The Simple Truth is – Humanism Matters

There continues to be a lot of discussion about Humanistic Business and leadership. The reason why? Because Humanism matters.

We live in a diverse global society. The biggest businesses are global, our commerce is global, thanks to the internet, our friendsships are increasing global. And our food, thankfully, is global as well (I’m a big fan of Peruvian, Indian and Columbian food for instance).

All this global diversity has benefits, but like all good things, has a downside as well. How we chose to manage the benefits vs. the drawbacks will dictate our success going into the future.

People who are afraid of all this globalization rightly see the downside and it scares them. People who are for globalization are looking at the upside and think it outweighs the downside. Blind fear doesn't lead to good decisions, but neither does blind optimism.

What would be incredibly helpful is a honest discussion of the pros and cons so that we maximize the good and minimize the harm.  That isn’t going to happen in the media or through our politicians.  But we as individuals can and must discuss this and this is why Humanism matters.

Humanism, because it’s focused on our common human morality, can help us cut across religious and cultural differences to find a common moral language and framework. It encourages us to recognize the humanity of those who are different from us so we can recognize and explore their moral reasoning to find areas of common ground.

Humanism is also reality based. We don’t like to make decisions based on assumptions, we want good science based information. Without that we are adrift.

Finally, a humanistic mindset helps us recognize that we are all dependent on the society in which we live. Our businesses rely on customers and those customers live somewhere and need food, water, shelter, health care and a sense of community. Everywhere in the world this is true.

Humanism in business matters because businesses and working and commerce defines how we interact with each other. We can either use our businesses to help humanity as a whole progress to peace and community, or we can allow our societies to be consumed with greed. We can balance profit and benefit to society. And we must. And this is why Humanism matters.

To learn more – take the free online course – Why Humanistic Management offered by the Humanistic Management Network through my company – Humanist Learning Systems - http://humanistlearning.info/why-humanistic-management/