7: Pre- service learning activity

St. John Baptiste De La Salle dedicated his whole life serving the poor during his time. His life served as an insparation to us, the lasallians, on how to be of service to everyone especially the poor and marginalized members of our community. As lasallian, we are expected to live by our core values which are Faith (Religio), Zeal for Service (Mores) , and Communion in Mission (Cultura). We must always commit ourselves to our brothers and sisters especially the poor and marginalized members of our society. With this, our Lasallian Business Leadership class provides an avenue where we can put into action these values. One of the class requirements is to hold a service learning activity in our partner community which is Asilo de San Vicente de Paul. Service learning is a method wherein people immerse themselves in the community and shares their knowledge and skills in addressing real life problems for the benefit of everyone. In order to effectively perform this activity, we can use this service learning cycle provided by the Center for Social Concern and Action (COSCA) as a guide:

SEE – EXPERIENCE

This is the an important part in order to have a successful service learning activity. We must personally see the situation and have a firsthand experience on the community that we wish to help in order to fully understand their needs and address it properly. Like what St. John Baptist De La Salle did, he immersed himself to the poor in order to completely understand their situation.

ANALYSIS – REFLECTION

After understanding the situation, the next step is to reflect on what you experienced and think of ways on how can you extend help to the community. List all the possible activities that you think is possible to address their problems. Then weight which action will bring the most benefit to the community.

COMMITMENT – ACTION

This is where you perform your chosen action that aims to address the problems in the community. The activity must provide change for the good of the community.

Last February 17, 2018, we visited the chosen community which was Asilo de San Vicente de Paul in United Nations Avenue, Manila. The personnel from Asilo oriented us regarding their vision, mission and current situation. Guided by the charity of Jesus Christ, Asilo de San Vicente de Paul is a Haven of Hope for people living in poverty situations. We learned that they are committed in developing the total well-being of the poor by providing different programs and services such as technical vocation short courses and residential home. They also give shelter to orphan, street children and sick who are currently undergoing medication here in Manila. Since they are committed in personal development, our group thought of conducting a simple financial literacy seminar for the youth under the care of Asilo. Our group comprise of accountant, banker, businessman, and analyst, and we know how important money is nowadays. We recognize the significance of being financial literate. This is one of the reasons why we wanted to increase their awareness, appreciation and understanding of their current and future financial situations. We opt to teach the youth on how to properly manage their financials as early as now. We want them to make good financial decisions that will bring a great impact in their future. Aside from that, we will be teaching them simple money management such as saving and spending within the budget.

In order to achieve those objectives, the group will tackle the following topics:

·         Value of Money

·         Personal Finances

·         Importance of Savings and How to start saving

·         How to open a bank account?

·         Values – Incorporating Holistic Approach of the Seminar

We are planning to do this service learning activity on March 18, 2018 and we envision the following after doing this seminar:

• produce financially literate students
• with improved financial knowledge and practices
• increased desire to open a bank account and start saving
• motivated students aspiring to attain successful and financially independent lives in the future

Wait for my next post to know what happened and what did we learned during our service learning activity.

6: Women Empowerment (Glamor-a-Go-Go Case)

"Feminism isn't about making women strong. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength." —G.D. Anderson

We may not admit it but sexism is still rampant here in our country. Women is restricted to different opportunities that will help them grow. With the current government, I don’t think the respect and dignity for women is being uplifted. In a male dominated country, it is important for them to understand the power and worth of women. The country must have a strong campaign to promote women empowerment and bring gender equality. We are already in an era where women can do what men usually does. There’s actually a Magna Carta of Women or Republic Act No. 9710 which aims to eliminate discrimination against women by protecting, recognizing, fulfilling, and promoting the rights of Filipino women, especially those in the marginalized sector. The Magna Carta also explains every woman’s right to equal treatment before the law and access to education, training, sports, health services, food, security, and employment. It also states their protection from all forms of violence. Despite this republic act, a lot of women are still being oppressed. The government must impose strict implementation of this magna carta in order to promote equality among the members of the society. Women empowerment was one of the main concerns in the case that we scrutinized today. It is about a fictional company, Glamor-a-Go-Go.

Glamor-a-Go-Go is a private-label cosmetics company who has been in the industry for more than 30 years. The company is continuously growing with 120 stores located across New York to Los Angeles. In the next months, it is expecting to open 15 more stores and is planning to be present globally within 18 months. The company’s main tagline is “Girl Power” that captured the hearts and interest of teenagers and 20-something women.

The company’s sales and profit were skyrocketing and the man behind this success is their CEO, Joe Ryan. Joe is a great leader with vision and good strategy that transformed Glamor-a-Go-Go into a powerhouse retail shop. Aside from that, he also made the company a place with unlimited opportunities for his employees and investors. A place where fun and excitement is being promoted.

Despite of his good performance, his character is being questioned by the board members because of his personal affairs with different woman. In the gossip section of the local newspaper, he was seen leaving a gala event with a beautiful woman who happens not to be his wife. There were also different rumors within the company regarding his relationship with other women. Because of his behavior, the board of members are thinking if they should still keep him as a CEO or fire him even if he has contributed a lot for the growth of the company.

The company’s main campaign is women empowerment and the allegations to Joe Ryan does not coincide with their values. As mentioned, his philandering behavior is still a rumor but the company, specifically the board members, must take the appropriate actions in order to address this issue and save the good reputation of the company.

Unfortunately, the reporting group was not able to discuss their solution to Joe Ryan’s rumored philandering case. In my own perspective, I think the board members must first make sure that the company is not at risk by implementing strategies to sustain the growth and reputation of Glamor-a-Go-Go. They must release a statement saying that they are currently addressing the issue with Joe Ryan but the business is still at good hands. After that, they must talk to Joe Ryan to know his side of the story and inform him that they will be conducting an investigation to know the truth behind the allegations. I think this action if fair to everyone especially to Joe Ryan since he will be given a chance to defend himself.  The board members must wait for the result of this investigation before coming up with an action. If he is found guilty, they must let him go. This may not be good for the company since he is a good CEO but the board members must remember that common good is more important than the stake of the company. 

5: Markkula Framework

As Lasallian business leader, we are expected to make ethical business decisions. But before making ethical decisions, we must first know what ethics is all about. According to Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, and Meyer in 2010, “Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues”. Ethics serves as guide for us, business leaders, in order to make right decisions without compromising the needs of our stakeholders such as the employee, costumers, suppliers, the community and the environment. 

Santa Clara University identified five sources of ethical standards that will guide us in making ethical decisions in our organizations. I will use this framework to assess if one of our practices in the office is ethical. In my current work, one of my tasks is to communicate with different suppliers. The main concern is that the payment terms for these suppliers are sixty days after delivering the complete items based on the purchase order. So, they need to wait for sixty days or more before they can get the payment for the goods that they provided. This is legally binding since the supplier agreed with this payment terms and they signed a contract. However, is this ethically acceptable? In order to answer this, I will use the different ethical standards that Santa Clara University suggested to use.

1. The Utilitarian Approach

According to Santa Clara University, the utilitarian approach deals with consequences. It suggests us to choose the decision that will produce the best consequences compared to the other alternatives. Delaying the payment to sixty days is not beneficial to the supplier especially if they are SMEs since their working capital is small. However, this practice may be advantageous for our company since the money that will be used to pay the supplier can be used for other business operations that will bring a much more valuable effect to the company.

2. The Rights Approach

This approach promotes human dignity and implies that each individual must be treated right. It is the right of the suppliers to be paid for the goods that they supplied and our company is not violating this right. However, as mentioned earlier, sixty days is too long and sometimes they are waiting for more than sixty days just to get the payment.

3. The Fairness or Justice Approach

This approach implies that resources should be treated equally for the good of the whole organization. The sixty days’ payment terms might be okay for big suppliers who has enough revolving capital but it is unfair for small and medium enterprises who does not have enough revolving funds for the possible growth of their business.

4. The Common Good Approach

This approach suggests that actions must allow total human development for all the members of the community. Unfortunately, the payment terms that we are practicing does not promote good working relationship with the supplier. They may be okay with the existing payment terms but we can still improve it for the good of everyone.

5. Virtue Approach

This approach opts to answer the question “Will this action lead me to the person I want to be?”  or “What kind of person will I be if I choose to act this way?”. Since we are talking about a company policy, I cannot do something to amend it. However, there is still something that I can do in order to act as the person I want to be. What I am doing is that I am processing the payment for my suppliers immediately and ask the finance department if it is possible to urgently pay the supplier especially if they are SMEs.

This just shows that although the practice is legally acceptable, it is not ethical. The company is not doing something wrong because in the business perspective, the action is acceptable and I cannot do anything to change this policy. The least that I could do is to ask the concerned department to urgently process the payment for my SME suppliers.

In the future, when I have the authority to make decisions, I will use this framework to assess if the option that I am choosing is the best. I will also consider its impact to all the stakeholders especially the underserved members of our community.

4: Life Plan

“Where do you see yourself five, ten, or fifteen years from now?”. This is a very popular question especially during job interviews and we often answer it with the following: “professionally developed and ready to take bigger roles”, “become a valuable asset for the organization”, “assume more responsibilities and be in a managerial position where I can use my skills and knowledge to support and influence my colleagues” and the like. There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, it all depends on your personal life goals. And in order to achieve these goals, you must have you concrete plan. This plan will assist you in reaching your aspirations in life. In one of my MBA classes, we were taught on how to make a good plan. But before that, we must remember that time precious thus, we need to manage it effectively. Here’s the planning cycle that we can follow in order successfully meet your goal:

1. Analysis of Current Position

You must know your current situation and identify what you already accomplished and what do you want to achieve in the coming years. You also need to consider the people around you, the community, environment and other factors that might affect your plan.

2. Identify Aim

After knowing your current state, you can now identify your goals. What do you want to achieve in the future? You could prepare your personal vision and mission statement that will help you identify what you need to accomplish in the coming years.

3. Explore Options

This time, you need to formulate different options based on research and previous experiences on how can you achieve your goal. You must choice which option will give you the most benefit without compromising the needs of others.

4. Detailed Planning

After identifying your broad goal, the next thing that you need to do is to identify key activities on how to achieve your objective. You can make weekly, monthly or yearly plans that will guide your actions and decisions in life.

5. Plan Evaluation

This stage will allow you to assess your listed activities. You must evaluate every action if it will really lead you on the right path. You must also consider the effect of your actions to other people, your community and the environment.

6. Plan Implementation

This is where you do the key activities that you previously identified in order to meet your goals. You must monitor every action and see if you are really on the correct path. If not, you can always make adjustments and do the necessary changes.

7. Closure of the plan

This time you need to assess the output of your plan. Did you achieve the goal that you set? Was the plan successful or not? The information, learning and experiences that you get will help you in your future planning.

In our class, we were asked to make a 25-year life plan. We were asked where do we see ourselves after 5 years? 10 years? and 25 years? and I would like to share with you the summary of my life plan. But first, as mentioned earlier, I identified my vision and mission statement first.

VISION:

To be a better version of myself and bring inspiration and motivation to my family and community.

MISSION:

My mission in life is to continuously grow as a person, live a balanced life and explore new ideas through different experiences. To find true happiness and fulfilment by sharing my God given talent to my family, organization, and the poor and marginalized members of our society. To apply all the ethical principles that I learned in my journey through life and make a significant difference in my community.

My lifelong plan is to accept Christ and submit myself to Him. I will continue being a blessing to other people by serving them and sharing the gifts that God gave me. I will also continue to help and support my family in achieving their dreams. Within the next five years, I picture myself getting a diploma for finishing an MBA degree. In terms of my career, I see myself taking a bigger role on my current organization wherein I can use all the knowledge that I learned in my MBA program in order to make good business strategies and better decisions. In the next ten years, I will be financially stable and will start having my own family. Lastly, in the next 25 years, I see myself healthy, happy and contented with my life.

3: Work-life Balance

Embrace yourself, another busy week is about to start. Heavy traffic, long lines, people rushing to work, these are the some of the signs that it’s Monday again. Time to do reports, attend to different meetings, present proposal to suppliers, balance financial statements, call clients, produce and sell products, and many more tasks that you need to accomplish within eight hours for the next five days.  Are you ready for another stressful week?

According to George Mallory, “We don’t live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means, and that is what life is for.” However, I know how difficult it is to live by these words especially when you have need and wants that only money can buy. That’s why I can’t blame people who are working for more than forty hours just to earn enough. While others are working so hard and exerting so much effort at work in order to achieve their career goals. Because of these objectives, employees tend to extend their working hours that leads to less time with family and friends. Over-working may also lead to health problems such as being burnt out and over fatigue. Personally, I am also guilty of working overtime. There were instances where my forty-hour work week is not enough to tick off all the work related items on my “to do” list. So, I ended bringing home these tasks just to finish them. I already missed a lot of family gathering and events because I’m finishing some work related things. This leads to the big question: “How can we achieve work-life balance?”.

Most of the companies nowadays are promoting work-life balance by offering different benefit programs to their employees which includes flexible working hours, vacation packages, and other fringe benefits that entice people to work in their company. For example, P&G promotes work-life balance by allowing their employees to work from home and giving them flexible working schedule which allows the employees to manage their time properly in order to meet business and personal goals. They also allow personal leave of absence wherein employee can take up to three months off periodically without pay but with continued benefits. In my case, our company recently allowed us to have a flexible working schedule which gives us the chance to organize our own schedule to meet work and personal needs.

However, what if your company doesn’t promote work-life balance? How can you begin to bring that balance back into your life? Here are some of my tips:

1. Know your priorities.

It is very important to know your life priorities. I know you want to achieve a lot in life but setting priorities will help you accomplish them one step at a time. In my case, I prioritize my family, my job, my friends, school, personal time and God. After listing your priorities, you should identify which of them gets the highest weight. For me, God is the most important followed by family then work followed by school, personal time and last would be friends. There will always be trade off but as long as you know your priorities you will always make the right decision. Remember to put yourself on your priority list because no one will best take good care of yourself than you and you can’t achieve all your aspirations if you are not healthy. 

2. Learn to manage you time properly.

As the saying goes “time is gold” so we really need to use it wisely. It will be easier for us to fix our schedule since we already identified our priorities. You can make daily, weekly or monthly schedule based on your preference. For me, I allotted my Sunday as church day and family day. From Monday to Friday, my 9am to 6pm is dedicated for work then I allot 2 to 3 hours to accomplish all my school related stuff. My Saturday is dedicated for some recreational activities for myself, sometimes with family or friends. There were times where I failed to follow my schedule but remember that you can always change it depending on your needs as long as you can accomplish all your assigned tasks. And also make sure that you allotted time on all the priorities that you identified.

3. Be contented.

There is no specific formula on how to achieve work-life balance but I believe that all you have to do is be happy on what you have. Be contented and find simple joys in every little thing. Know your personal goals and mission. Give your best in all the things that you do and eventually you will achieve all your aspirations. Stop comparing yourself to others because that’s where all the stress begins.

I know how challenging it is to balance all your priorities in life. There are different things that you can do in order to bring back that balance in your life. All you have to do is start with small steps then eventually you’ll get there.

2: Vocation of a Business Leader

People have needs and unlimited wants and that’s one of the reason why businesses exist. Every business provides goods or services for the satisfaction of their target customers. Technology and globalization also played an important role in the progress of businesses around the world. In response to the changing business environment, Cardinal Peter Turkson from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, issued a note entitled The Vocation of the Christian Business Leader. This document includes specific guidelines on the three major business objectives with underlying practical business principles. The broad business objectives are as follows:

Meeting the Needs of the World through the Creation and Development of Goods and Services

This context means that businesses should produce quality good and provide professional services to its customers especially the poor and undeserved members of the community. These goods and services must be produced responsibly and should meet the needs and demands of the consumers. Everyone should have an equal access to these goods and services.

As an airline, we do our best to provide cheap airfare so that passengers can avail it especially the OFWs and local employees who are going home to their families in the provinces. Despite of the low cost, we make sure that we provide exceptional service to our passengers. Aside from that, we also offer rice meals during the flight which are cheaper compared to other local airlines.

As future business leader, I should make sure that we produce quality goods and services that will satisfy the needs of everyone especially the poor. Together with my team, we will innovate quality but cheap goods or services that is at par with the expensive ones. The strategy that I’m thinking is by partnering with small and medium enterprises. In this way, we can also give opportunity for them to grow their business and at the same time my cost of production is lower.

Organizing Good and Productive Work

All employees must be respected and treated with dignity. Businesses must build a workplace where employees’ skills and abilities are valued and must provide them with opportunities for their growth.

Every employee wanted to be respected despite of their position in the organization. In our office, we don't have separate cubicle per employee. What we have is a long table where we could freely work with our colleagues. This helps us build a good working relationship and promote teamwork within the company. The top management also don't have a secluded office and you can easily interact with them. As future business leader, I will promote a working environment where each employee will be treated fairly despite of their position. All their efforts and contributions for the growth of the organization will be acknowledged. We must remember that employees play a big role on the success of the business and the least that we could do is to compensate them fairly, provide them with benefits, and acknowledge all their efforts.

Creating Sustainable Wealth and Distributing it Justly

The two guiding principles under this business objective states that: Businesses model stewardship of the resources – whether capital, human, or environmental – they have received; and Businesses are just in the allocation resources to all stakeholders: employees, customers, investors, suppliers and the community. Businesses should maximize all their resources such as human, capital, and environmental wisely and they should properly distribute these resources among all its stakeholders such as suppliers, employees and the community. 

To promote sustainability, we have CSR campaign that aims to lessen the carbon emission from our daily operations. The company also offers training to employees to expand their knowledge and to students who wants to understand our business and operations. Aside from that, we are currently expanding to cater more passengers with our low-cost fares. 

As future business leader, I will not focus on profit alone but I will also consider the effect of my business to the people and the planet. I will make sure that the goods or services that we are producing will benefit all the stakeholders such as the suppliers, community, employees, and the business itself. Aside from that, I should be conscious on the effect of my company to the environment and if I’m using the scarce resources properly.

These principles will guide us, the future business leaders, on how to ethically respond and act on different business situations. It will help us achieve our mission without compromising the interest of all the stakeholders.

1: The life St. John Baptist De La Salle

According to Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world” and I know a man who value education the most, his name is John Baptist De La Salle.

John Baptist De La Salle came from one of the wealthy families in France who has the privilege to attend formal schooling. During his time, poverty was rampant and only the rich people have the opportunity to pursue education. This situation alarmed La Salle as he felt that the poor should also have an access to proper education as well. Thus, together with his brothers, they formed a charity school for the poor boys. He trained the teachers so that they will be better equipped in teaching the students. He also used Latin instead of French as the medium of teaching and taught his students as a group and not one on one teaching which was the norm during his time. La Salle continue his mission which was to educate the poor and later became the Patron Saint of all those who work in the field of education.

St. John Baptist De La Salle’s teachings are not limited to those who work in the field of education only. We may not be teachers by profession but we can also pattern our actions based on his good qualities such as being a risk-taker, innovator, servant-leader and mentor. St. John Baptist left everything that he has and took all the risk in order to build a school that will cater the underprivileged members of the society. He even applied a new approach in teaching his students and also shared his expertise to the teachers in order to them to effectively teach the youth. These occasions showed how good he is as a servant-leader who is willing to sacrifice everything for the good of his people. And most importantly, his faith is God was present in whatever circumstances that he faced.

As a future Lasallian business leader, I will follow the examples of St. John Baptist De La Salle by being a good role model and leader in our organization. I will not be afraid to take risks as long as the result will be for the welfare of everyone especially my colleagues. To continue striving to be better and to guide and motivate my colleague to do more than what is expected from us. I want to build a working environment where learning is continuous and everyone will be allowed to share his/her knowledge and expertise despite their position in the organization. I will also willingly accept challenges that will allow me to use all the things that I learned in business school for the benefit of all the stakeholders. I will always remember that my purpose in my organization is not just to contribute in maximizing profit but also to teach minds, touch hearts, and transform lives of the stakeholders.

The most important thing that I learned in the life of St. John Baptiste De La Salle was to have faith in God and allow Him to use you for the fulfillment of His will.