The Wall Street Journal this morning featured a remarkable article by Stacy Meichtry on a Roman Catholic order called The Congregation of the Children of the Immaculate Conception. The order has been involved for over 100 years in maintaining a network of health clinics around the world in countries as diverse as Brazil, Albania, and Nigeria.
However, as Meichtry writes, the order became increasingly “uncomfortable being a client of an industry it thought broke ethical bounds, catering to rich nations by marketing drugs at high prices while neglecting to develop newer vaccines for preventable diseases in the developing world. It was also worried that clinical trials of experimental drugs were becoming less safe and accurate as drug firms do more human testing in developing nations where regulation is lax.”
About two years ago, under the leadership of Father Decaminada, a priest and the CFO of the religious order, an acquisition of Nerviano Medical Science (NMS), then owned by Pfizer Inc. was successfully engineered. NMS is the largest R&D pharmaceutical lab in Italy. Since the acquisition, drug-development deals of more than $400 million have been signed by Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. The company now stands on the verge of Phase II trials on around 300 people for an Aurora inhibitor drug that targets the reproductive cells of cancer. The acquisition also kept the company from being closed down, thus saving the jobs of many people in Milan.
What is the motivation and thinking behind the acquisition?
There are two reasons. The first is that they would like to invest the profits from a cancer-fighting drug to develop cures for diseases found in the developing world such as tuberculosis and malaria which get little attention from the major drug companies. And second, they hope that their success will provide them with the opportunity to influence the pharmaceutical industry to embrace more ethical practices in how drugs are “tested, marketed, and priced.” Their goal, as Father Decaminada says is “to become a small but potent purifying agent in the pharmaceutical industry. Like a grain of salt.”
Well said, Father Decaminada. Well said.
Far too often I’ve observed that followers of Christ can take one of two opposite approaches to living and working in the world. The first I would call “Critical Separation” from the world. In this approach we are critical of what is happening around us so we separate ourselves from the world. We sit on the sidelines and criticize what is going on. We might urge reform and legal changes that would force change. We tell people not to get involved in this or that industry. The assumption almost seems to be that once the outside conditions have changed for the better, we will emerge out of the salt shaker and get back into the world. I see this to some extent in the community in which I live. It is possible to buy our insurance, buy our cars, build our houses, etc. We can do almost all our business, education, and socializing with “Christians” so that we don’t have to get our hands too dirty by mixing it up with the world around us. It’s safe for us, but we are of little influence on our communities. NMS, on the other hand, wants to be engaged and to affect change from the inside out.
The second approach is what I would call “Uncritical Engagement”. In this approach, we thoroughly and thoughtlessly engage with the culture and world around us. We don’t think about the ethics, morality or purpose of what we are doing and with whom we are engaged. In this approach we are absolutely no different from the world around us. Again, NMS did not turn away and ignore the lack of ethics that they observed. Instead they boldly got involved in challenging and changing this powerful industry.
Both of the above approaches miss the point about why we are in this world. As Father Decaminada has pointed out, we are here to be the salt of the earth. In the “Critical Separation” approach, the salt climbs back into the salt shaker and apart from noisy pronouncements of judgment has not influence on the world. In the “Uncritical Engagement” approach, the salt has lost its saltiness…its flavoring and preservative properties. Again, no influence.
Purposeful Engagement + Innovation = Making a Difference
The Congregation of the Children of the Immaculate Conception and NMS give us a model for how businesspeople and companies can act as the salt of the earth…salt that acts a preservative against decaying values and culture, salt that brings out the flavor of the Kingdom of God, and salt that makes people thirsty for truth and goodness and God. First of all, the purpose that NMS has embraced is not profit making but life saving. The order has never veered from its purpose to be Christ’s heart and hands in bringing healing to needy people. Second, they have been shrewd and innovative in developing a business model that advances and funds pharmaceutical research while saving lives and creating jobs. Third, the very model and success of their business provides them with the credibility to influence the practice and ethics of their industry.
Their example raises a lot of challenging questions in my mind:
- What do I see as the purpose of my business?
- What industries are in need of such engagement and innovation?
- Why are we not leading the way in innovation?
- What innovations do we need in business models, business practices, products, services, technology?
- Does their example shed some light on why followers of Christ seem to have so little influence on the business world?
- Why aren’t we more the “salt of the earth” rather than the salt in the shaker or the salt without saltiness?
Once again, from Father Decaminada, “The acquisition is saying what a homily in a church cannot.”
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” (Matthew 5:13 New International Version)
Comments (7)
Innovation
I work in the construction industry and I think there is tremenduous opportunities for innovation. The industry seems to resist innovation and it is extremely contentious (which probably contributes to stifling innovation). About 5 years ago I had a discussion with a friend of mine who was having major remodeling done to his house. He worked in the technology sector and he was very aggravated by the business model used a lot in contracting where there is a GC and he has to schedule all of his subs, etc. The scheduling is horrible and the timetables are blown, the QA is sometimes sketchy, etc. He suggested that his job, which took a month to complete, probably could have been knocked out in about 3-4 days if things (various trades, odering, permiting, etc) were scheduled tighter with different accountability. He thought this could happen with a different business model. His suggestion was very similar to what you see on the TV show "Extreme Home Makeover" where crews just swarm on a project for a week. I don’t know if this is feasible on an ongoing project basis, but it did make me think about how trapped we get in "conventional wisdom". A company could seriously distinguish itself if they did a soup to nuts home remodel and decorate in a fraction of the time of their competitors. The customers would benefit tremenduously from not having their home torn up for weeks on end. It might not save anyone’s life, but it would provide a great customer experience in a field that doesn’t acknowledge that they do provide a customer experience at all(like it or not).
How do you know if you are capable?
So, Breadcrust, do you think you are in a position to influence that type of change? Is anyone capable of influencing change in their industry? What does it take?
Influence
Dtjm, I don’t know if I am in a position to influence huge change at the company I work for, much less an entire industry. Having said that, I do look for opportunities where I work. At this point it is incrementalism. I look for opportunities that I can take advantage of and slowly whittle away. It is part of leading without total authority. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That is more or less my approach. I do think that entire industries can be changed…however, it takes time for competitive forces, etc. to work. In other words, others in an industry change if competitive forces require them to in order to survive. I live in Colorado and over the past 20 years I have seen how the introduction of snowboarding has changed the skiing industry dramatically. It started out as kind of a fringe spinoff of the skiing sport that many resorts didn’t even allow. Now, these resorts specifically cater to snowboarding by building terrain parks,etc. In fact, it is arguable that snowboarding saved the ski industry by expanding the demographic. Anyway, I don’t think there was a grand strategy being implemented by some snowboard-leader somewhere, it was something that occurred in the market over time.
Competitive forces
So…it takes more than simply being more ethical; we have to excel in terms of competition…and I assume that means we have to make more money than our competitors (I have no business experience =), or build a better product/service?
Moral Purpose in Business
You all are bringing up the many dimensions of this issue. An interesting example popped into my mind from our archives: Donald McGilchrist’s article on Moral Purpose in Business. Toward the end of the article he writes, surprisingly about the origins of Guinness Beer. Let me quote him:
"Now, Beer
We are familiar with the great Irish drink Guinness. You may not be aware it was designed by a man who brought shalom to his context through the way he made and sold his product.
Arthur Guinness said he was led by God to adopt the mission “make a drink that men will drink that will be good for them.†He gave it his own name. And his product was so good one used to be able to get it from the National Health Service in Britain. It is almost impossible to get drunk on Guinness because it is so heavy. Mr. Guinness used his business as a way of reducing alcoholism on the streets of Ireland. He also financed much of Hudson Taylor’s groundbreaking work in China and accomplished significant changes in the British legal system.
Which of us is tackling his or her business like Guinness: Commercially successful…living out God’s glory in the marketplace? Designing and producing and selling and servicing things in the marketplace is good in itself…when pursued for God’s glory. And God is watching. This is why we can pray, with Moses—"Establish the work of our hands"—Psalm 90:17.
God is irrepressibly renewing His creation…and our partnership with Him is meant to be restorative. Remember our Mandate: be fruitful…cultivate…take care of."
Seeing a problem. Developing a business response driven by biblical worldview. And using profits to support the legendary missionary, Hudson Taylor, a remarkable innovator in his own right.
Financing missionary work
Should this be one of the driving forces or ultimate goals of a Christian’s business?
financing missionary work
My opinion is that it is not one of the driving or primary reasons behind business. Couple of reasons. One, the missionary movement as we know it is a function/form that we are familiar with in modern history, but it is certainly not "the" way of executing God’s purposes. There is a subtle (sometimes not too subtle) thinking that "missionary" work is of a higher order and value than "secular" work. Therefore, the lower should serve the higher. This is totally unbiblical thinking and is one of the reasons behind the development of the Scriptural Roots of Commerce and InsideWork. All work is God’s work. All work can be used to honor God and communicate His message. The fact that Guinness supported Hudson Taylor was not wrong. It is a fine thing to do, but it is not THE reason that businesses exist.
I see an era in which increasingly the work of God is being done by regular people as they fan out around the world. And the form of traditional missionaries, though still in use, is finding increased restrictions.
The higher/lower order of work thinking has really constrained the full orbed work of God, induced a lot of guilt into people who felt that they were second class spiritually because they didn’t become missionaries, etc.
I support missionaries and in fact lived as one for many years. But we are all missionaries and imagine the potential impact if all who follow Christ could see the high calling they have right where they are. Imagine if all understood that they were not just "supporters" but "players" with fulltime responsibility and opportunity.
The original post gives us some inspiration about how our "ordinary" work might be creatively used to bless the world.