This is the season isn’t it? For a short time every year a great deal of the world shops till it drops, overburdens national postal systems with greeting cards and one thought prevails above many others: “Peace on earth, good will to men.” The Christmas spirit is so ubiquitous that there is no escaping it. Even though we of course don’t celebrate the holiday as such (we are getting together with some friends for a Judeo-Muslim turkey dinner with all the trimmings on the evening of the 24th) I wouldn’t mind if every day was imbued with a bit of the Christmas spirit, and then I am particularly referring to that prevailing thought – “Peace on earth, good will to men.”
It’s an interesting thought that could use a slight realignment
to better capture the causal connection. If we all practiced good will to men than the inevitable result would be peace on earth. As just one individual there is only so much good will to men that one can spread. Although I don’t underestimate the power of 1, as a business consultant I have become personally enthralled and engaged by the newly emerging concept of ‘values-based’ business.
Values-based business is the corporate world’s way of institutionalizing the concept of good will to men. It goes beyond good corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility. Leaders of values-based businesses activate their companies’ potential as a positive and pro-active force in solving social and environmental problems while providing their employees satisfying and stimulating work and their shareholders with gratifying financial returns. In the most exemplary cases such businesses deliver products and services specifically geared to addressing one or another social issue.
On my recent trip to Cambodia I was fortunate to have the opportunity to spend time with two inspiring business leaders who are successful and shining examples of the best that values-based business, and therefore good will to men, has to offer: Sokoun Chanpreda and Jim Elliot.
Sokoun Chanpreda is the founder and owner of the Shinta Mani hotel in Siem Reap. This small boutique hotel opened two doors in 2004. The one door was that of the hotel itself and the second was that of the hotel’s hospitality institute whose mission is to provide underprivileged local youth with a free high-class training in the hotel and hospitality business. What makes Shinta Mani so special, and Mr. Chanpreda so unusual, is that he started the hotel as the necessary financial vehicle to support the charitable hospitality institute.
As Time Magazine put it in a recent profile of Mr. Chanpreda:
Cambodia has some of the world's most beautiful temples, but they are surrounded by dusty villages mired in extreme poverty. For the country's tourism trade, that would seem like a drawback. For entrepreneur Sokoun Chanpreda, it looked more like an opportunity—a chance to put an industry with jobs to fill together with people who need the work… More than 60 students have completed the program since it started in 2004, and all have managed to find jobs. After scraping by on as little as $5 a month, they can earn $80 to $120 upon graduation…
Philanthropy is the animating idea of the hotel, but it still needs to generate a profit to stay in operation. Sokoun, 42, who is also a co-founder of Bed Supperclub, a sleek Bangkok nightspot, has that worked out, mostly by making the charitable mission part of the hotel's allure. Visitors who come to the Shinta Mani help sponsor students, and have even donated $150,000 over the past two years to provide aid such as wells, livestock and sewing machines for 340 families in the area…
Sokoun's past is part of the reason he's driven to both do well and do good. He fled Cambodia with his family in 1970 just as a 20-year civil war broke out, and he returned for the first time in the early 1990s. "If my family had not left, I would be dead," he says. Instead, he can give back through the Shinta Mani.
As I wrote in October, my visit to Siem Reap was greatly enriched by participating in the community projects that the hotel sponsors. By sheer luck, I was in town still when the hospitality institute’s class of 2007 was scheduled to graduate. Attending the graduation ceremony, seeing the beaming proud faces of the school’s hard working young students who
now had a bright future, speaking to some of them and getting to meet Sokoun and his equally committed and visionary wife were highlights of my trip.
Sokoun’s humility and unassuming nature belie his fervent dedication to
doing well by doing good. He and his team have created in Shinta Mani a business that can inspire others to follow his example. I know that one of his partners in Bed Management (the holding company that Shinta Mani is part of), Bill Black, is often asked to share their experiences with other business leaders. For me the lesson was clear: acts of good will to men do not have to be limited to individual acts but can be a core feature of a successful business model. Nor does ‘good will to men’ have to be limited to the holiday season. It can be a guiding principle for each of us in our daily lives and in the businesses we work in and lead.
In my next post I will introduce you to Jim Elliot who is also a serial practitioner of good will to men and who has used that concept to launch a successful travel business.
To all my friends and visitors who celebrate Christmas, let me wish you a joyous holiday, one in which I hope you too will recommit to living the principle of good will to men.
I visited this blog first time and found it very interesting and informative.. Keep up the good work thanks..
Posted by: Van Leasing | July 04, 2009 at 15:00