The Relevance of the Five Basic Tenets of Islam to Organizations
How Consulus Way aligns with it
This is a speech presented in Hong Kong at a global interfaith conference on how dialogue as an approach can shape corporate practices for inclusion and enhance competitiveness. My presentation and reflection on Islamic tradition and organisation was part of an overall presentation on the topic of Dialogue at Work. Here are the following parts:
Part 3: Living the Golden Rule in the Economy - Lawrence Chong, CEO of Consulus Global Network
Here is Part 2 with slides:
Organizations bracing for Industry 4.0 requires to look at avenues of innovation by design not only to weather the dynamic and turbulent environments that they need to steer their businesses through but also save them from the dangers of complacency in the shallow and still waters. Innovation by design or transformation to jump the curve are the needs of the hour.
But with so many businesses emulating the norms of conventional strategy making for exponential growth, the word strategy has become a misnomer. With the glut of strategy gurus and stereo-type global consultancies pursuing businesses offering cookie cutter solutions, businesses are losing faith in the external expertise coming their way. One size fits them all does not appeal to them anymore and what was success to one does not necessarily work the same to another. Each business is unique and needs personal customization.
Whilst many organizations also trying to juggle between strategy and structure, the disconnect between their people at the top and bottom has become ever more evident a reason for many failures in the corporates. This gave rise to the notion of creating shared values by organizations to bind their people together under common tenets and expectations. Further, these principles evolved into shared purpose for organizations.
These types of principles are not strange to this world when we look around some of the worlds oldest and influential religions. World's largest organization is the Roman Catholic Church, which has the best structure and guiding principles derived from the Bible and the Gospels. The religions have lasted for centuries without their CEO’s or the Boards of Directors being ever present throughout the years. What made these religions to survive and succeed in its sustenance and growth have been its basic principles which have always been relevant and valid over the centuries and to all those who believed in them.
If religions can form successful organizations with its centuries old basic tenets, the modern organizations could learn a lot more from the religions. One of the monotheistic religions in the world is Islam. With its over 2 billion followers, now it has survived for over 1400 years. Today, I am going to draw parallels between the five principles of Islam and its relevance for driving purposeful organizations in the twenty-first century and how it relates to Consulus methodologies.
In this same lines, the approach by Consulus and the belief by Consulites too align in similar lines. Consulites believe in shaping a better world by a purposeful journey in unity and equality. The Consulus approach is to create a world of purpose driven leaders who will transform their organizations to shape a better world. The key beliefs and approaches towards purpose driven organizations have similarities in what Islam has mandated to the followers.
The five precepts of Islam are Shahada (proclamation of faith to the Almighty Allah), Salah (supplication to Allah by means of daily prayers), Sawm (observation of fast from sunrise to sunset), Zakath (sharing your material wealth with the needy) and Haj (the pilgrimage to Holy Makkah in the holy month of Haj). Let me draw parallels on how the religious precepts become so relevant to our organizational strategy and the Consulus way of shaping a better world.
First precept of Shahada is declaring the faith in Allah and His Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). This declaration is the basic tenet of being a Muslim.
In the Consulus way we believe in the value of humility to perfect our work. We entrust all these to the power of the Almighty who will ensure the perpetuity of our purpose after we have done our part. Organizations do not have to have a religion but creating shared purpose drives their effort towards a unified direction with guidance from the top. The belief that the leaders have in themselves and their purpose transcends all turbulences that they might come across in their journey to transform their businesses and shape a better world. The unity in effort and dynamic homeostasis in operation is achieved through equanimity in excellence at each level of the organization.
The second precept of Salah is the praying to Allah five times a day by the believers in Islam to cleanse their minds and souls. Their supplication to Allah brings in the self discipline within themselves and cleansing of their minds and souls with the praise for the Almighty. Organizations need to find its soul by not only by defining its broader purpose in life but questioning its conscience with its people within as employees and outside as stakeholders.
The Unity audit conducted by Consulus for any client before any work is done on their transformation journey or upon completion of such an assignment to review their progress and impact are similar to a soul searching exercise like this. Organizations too have a conscience and their review by a 360 degree audit allows them to do a self evaluation of their mind and soul, to revisit their overall purpose of business and realign their efforts to shape this world into a better place. That journey requires revisiting your purpose and do some soul searching and seek realigning the organization to make it more relevant to the future. The relevance of the Unity audit with a 360 degree view of the organization gives you the right perspective to do that.
The third precept of Sawm is to observe fasting during the month of Ramadan from sunrise to sunset not only is to cleanse our bodies of toxicants acquired over the year with all the food that we consume, but it also allows us to realize the hardship that the poor goes through without the means for a square meal a day. The act of fasting also relates to the humility that Islam advocates as a means to understand and to be understood for peace and harmony.
At Consulus, the value of humility is demonstrated by emptying our judgment before we speak and having an open heart to accept criticism. This act of humility is even more demonstrable in actions of Bonsai for our clients to have an open and constructive feedback with affirmatives and reinforcements rather than negativity through escalations. The art of humility is utilized to design organizations of flat hierarchy and open communication. This is a key component for organizations to encourage upstream idea generation and downstream strategy cascading.
The fourth precept of Zakath is to share your wealth with the poor and the needy as percentage of your assets each year. The wealth is not necessarily the material wealth. The individual who does not posses the material wealth could share his/her knowledge or the services that he can offer to the other. The relevance of this to organizations come in a manner of equity in the sharing of rewards with its stakeholder which indeed includes its employees.
How Consulus assimilates with this notion and contributes on the similar lines is clearly defined in its Will statement. We at Consulus believe in a company where mutual love exists and equal opportunity is an undeniable right. We believe in shared ownership and profit as a means to social equality. The notion of social equality is one of the key components of initiatives for social justice and global sustainability.
The fifth precept of Haj is that at least once in a life time journey to the Holy city of Makkah to perform the pilgrimage of Haj. This pilgrimage unifies all Muslims across the world to congregate to one place in obeisance to Almighty Allah and to reminisce the sacrifice done by the Prophet Abraham. The uniqueness of this ritual is that it is the world’s largest congregation of people into one place with one purpose in unity.
Organizations have multiple locations in cities and countries with various cultures and people working together as one family. What binds them together is the shared purpose and core values that bind them together as a global entity. Like in a religion, the values and the shared purpose create a culture that is unique to the organization and binds them together as one.
Our Consulus journey of shaping a better world begins within ourselves as an organization with footprints in all the continents across many countries, cultures, time zones, and religions and outside for our clients. At Consulus, we pledge to shape the world into a better place, through building a leading and transformative company where unity is the norm of norms. Therefore, in unity we pledge to take the journey for a purpose driven organization to shape the world for a better place.
I believe that this comparison is an evidence to emphasize how important the religions are within ourselves not only to create a pious society but also to design purposeful and meaningful businesses. The Consulus way of shaping the world into a better place draws many parallels to what Islam preaches to the world. May all the living beings attain peace and purpose in life.
Thank you
Shiraz Latiff is Chairman of Consulus Global Network
Read on:
Part 3: Living the Golden Rule in the Economy - Lawrence Chong, CEO of Consulus Global Network
About Consulus
Consulus is a global innovation consultancy with multidisciplinary business and design capabilities. Since 2004 the firm has served leaders, companies and cities in the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania to meet their innovation needs through a unifying approach that integrates business strategy, organizational development and experience design. Clients include Teo Garments, BIBD, Goodrich Global, DST, Health City Novena, MTU and Sony.
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Applying our proprietary UNIFY methodology to redesign business models, organizational cultures, and brand experiences, we help our clients develop in-house capabilities so as to enable them to innovate more effectively and meet the complex challenges of the 4th industrial revolution.
Here are our FIVE SOLUTIONS FOR THE FUTURE ECONOMY
1. Business Transformation: PurposeCORE
2. Customer Experience Design: ExperienceCORE
3. Development or Smart City Solution: PlaceCORE
4. Digital Strategy: DigitalCORE
5. Leadership Transformation: LeadershipCORE
Our custom-design solutions have allowed our clients to increase revenue by over 138%, expand to overseas markets, develop new products and intellectual property and prepare the next generation of leaders to drive and sustain high-growth. Today, Consulites serve throughout Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Consulus is a member of the Economy of Communion (EoC).
In 2013, Consulus launched World Company Day initiative to inspire companies to shape the world into a better place through daily work.
Managing Director of New City Press PH
5 年I was delighted to hear Mr. Shiraz Latiff present such a daring topic! But it was great!