Beacons of Business - 17

[Guest guest]

Sairam Sisters and Brothers,

Today we will listen from Francisco Roberto Canada, Director & Partner, Errepar

S.A., Longseller S.A., Eco.Errepar S.A. and Deva's S.A., Ciudad de Buenos

Aires, Argentina.

---

"A concept from Buddhism and Hinduism, dharma, has had an enormous impact on my

life. Ordinarily, this term is translated into "right action" or "acting

righteously", but to me this term is much more than these definitions imply.

For me it really is all about responsibility. Given my nature, my wish to be

silent, it is difficult for me to be a business leader, but my concept of

dharma as responsibility has helped me a lot to understand my position as a

leader. It has also helped me to make the difficult decisions I have had to

make, such as those dealing with firing people.

Whenever we have to make a decision, and we don't do it in a dharmic way, in the

long run it becomes obvious, that it was not the right way to decide and not the

right decision to make.

On some occasions we have had to refuse publishing a book if it did not align

with our principles, even if the book would obviously sell many copies and give

financial success to the company. The managers are very focused on earning

money, and in many cases they have proposed publications which were not dharmic

- meaning in these cases that they would not inspire people to act in a proper

way. Such books we have turned down.

In the beginning, this attitude sometimes created confusion, but little by

little the employees understood that their work, and those affected by our

work, was to lead them in the direction of spiritual growth. When we select a

book for publication, we focus on quality, in the broad, spiritual sense of the

word."

© Global Dharma Center 2004

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