Honesty Business Ethics

This week, I appreciated reading the talk on “Making a Living and a Life” by Lynn G. Robbins.  It is interesting to realize that during Adam and Eve’s time, Satan could not tempt them as they were alone in this world until “the human race began to multiply and he could use competition and comparisons to appeal to the pride of man”. After pondering about this truth, pride is the essence of wickedness and sin. We see it in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon (Helaman 3:33-34), and in today’s society. I learned that as the Lord commanded Adam to make our every day’s living through “the sweat of our face”, we need to be cautioned as the Lord warns of a big difference between God and mammon. Mammon is the “love of money” as it is “the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). I learned that the real distinction of our motives in the work place are not necessarily what is important to us. Rather, our motives should align with the Lord’s objectives in the work place. May each of us are guided by the Spirit in all our employment decisions:

·         Are building His kingdom including strong and valiant families.

·         Are honest in your dealings with your fellowmen and using your God-given talents in their service.

·         Filling your life with good works, that positively impact your community and world.

The grading scale used by Elder Robbins illustrate accurately the different types of employees, business owners, entrepreneur, leaders, parents, children, etc. I think that an entrepreneur that fall under a Category-A person: reflects a person who loves God, and his fellowmen as himself/herself. Let’s be clear and concise, Category-A person loves to God and fellowmen is the primary motivation and not money. (Jacob 2: 18-19).  In summary, according to Elder Robbins if our primary motivation if love of God and fellowmen, then “the working man or women will be a kingdom builder and a full-tithe payer.”

In addition, I learned an invaluable lesson on the importance and accountability of establishing our personal code of ethics. As we learned last week, our ethical guardrails are the things that we can rely on to keep our heading in the right direction. During this week, I enjoyed establishing my 8-9 “I will never …” and “I will always …” personal ethical guardrails that will guide and keep me safe towards stepping stones and ultimately to my personal star destination.

Last but not least, I like to summarize the Harvard Business School (HBS) article on the accomplishments, success and setups of Magdalena Yesil.  It was a great aha moment for me to read and learn about this incredible woman life’s journey. Magdalena Yesil’s early passion for learning and developing skills launched her career in the direction of starting new companies as well as her investor/partners and business founder opportunities. Leveraging from her solid education, talent, and experience, and later as an entrepreneur and investment partner, Magdalena’s thrived first in turning marketing strategies into product design. Later, she went into creating investments into a variety of technology start-ups and successful business ventures. Yasil attributed her success to her parent’s beliefs that she could do anything she wanted to do, if she was willing to pay the price. With her education background in the engineering industry, she found herself solving every hurdle into a tangible solution. Early in age, Magdalena believed that “gender was irrelevant to accomplishment.” With this in mind, she started as a student immigrant from Istanbul, Turkey who showed up in America with no support, or money but had a good sound destination as a goal star in mind “to pursue a technology career in the United States”. After obtaining her Master Degree in Electrical Engineering, she quickly moved up from company to company, acquiring additional experience and talents. She thrived when working with people and acquiring more knowledge. Later in her career she was developing marketing strategies, tactics, promotions, and advertising campaigns. Magdalena continued with determination and ingenuity allowing her to create her niche in business ventures, investments, starts-ups, and venture capitalist opportunities among other business expertise.