Dialogue as a New Economic Lifestyle

This is the edited transcript of my talk about applying the principles of the Economy of Communion in Consulus. This was delivered on 20th May in Atma Jaya, a University in Central Jakarta, and presented here again on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the founding of the Economy of Communion which is celebrated annually on the 29th of May.

Originally written by me and improved with the aid of Grammarly.?

Good morning everyone; I am Lawrence from Singapore, and together with a?few friends, a Methodist, a Muslim, and myself, a Catholic, (so everyday it is also about ecumenical and interreligious dialogue ) we founded a management consulting firm in 2004 that wanted to bring about change in a purpose-driven way. We soon realized that the management consulting methods?could be more holistic as they only focused on maximizing profit and treated people's role as a cost item, hence human resource. In 2004, management consulting was also a?class system?where if you were in finance, you were more valued or important than creative thinkers, so there was no equality among the disciplines. Such an approach of profit and class alone is not pragmatic in a 21st-century economy that is a knowledge-driven economy where ideas and people drive growth.?

Since I was taught the instruments of dialogue in the Focolare movement to build trust and unity in diversity. I was also introduced tof the Economy of Communio concept, also known in brief as EoC. And here, I need to explain why is the idea of EoC important. There is a greater poverty that impacts the world, and that is the poverty of mutual love; without this, there can be no sharing of resources or ideas to improve the state of our world.?

Before any talk about the concept of ESG, EoC was a new economic concept launched by the founder of Focolare?Chiara Lubich in 1991 in Brazil, where she had a vision that companies can be places of communion to bring about a new type of company that can overcome the poverty of mutual love through the culture of giving. I shared these thoughts with my partners, who all agreed that we need to redesign a new management consulting model that is dialogue-oriented, unifying diverse knowledge disciplines, and purpose-driven. Hence the name of our company is?Consulus, which also means?with others?

?It meant creating a different kind of culture for a management consulting practice, not about the survival of the fittest but of purpose and unity.?

Today our?company?is present in 23 nations from the?Americas, Europe, and Asia. We work with others to build change movements to impact a better?economic?system based on?interdependence?and mutual love. We work with leaders, even cities, large enterprises, governments, foundations,?non-profits, social enterprises, and small companies.

In concrete terms, we enter these organizations to study their operational practices, their purpose, and how they build unity. Then we design an entirely new system guided by purpose and unity encompassing strategy, organization, business model, branding, and how they innovate and impact society to aid the poor and build understanding. For example, there is a?township?on the outskirts of Jakarta, where there is usually a divide between the poor who have no houses and choose to squat on the lands; The client whom we were working with was introduced to some principles of the EoC. So while we were developing the strategy with this client, they decided to find a way to provide them with jobs and integrate them into the development through the township. So it was fortuitous that we met people who already share the principles and beliefs of the EoC.?

Another experience on dialogue: in our company, every year, we have a practice called Bonsai; it is a practice inspired by the Focolare where we share our feedback with one another, such as an affirmation of how each person has made an impact on our work and then in another round of feedback where they can improve to work with care and purpose. We have done this internally for about 17 years, and it continues to be an experience of deepening relationships. We have since introduced this to our?clients, and people were moved in many situations. One person who worked with her boss for years thanked us for this practice of Bonsai, where everyone is respected as a beautiful plant; she said that it was beautiful to hear from her boss in specific ways about how well she did her work. Because she never had the opportunity to listen to it since her boss was shy with affirmation. This experience deepened the trust between them.

In our work, we work on large township projects, and usually, when a large company develops a township, they do not involve the community. So in Sarawak, we introduced this approach of involving the community before building. First, we ask the people living there what is so special about the state capital of Kuching. The community then submitted 2,000 stories of love and unity about Kuching. From these stories, we built and developed a township where?people?can gather in purpose and unity. Today that?township?is a desired destination where people gather for events; they come together to celebrate arts and culture. And we named it?Saradise, Sarawak, and Paradise because when there is purpose and unity, it is indeed paradise.?

The business owner, upon this experience and then knowing the economy of communion model, also decided to transform his entire business towards?sustainability?to impact Sarawak. He pledged to go into planting fast-growing trees in the state and provide economic opportunities for the tribal people?

From our experiences, a new economic dialogue is the most reliable way to overcome the poverty of goods and mutual love in our society.?

Thank you.?

Lawrence Chong also serves as the Moderator for the EoC Asia Pacific, the regional network that promotes the application of the principles of the Economy of Communion. For more information: https://eocasiapacific.org/

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Video about the Economy of Communion

An interview with a TV station in Croatia about the Economy of Communion