I wanted to run my businesses with integrity

My Why

I have been a Quaker all my life. There’s a little bit more to me than that: I’ve been a teacher, a research psychologist, a software developer and researcher, a management consultant, a furniture restorer and the warden of a Quaker meeting house. I’ve made about 70 short films on a range of different topics. When I ran my own businesses, I wanted to do it with integrity in ways that expressed Quaker values in a practical workplace. In time this drew me to Quakers and Business.

The Social Value

In its quarter-century life, Quakers and Business has spun off several organisations, projects and initiatives. Recent among them are Restoring Relations - a conflict resolution initiative, Just Algorithms Action Group - a pressure group for ethics in IT development, a Quaker Bank project and a sister chapter of Q&B in the USA. Quakers and Business have encouraged research in the history of Quakers in business. They have supported two doctoral students and other student projects. We hold an annual conference and our charity is run by volunteers. Sometimes we fund specific projects, so when Quakers and Business was introduced to Ethos it seemed the perfect opportunity to make a meaningful video about a difficult workplace. Quakers and Business provided the funding, Ethos (with government backing) provided the management and the production team. The result was Ethos Young Leaders' film project: Hostile Work Environment.

How I feel privileged to do what I do

We all have our occupations and places of work. Sometimes these are joyous happy places but too often they are difficult, hostile or even seriously abusive and damaging and sadly we accept that as just the way it is, it’s normal. I’ve seen my share of these. Now I have time to work with people to create and live in better workplaces. In my view, the way Quakers have done their business over the last four hundred years could point the way to laying a foundation for a better workplace. Hostile Work Environment invites the viewer to make it better. I look forward to many more similar videos and their discussions.