Q & A : When the Bottom Line Is Personal Honor : Author Backs Coexistence of Business, Ethics

Rabbi Wayne Dosick must have struck a chord with his book “The Business Bible: Ten New Commandments for Creating an Ethical Workplace” (William Morrow & Co.). It sold out its 15,000-copy hardcover run last year and has just been released in paperback by HarperBusiness.

Using contemporary examples and ancient parables, Dosick, 47, structured his book around 10 chapters on 10 ethical commandments. Among them: Honesty is the best management policy, whether dealing with employees or customers. And: Managers have a responsibility to treat employees and customers as they would prefer to be treated.

Dosick, who lives in La Costa, Calif., is an adjunct professor of Jewish studies at the University of San Diego.

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Q: Why is a book linking business and ethics timely?

A: There’s an upheaval going on. The “Me Decade” of the ‘70s and the “Greed Is Good” decade of the ‘80s led to all these excesses--the Wall Street scandals, the S&L; failures. Suddenly, business leaders are beginning to talk about business in an entirely new way as “a trust” and “a calling” and “a covenant” and as “love.”

I said to myself, I have a unique perspective to offer this discussion. These guys come from, if you will, the failure of the business world to live up to good ethical standards, and they are calling the business world to task for that. I come from the perspective of bringing the ethical standards to the business world. Not just Judaism, but all the spiritual traditions have something to say about how we live decently in our everyday lives.

The Bible and Talmud are not just holy books out there for sacred moments, but nitty-gritty books teaching how we are to behave with each other in everyday relationships and which over and over again talk about issues of commerce and business.

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Q: So your book is a compendium of business lessons to be drawn from holy texts?

A: After I started writing, I looked around and knew I needed real-life examples, that I couldn’t talk on an esoteric plane as if I’d gotten the word off the mountain and you guys better listen. I knew I’d need to find companies that do this kind of stuff.

So I went looking for businesses that do it right--that do well by doing good--and I found some. Tom’s of Maine, the toothpaste maker, and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream people are well known for sharing their profits and for social consciousness.

Then I ran into this company called Fel-Pro, an automotive gasket manufacturer in Skokie, Ill., whose managers were invited to the White House for Clinton’s signing of the family leave bill. Fel-Pro has been giving family leave for the past 12 years. They have on-site legal and psychological counseling, summer camps and scholarships for employees’ kids. I asked around and it turned out, by sheer coincidence and luck, that Fel-Pro’s co-chairman, Lewis Weinberg, has a retirement house in Ramona (a San Diego suburb).

So I got introduced to and had dinner with him and I asked Mr. Weinberg: “How can you do all this?” He looked at me and said, “How can we not do it? For 54 straight years, we have had increasing profit, and there is only one reason: We take care of our employees and our employees take care of us.”

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Q: One of your main themes is the value of treating employees and customers humanely.

A: Ethics go across the board--internally with employees, externally with consumers. When I did book signings and people would pass me by, I’d call them over, and they’d say, “I’m retired, I don’t need a book on business ethics.” But every one of us is involved in business if we do nothing more than buy a 29-cent stamp or a tube of toothpaste.

I’ve been collecting business stories--the good, the bad and the ugly of how people behave out there. You probably have your own litany. If you just recorded how you were treated in various business settings in the course of one week, you’d be blown away at how poorly you’re treated, and we don’t really give it much thought.

But then you jump hoops and get happy when you’re treated well. That’s why there will always be a place for Nordstrom, no matter what Wal-Mart does to a downtown shopping district. When you think of Nordstrom, you think of quality and service, not that the prices are high. The bottom line is that we’ll go back again and again to a place where we’re treated well, and we’ll stay away from places where we are not treated well.

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Q: You quote the prophet Micah to define a true business leader as someone who “does justly, loves mercy and walks humbly.” What did you mean?

A: Those are the exact three qualities that a good leader has to have. In the Israeli army, the generals are at the head of the line and they say, “Follow me.” They’re not sitting in some bunker saying, “Charge!”

People don’t become leaders in some office coup, but from engendering the loyalty of the people they are to lead, the same way when you’re a 15-year-old kid playing football or in your college fraternity. You treat people decently, give them good examples, you show them the way, and you do the job with them. You have to be fair, have to have compassion and walk humbly. Anyone who walks too high on a pedestal gets knocked off one of these days.

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Q: Why is truth important in a business setting?

A: Because everything depends on it--your honor, your word, your reputation and eventually your business. If you lie to me, you may get away with it this time and the next time and the time after. But if I catch you in that lie, that’s it, we’re done, because I can never trust you again. And I have to be able to do my business based on trust.

From my point of view, everything depends on honesty. The worst that happens is the shuttle blows up, or the airplane mechanic doesn’t tighten a bolt tight enough and a plane crashes, or people get hurt or people’s lives are ruined.

You value truth with a wife or husband, because you know what lack of trust can do to a marriage. You value it with children, because you know what a broken promise can do to a six- year old. And you value it when you walk into a church or mosque or synagogue, because you aren’t going to lie to the pastor.

The only thing going on in the business world that’s not going on in our other worlds is that we are trying to make money, trying to make a profit, trying to acquire more and more. And so something happens that profit and acquisition become so important to us (that) we are willing to give up our personal honor for it.

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Q: Any sign that a more ethical, humane approach to work is coming to realization?

A: IBM used to stand for “I’ve Been Moved.” People are saying, finally: “I have a job that I like. I will sacrifice the promotion, prestige and money that goes with it for being where I am--to keep the kids in the good schools, where the family is tied to the community.” That’s happening a lot these days.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta came out and said that for every $1 that a company spends in preventive health care and exercise programs for employees, the company saves $7 in future health costs. So now we’re getting firm data, statistical research, that doing good benefits the bottom line.

Employees are finding out that success is not measured in dollars but in creativity, personal satisfaction, how one touches the life of another person. Maybe touching the lives of youngsters whom he can help mold and shape is in the end far more satisfying for an MBA or an engineer. It may turn out that an MBA’s real calling is to be a high school coach.

As hard as it is to say, the American dream we thought we were going to have isn’t going to be. Instead of lamenting that, we’ve got to begin to deal with that reality, and we have to dig deep into our souls--our creatvity and beings--to know that there are other things to do than the jobs we’ve been doing.

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Q: If greed was good enough 10 years ago, why not now?

A: Reality set in. Once you have it all--the house in the suburbs, the condo at the beach, the fancy cars in the driveway, kids in private school--you turn around and say: “So what? What now?” It’s not material things that count, and people are finding that out. It’s the heart’s satisfaction, the soul’s satisfaction of making your contribution to the ongoing process of the universe, toward touching the hearts and souls of other people, to being a decent, kind and humane human being, by making your life on earth make a difference in the lives of others.

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Q: But how does that relate to managers?

A: By understanding that the bottom line is not necessarily measured in dollar signs, that you can do good stuff with your business as well. When you share what you have earned with the people who helped you earn it--the employees and the customers who paid the bills--you get what you give.

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Q: Doesn’t a company have to ration its humanity in tough times like these when survival is at issue? Isn’t a company justified in giving less slack to problem employees, for example?

A: Well, the first thing I want to know is: Why is the problem employee a problem? Why is the problem child in kindergarten a problem child? Fel-Pro, for example, has on-site psychological counseling to help find out what’s going on here.

Maybe the worker is having trouble at home--his father is sick, his child is having problems. Maybe he’s a creative person who feels punched down by the system or the boss or whatever. Let’s find out. People are not problems inherently; people have problems because of something that’s going on in their lives. If we are going to help that person as a human being, let’s help him the best we can to solve it.

To say everyone is going to fit and will be fabulous and wonderful for the company--obviously there are mismatches. But before I dismiss someone as a problem employee, I’m going to try to find out the best I can what is going on in their lives.