Running beyond the last straggle of buildings in Wells, England’s smallest free-standing city, is a path into the fields. As you walk its length the landscape opens up and suddenly you realize you have reached that point where natural beauty can never be equaled. In a moment it hits you how the world is a deeply flawed place – but only because we have made it so. What the poet Keats said that beauty is truth, truth beauty holds in everything we do. Business is no exception.
Ugliness is not only to be found just in dysfunctional architecture and filthy streets, but also in the way that we treat each other. It is not a product of institutions, but our own individual actions. Saying this is no sermon – religions are part of the problem, and so are politics and all well-meaning movements. Wealth can be a beautiful thing, without it most of the greatest cultural creations of the past would have never been completed. A friend who works for a steel merchants recently told me they do not really know what people do with their girders and pipes in the same way as someone selling eggs does not know what kinds of things the eggs will produce. Money can be both a force for beauty or ugliness and the key to it all is truth.
Next time you deal with an HR matter give yourself the truth test. Stop trying to devise strategies or being risk aversive, just try being open with everyone. It is a dangerous path to take – but if we all did it we might find that wonder is not to be found only at one point on a lonely path – but everywhere.