by Marieke (Johanna Maria)
Feitsma
If you would have told me 10 years ago that once I would be the
student speaker at a graduation of a Master of Business
Administration Program I would not have believed you; probably I
would have laughed at you.
Being trained as a development worker and having worked in the
development sector for some years gave me a logical focus on the
development of people and their livelihoods and certainly not on
the development of profit and shareholder value.
One of the things I realized at St Johns during the past two
years is that developing people and developing value for
shareholders do not only contradict each other. Although I do
believe that the development sector could still use a lot more
business approach and that the business sector could use more heart
and benevolence…
Like most of us I came to St Johns to learn the skills necessary
to run a business or, for that matter, a (development)
organization. And skills we learnt: No secrets in a SWOT analysis
for us and no statistician or accountant who will be able to
confuse us with their figures. In addition to the MBA related
skills, studying at the St John’s Rome Campus offered us the
opportunity to learn how to function in an international
environment. Certainly these skills will help us to manage
efficiently and effectively whatever company, department,
organization and country we end up in. However, I hope we could do
more than being efficient and effective in our future jobs.
During our time at St Johns there is one quote that we heard
particularly often. It’s the statement of John Maynard Keynes: “in
the long run we are all dead”. Of course Keynes made this statement
with respect to government policies and intervention in the
economy, and of course it can hardly be contradicted that we will
all once be dead, however, our children and their children and
(hopefully) our planet will not be!!
It is not for nothing that we hear Keynes’ statement quoted so
often, today there appears to be a focus on the short-run. In the
era of technological dominance, everything appears to go faster and
faster, new products are launched every minute, new companies
emerge, flourish and perish, people change jobs at an increasing
rate and money flows between investments faster then ever. People
feel less commitment to their employer, and companies maybe feel
less commitment towards the communities they operate in. In this
race against time people tend to overlook that there is a long term
indeed and that our actions can have very negative long term
consequences.
Nature for one will certainly not adjust its pace to our
technological formula-1 race. Natural resources are rapidly
decreasing in quality and quantity, and scientists have quite
clearly proven the impact of human activity on global warming and
climate change and their devastating effects.
Neither does it appear easy for peoples and nations in
disadvantaged positions to catch up with the pace of our privileged
half of the world. Our economies are ever growing and our
technological insights allow us to understand more and more about
the world. But we still do not seem to be able to stop the widening
income gaps in our own economies in the USA or in Europe, let alone
find a way to decrease the absolute number of people living below
the poverty line on a global level.
I believe that working towards the development of people and
their livelihoods and the sustainable use of resources should not
limit itself to the development and public sectors; these interests
should no longer be seen as the enemy of economic growth and
business opportunities. There are some signs of businesses
recognizing that caring for people and the environment is in their
best interest, partly because customers are increasingly demanding
businesses to act in a social responsible manner, and partly
because they believe in doing the so-called “right thing”. I think
it is essential that this trend continues.
This summer all of us here who graduated will start a new phase
in our lives, most of us will start working in the business sector
– if we have to believe our professors surely some of us will end
up in China. Wherever we end up, we will all in one way or the
other use and apply what we learnt here at St John’s.
What I hope is that we will apply our knowledge and skills in
such a way that we do not only contribute to profits and
shareholders value on the short run, but that we indeed contribute
to the sustainable and just use of the world’s resources on the
long run too!!