News from the Center
Dialogue with ERC Fellows Underscores Challenge of Building Level 3 Cultures
Fr. Robert Spitzer was one of the featured speakers when the Ethics Resource Center Fellows Program held its most recent semi-annual meeting this past January in Norfolk, Virginia. Fr. Spitzer provided the fellows with an overview of the “Philosophical Foundations of Ethics in Business” and the Four Levels of Happiness™. The fellows, in turn, provided Fr. Spitzer with a window into their own values and the cultures of the organizations they worked in.
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| Fr. Spitzer and ERC Fellows Vice Chair Charles Ruthford of Boeing at the Fellows meeting in January. |
The ERC Fellows Program was created to provide a forum for leaders who share an expertise and strong practical interest in the fields of organizational ethics. The fellows hail from some of the nation’s premier companies, universities, institutes, and government, and many of them have oversight responsibility for the ethics of the organizations they serve.
During his talk, Fr. Spitzer surveyed these leaders, via voting pads, on where they and their organizations stood in terms of the Four-Level model. The results confirmed that it’s much easier to pursue a Level 3 vision of happiness on an individual level than a corporate level.
When the fellows were asked where they saw themselves in terms of their personal identity or level of happiness, a large majority – almost 90 percent – saw themselves moving from Level 2 to Level 3 or already at Level 3. But when asked how they would classify their overall organizations, 62 percent of respondents acknowledged that they worked in a dominant Level 2 culture (see pie charts, below). Just 10 percent of respondents said they worked in a culture where Level 3 dominated.
While the survey wasn’t a scientific poll, it gibes with a point Fr. Spitzer frequently makes. “Level 2 is the dominant default drive in our culture. The media, the entertainment industry and peer pressure all favor a climate of winners and losers.”
In any large organization, that Level 2 view is likely to dominate if there isn’t an explicit, long-term effort to build a contributive Level 3. Given that reality, it’s encouraging to note that more than a third of the ERC fellows’ parent organizations were moving in a Level 3 direction if not there already.
Fr. Spitzer's talk was highlighted in the most recent issue of Ethics Today, the ERC’s newsletter. For a list of the members of the ERC Fellows program, use this link.
