it is possible to make a list of the twenty odd items one always wanted to do but never got around to doing anything about. Maybe. But Anthony Robbins (“Awaken the Giant Within You”1991) says that one need not drop anything from the list. It’s the list that matters. From the list springs eternal hope and the spirit to accomplish. If one makes a list with the intention of dropping a few of the items, then it is already a foregone conclusion that the list is not of things that one really wanted to do. One is then making a list of things one may want to eliminate from one’s dreams or plans or whatever the list consists of. There is also a belief that we generally try to cut down the size of our dreams to match the size of our income – and that this should be avoided. One should rather try to make the size of our income large enough to cater to our dreams. The fact that dreams grow larger with the size of our income is another matter to be tackled – when we have that extra money! But here comes O’Connell saying that we should cut down our dreams to the size of the time available with us. Following the old adage to cut the coat according to our cloth – which always results in an ill-fitting coat, surely! Also a contradiction of Parkinson’s Law which says that work expands to fill the time available for dong it. It follows therefore also that work contracts where necessary!

The central question on reading such books (some called Positive Mental Attitude books, some Self-Help books) is whether we really do need such publications. All one has to do is to get down to it, decide that one is going to lead one’s own life with confidence and self-esteem and decide what things we are going to accomplish in the ‘time’ given us by Whoever-It-Is that decides these things. And if the writer is only going to tell us that we should cut down our dreams ‘according to the cloth’ then perhaps we could look elsewhere for the fulfilment of our dreams. Perhaps deep within us.

TRANSFORMING CAPITALISM

TRANSFORMING CAPITALISM

Business Leadership To Improve The World For Everyone

ARUN MAIRA

NIMBY BOOKS – MENTOR SERIES 2008

Rs.595         Pp. 214

‘Transforming’ as used in the title, is rather ambiguous. It could be a present participle, which would mean that capitalism has a face which could now be shown as an agent of change. Or it could be a verb, which would imply a process of changing the face of capitalism itself. Or the third possibility (hurrah for the English language!) is that it is a gerund, which would mean the act of transformation of capitalism – into perhaps something more socially acceptable, to use capitalism to ‘improve the world for everyone’.  

Semantics aside, the apocalyptic assertions over the future of the environment and sustainable development evoke little interest, if any, among those who for instance, break boulders for their supper. We either take everyone along the path of development and prosperity or get dragged down somewhere along the way. The ILO declaration at Philadelphia way back in 1944 (“Poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere,”) helps to break the challenge of inclusive development down to its essence; and Gandhiji’s talisman of the ‘face of the poorest and the weakest man’ looms large…

This is a theme played repeatedly by Arun Maira, author of the book under review (currently Chairman of the Boston Consultancy Group in India, and President, Save the Children / Bal Raksha, Bharat).  Along with his earlier publications viz., The Accelerating Organization (1996: with Peter B. Scott-Morgan); Shaping the Future (2002); Remaking India (2005); Discordant Democrats (2007) this book underlines Maira’s philosophy of service to society as the forefront of his life-plan. Trading service under the Government of India for a career under the Tatas he claims that he didn’t join any of the other companies because “they didn’t really serve society.”

Robert Reich, former Labour Secretary in the US government, in his book Supercapitalism - The Battle for Democracy in an Age of Big Business (2008) had also dwelt on such a powerful theme: the conflict between the investor and the citizen. While the investor would demand the highest returns, the citizen looks on helplessly. The voter has gradually lost his say in the governance of the things that matter to him, particularly in areas like consumption patterns, and conservation of natural resources – large corporations decide on public policy and usurp the rights of citizen to decide what is best for the community. It is therefore not surprising that globalisation has its ‘discontents’. There is obviously not much to be contented with. Arun Maira’s theme and presentation thereof is more impassioned.

His urge for ‘service to society’ overflows in this the fifth of his books, where the purpose of business is shown to be not just business – the underlying purpose and the overwhelming objective of business has ultimately to be improvement in the quality of life. Thus, industry cannot put all its might into satisfying the needs of the distant, faceless customer while the immediate neighbourhood languishes with the loss of livelihood and health. Grant of jobs to the ‘project-affected’ is a short sighted solution. The owners may be satisfied but the thousands who used to survive on that land by daily-paid labour are ignored. Such problems, says Maira, need to be “stopped, not paid off”; the paying-off would be an attempt to cleaning up our conscience; stoppage would be a more responsible corporate behaviour. Again, this cannot be expressed by occasional donations to social causes, but by addressing the causes of the issues that come up for debate with reference to its functioning.

The book is basically a collection of twenty-five articles, fifteen of which have appeared in periodicals/dailies. There are four appendices: one reproduces the Millennium Development Goals that arose out the UN Millennium Summit of 2000, while the second reproduces the Principles of the UN Global Compact; the third, heart-warming in its feel of enlightened leadership, is the Prime Minister’s speech to the CII in May 2007; the last one reproduces a short correspondence between Mahatma Gandhi and a reader of Harijan – that does not add much to the main theme of the book, other than offering a glimpse of the sheer clarity of the Mahatma’s thinking.  The book raises a host of questions ending with the final essay entitled: Giving Another Way a Chance. We see Einstein’s famous quote: “we cannot solve the intractable problems we face with the same thinking that brought us into those problems.” The final note of caution is that the many complex problems facing the world will not be solved by prevalent approaches to management. There is a need for systemic approaches. There, however, lies the proverbial rub!

The loser in the process is society as seen in the loss of livelihood of thousands, the dislocation of thousands from their roots, the pollution of the village and all that it stands for. The poorest and the weakest man is lost in the folds of white papers…

Reflections On Monday, Morality And An Uncertain World

GOOD VALUE

Reflections On Monday, Morality And An Uncertain World

Stephen Green

Penguin India 2009

Pages 207  Rs 550

Where do we go from here? 

What part did we play in what went wrong? 

What do we do in the future? 

It was inevitable. This introspection. These perplexing, disturbing questions. Unbridled progress (however defined) needs ‘correction’ – to use a term from the stock market; questions need to be asked and answered.

One wouldn’t readily agree though with Stephen Green, that ‘we are at one of those moments in history when it seems as if the tectonic plates are shifting’. Alvin Toffler, much earlier, called this the ‘hinge of history’. These tectonic shifts and cardinal movements have been going on for ages, ever since the wheel was invented, through history recorded and unrecorded – through Galileo and Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ and Einstein, and through Hitler and Stalin… old orders have changed yielding place to the new. Admittedly they were few (though far reaching); they are more palpable now with their frequency rising at a disturbing rate. Be that as it may, the need to reflect and mull over where we have reached and where we are heading has always been with us.  Attend a funeral and hear the philosophising about the ephemeral nature of human existence, the mastery of Father Time, the need for life to go on…. The current worldwide meltdown has been a strong reminder to us that, indeed, all is vanity.

And there are many asking these questions:

Arun Maira in Transforming Capitalism (2008) avers that the purpose of business is not just business – it has ultimately to be improvement in the quality of life.

Robert Reich in Supercapitalism (2008) decries the transformation of the citizen into a consumer who looks for the best deal – to his own detriment.

Rajni Bakshi in her Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom (2009)  speaks of the on-going struggle between treating the earth as an abode and as a marketplace, with a hesitant hope that the current meltdown may lead to “a healthier culture of commerce in which bazaars are conversations about not just freedom of exchange and material opportunity but also about purpose and social and moral values” – a culture beyond greed and fear, a culture not driven by limitless wants.

Stephen A Marglin in The Dismal Science (2009) attempts to understand what is lost as economic development proceeds, and concludes that what is lost is community. He further examines whether there was inevitably a trade-off between material prosperity and maintaining cultural integrity of the family or village?

David C. Korten in Agenda for a New Economy (2009) speaks of Phantom Wealth (illusory; created by inflation of asset bubbles unrelated to the creation of anything of real value or utility) and Real wealth (healthy happy children, loving families, caring communities, and a beautiful, healthy natural environment; healthy food, fertile land, pure water, clean air, caring relationships and loving parents, education, etc.).

And Ayn Rand’s warned in Anthem (1938) there is no scope for us to escape moral responsibility for wherever we have arrived at, by wailing: ‘But I didn't mean this!’"

The double-barrel word, as Green calls sub-prime (-lending), has been the symbol of the loss of easy certainties as time progresses. He refers to Chekhovian wistfulness about an illusory golden age. And the Faustian bargain. He also refers to our tendency to, and need for compartmentalisation as a refuge from the surrounding ambiguity – it enables us to simplify the rules by which we live in our different realms of life, and so avoid the moral and spiritual questions.

From The Phenomenon Of Man (de Chardin – 1955) to Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Amartya Sen – 2006) there has been a call for recognition of the full range of links that have woven people together across divides of religion and nationality over the centuries

An interesting question that Green asks is ‘why should I bother?’ and in the process considers the ramifications of ‘corporate social responsibility’ as the raison d’etre of the company. From this he moves on to the concept of individual social responsibility which cannot be an optional extra or an adjunct to a life focused purely on work/pleasure. The responsibility involves the whole person: it cannot be limited by compartmentalisation, on discharged just by writing checks.  There is an interesting analysis of the rich young man in the New Testament which is a close equivalent of the Faustian bargain – which grants immediate and undiluted pleasure in exchange for acceptance of the consequences.  We take this option in many small ways all the time, and sometimes we justify it because we can’t bear the ambiguity of imperfection.

That Stephen Green is an ordained priest is significant; his position at the HSBC is incidental. The book is a reminder of all that we can be.