——The Avodah Institute's —– Faith & Work Blog

On Wednesday, I was in London for meetings with a professional services firm discussing their ethics program. On Thursday, I was in their Madrid office doing more of the same. Guess what everyone wanted to talk about in each location?  The resignation shot that was heard around the world.

Greg Smith

Former Goldman Sachs executive director, Greg Smith’s dropped a media bomb by writing a highly public resignation letter, published Tuesday by the New York Times as an Op-Ed piece entitled, “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs.” If you missed it, you should take a moment to read it.

This has to be – or will soon become – one of the most legendary corporate resignation letters in modern times. Even Martin Luther would be proud! The esteemed – but publicly beleaguered Goldman Sachs – received a broadside attack from resigning employee, Greg Smith, as he swung the door behind himself. Smith’s resignation letter is probably doing more public relations harm and rattling of shareholder and client confidence, than the now infamous 2010 Rolling Stone article that called Goldman Sachs “a great vampire squid.” Outside stone-throwers like Occupy Wall Street could never have hit their target as well as this insider’s resignation letter.

To be sure, Smith did this with intentionality and for maximum PR effect. And the New York Times was thrilled to be complicit in publicizing the attack. And Goldman’s new PR director was quick to help them craft an immediate response, which essentially sought to downplay Smith’s seniority (and by inference, his credibility), and portray his views as being out of step with the majority of other employee options.

All spin-doctoring aside – from Smith and Goldman Sachs – I’m extremely interested to know the truth… Was Smith the classic disgruntled employee with an axe to grind, akin to the selfishly motivated whistleblower, who spreads lies about a former employer? Or was he more or less accurate in describing a “toxic and destructive” culture of a once-legendary bank. If the former, I’m less interested, though I feel bad for Goldman Sachs and their unfairly maligned employees. But if the latter, I am extremely interested… How did this happen? How does leadership change it? What do you do if you’re one of the clients?

Assuming Smith told the truth (a BIG assumption!):

• is he to be commended for taking a stand, and for the manner in which he did it?
• or, is he to be commended for taking a stand, but should he have done it differently?

Assuming Smith exaggerated or even lied:

• how would you respond if you were Goldman?
• how should the NYT and other media respond?

What do you think? Please comment below…

I teach an undergraduate ethics course at Princeton University entitled, “Business Ethics and Modern Religious Thought.” Last year’s final exam asked the students to answer this ethical question: “Is CEO compensation just, or just obscene?”

In light of this, I was very interested to read the recent Wall Street Journal article title, “Sprint Adjusts Bonuses:

Photo credit: Ramsey Beyer

Executives Pay Won’t Be Hurt by Costly Apple iPhone Deal.” Apparently, when the performance targets and metrics were put in place for the telecommunications company’s executives, the costly iPhone deal was not anticipated. And without lowering the performance targets, the executives would not have met their performance targets and therefore not received their bonuses.

This is certainly a generous thing for the board to do; whether it is a fair thing for the board to do is another question. It may undermine the credibility of performance based bonus plans.  If top level executives are given a free pass when missing performance targets due to ‘things outside their control,’ one wonders, is that same kindness shown to entry level sales reps and other lower ranking employees when the vagaries of tough market or client situations prevent them from meeting their numbers?  The article suggested that “a broad range” of other employees “were eligible for the short term compensation plan,” but is unclear what that really means.

I’m a big believer in performance based-compensation plans. Shareholders, executives, and other employees can benefit; but only if these plans

Photo Credit: TechShowNetwork

are ethically and equitably administered. If senior executives are taken care of when unanticipated business decisions negatively impact their performance (and therefore their bonuses), I hope that same largess is shown toward middle and junior level employees, too.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Jonathan Moreau

Faith and work? Some view the concept with puzzlement. Others with suspicion. And yet others with relief, that they can finally live an integrated, holistic life, and not have to park their soul outside the office with their car.

Faith and football? Some view it with mockery, and roll their eyes when the first words of the post-game player interview is to give thanks to God. Others snidely say they don’t think God cares whether the Giants or the Patriots win the Super Bowl.  And yet some quietly admire these players for their sense of perspective, and that giving thanks is a rather admirable trait.

So, whether you are a fan of such proclamations or irritated by them, I encourage you to read the below witty and ultimately thoughtful Time Magazine article by Joel Stein, “Most Valuable Prayer.” Stein decided to approach the question by interviewing with the team chaplains for both the current Super Bowl Champion NY Giants and the New England Patriots.

Full disclosure – George McGovern, the chaplain for the NY Giants, is a friend of mine (and I was rooting for the Giants). It’s with his permission that I include the following note from George, and the article from Time Magazine:”

You’ve heard the saying, “15 minutes of fame”, and that everyone experiences it at some time in his life. Well, mine came (and went) during this past week with the Giants being in the Super Bowl.

I received a call from Joel Stein, columnist for Time Magazine. He wanted to write a feature on the role that faith in God plays in determining the outcome of sporting events, namely the Super Bowl. We had a lively discussion in which I informed him about specific activities of sports team chaplains, and he entertained me with an array of humorous responses. The result was a clever satirical essay. Stein is quite the wordsmith. I hope you enjoy the read.

TIME February 13, 2012 / U.S. Edition / Volume 179 / Number 6
Most Valuable Prayer.
Forget the stats. For the Super Bowl, I’m betting on the team with the winningest chaplain
By Joel Stein

I’ve watched enough post-game interviews to know that what wins football games isn’t the quarterback or the offensive line; it’s God. So to figure out which team is going to win this year’s Super Bowl, I went straight to the guys who serve as middlemen between God and the players. The team with the best chaplain isn’t just going to win but, from what I understand about theology, will also totally cover the spread.

Almost every NFL team has a chaplain who runs weekly Bible study and holds a short service on Saturday nights before games. Although I’m sure honesty is a key part of each of their belief systems, it is not a huge part of mine, so I left out the part about wanting to talk to them strictly for gambling purposes.

The Giants’ chaplain, George McGovern, is a kindly, white-haired man who is paid by Athletes in Action, a ministry of Campus Crusade for

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Christ that places pastors with most of the big football colleges and pro teams. After being a campus chaplain at Rutgers, he worked with the Jets and Mets from 1990 to 1995 before getting traded to the Giants and Yankees. McGovern is going to his third Super Bowl with the Giants, and the Yankees have won five World Series under him. God loves this guy more than he loves Tim Tebow.

I asked McGovern why his speeches have been so much more successful than those of any other George McGovern, but he said he has nothing to do with the outcome of the games. Which seemed like exactly the kind of Job-like humility that God loves. McGovern insisted that when he meets the 25 or so players and coaches–the most attendees in team history–for the Saturday sermons, he doesn’t even talk about the game. “It’s not a pep talk. It’s not a ‘God, help us win tomorrow.’ I’ve never heard a player or coach ask for a victory. It’s always thanking God for opportunities or health or ‘Give us the strength we need to play with passion,’” McGovern told me. I did not like the sound of this. From what I know about the Old Testament, God doesn’t respond to the soft sell. He’s more of a tie-your-firstborn-to-the-altar kind of guy.

When I asked McGovern to inspire me, he gave me a bit of the 20-minute sermon he delivered the night before the Giants beat the 49ers in overtime. It was actually a very thoughtful, touching talk about fatherhood that quoted Moses and the apostle Paul. But it didn’t make me want to win a game. It made me want to skip the Super Bowl party I was going to go to and take my son to the park.

I was about to put a lot of money on the Patriots when I learned that the Patriots are one of the very few NFL teams without a chaplain. They do, however, rely on Don Davis, who was the team’s chaplain until 2010, when he moved to Virginia. Davis, who is going to Indianapolis to give the team sermon on Saturday, is a two-time Super Bowl winner and ex-Patriots linebacker. This guy sounded like a King David–level winner, the kind of guy who would talk about parting seas of linebackers and the fact that if God wanted the Giants to beat the Patriots, he would have landed the Pilgrims in East Rutherford, N.J.

But when I asked Davis to lay some of his pregame sermon on me, he said he wasn’t sure what he was going to say yet. This was like

Photo Credit: Gregor Smith

hearing that Bill Belichick hadn’t started working on his Super Bowl playbook or Tom Brady hadn’t selected a hairstyle. When I pressed Davis, he said he was thinking of speaking about legacy. This seemed great until he explained that he meant the legacy the players would leave besides the Super Bowl. “I’ve played in a few of these Super Bowls and coached in one. They were big deals when you played, but life goes on,” he said. “It’s the things you do outside that have an impact forever.” When Davis gives this downer of a speech, he isn’t even going to wear his Super Bowl rings. He says that sometimes when chaplains who aren’t ex-athletes give their sermons, they try to talk about the game, which comes off as “cheesy.” Davis seems to be the one American who does not understand what a big deal the Super Bowl is. I’m sure Davis would have told Moses that asking God to let his people go would be “cheesy.”

After talking to both chaplains, I realized that when players thank God at the end of a game, they’re not saying God liked their team better. They’re actually being modest, saying they realize how small a part they played and expressing gratitude–just as they would for a meal, their health or a Friday. A chaplain doesn’t have anything to do with the game. He’s with the team for the same reason the caterer and the travel agent are: to provide basic services for guys who travel a lot.

So I’m not going to make a bet. Which I’m guessing is what both chaplains wanted all along. Man, they’re good.

So, what do you think you about Stein’s article? Please share your comments below… and be honest… let us know if who you were rooting for colored your view!

Best,

David

A few weeks ago, I blogged about an interview I had with the BBC about Occupy London and Occupy St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Who’d have thought I’d now be blogging about Occupy in my own back yard?! Yes, my own back yard. What began as a protest at and against  Wall Street, has spread globally, and has now appeared at Princeton University.

Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications

I shouldn’t really be surprised. In recent decades, Princeton has sent large numbers of its graduates to jobs on Wall Street at the big name investment banks. Every fall, these banks make pilgrimages to Princeton to recruit a new cohort, where these coveted jobs are highly sought after by many of Princeton’s brightest engineering, math, computer science, econ, and other majors. According to the most recent graduate survey from Princeton’s Career Services, financial services was the largest full-time employer of Princeton graduates. Continue Reading »

I’ve been trying to think of a fitting Thanksgiving message to post, to help remind us that Thanksgiving it is not about eating turkey or shopping on Black Friday. It’s about being filled with thanks for what we do have, and pausing to give thanks to God as the ultimate provider of everything…

A friend sent me a link to an article from the New York Times titled: A Farmer is Down and People Come Out to Help, and I realized right away that it solved my problem. Please click on the link and read on. I plan to read this at our Thanksgiving table on Thursday.

I close by letting you know one of the major things I’m thankful for this season is special friends like you. My world is nowhere nearly as challenging as farmer Glenn Bolander’s, but thank you for being my community of neighboring farmers and friends…

“Are Government and Business Friends or Enemies? The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement presents a great opportunity for thoughtful discussion on business ethics and social justice at large. What is the purpose of the financial services industry? Is it merely profit maximization, or is it the creation of goods and services for the common good?  What is the role of government in regulating the finance industry? How do we reclaim healthy forms of capitalism and reform its deviant forms?”

This Saturday, November 19^th, I will be interviewing Michael Gerson in a conversation concerning the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. Gerson is a nationally syndicated twice-weekly columnist for the Washington Post. Previously, he was the head speech writer and a senior policy adviser to former President George W. Bush. Following the interview, there will also be an extended Q&A session with Gerson. The event is this Saturday from 2:00pm to 3:30pm in the Whig Hall Senate Chamber on the Princeton University campus. If you are interested at all in OWS or in the relationship between government, business, and faith come listen and ask questions!

This event is organized by Manna Christian Fellowship and co-sponosored by the International Relations Council and the Whig-Clio Society.

First, thank you to all of you who commented on my blog posting about Occupy London, and the many of you who also e-mailed me privately. So, “how did it go” you might wonder?

The BBC interview ended up being more about how the Church of England handled (or mishandled) the Occupy London protesters who camped out on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral than about the issues themselves being raised by the protesters. It has become a situation where the circus sideshow has overshadowed the main tent event. While this is an interesting story, the interview was not what I anticipated. It was not a discussion of the Occupy issues and how one might bring religious/faith perspectives to bear on the subject. As such, I was unable to contribute to the conversation as I had hoped or utilize the excellent points that many of you made in response to my e-mail and blog. That said, the interview reminded me of the potentially important role that churches can and should play when facing major social questions.

Afterwards, I proposed to the BBC that they consider doing a follow-on story that looks at the merits (or lack thereof) of the actual Occupy issues, theological perspectives, and how the church, the business and financial community, and society as a whole might constructively listen to each other, engage, and respond.

The Occupy movement presents a marvelous opportunity for rigorous and thoughtful discussion, drawing also on theological resources, to break the “we/they” mindset that currently characterizes much of the Occupy debate. Whether one is pro- or anti-Occupy, one bit of theological advice we all could draw on is Jesus’ critique of the self-righteous and the judgmental:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, firsttake the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7)

To listen to the broadcast, click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/heartsoul and scroll down to:

Heart and Soul – Fri, 4 Nov 11, Jane Little reports on the crisis at St Paul’s Cathedral in London following the protests by groups opposed to corporate excess.

Download 13MB (right click & “save target as”)  Duration: 27 min.