Category: Events

The globally recognized 1994 Caux Round Table (CRT) ethical Principles for Business reflect the special legacy of Minnesota business leadership in seeking success through service to community and stakeholders. This remarkable legacy was epitomized by the Dayton Family – founders and owners of Dayton’s Department Store and Target Corporation, generous benefactors of the arts and community organizations.

To recognize the continuing importance of socially responsible leadership, the CRT annually recognizes executives who have distinguished themselves and their organizations in service to community.

Please join us online at 1:00 pm (CST) on Thursday, March 25 as we recognize Andrew Cecere, Chairman, President and CEO of U.S. Bancorp, for his determined engagement on behalf of the homeless to provide them with new facilities for shelter and meals.

The CRT will also recognize Don Samuels, CEO, MicroGrants, and Sondra Samuels, President and CEO, Northside Achievement Zone, for their perseverance in opening economic opportunities for citizens of north Minneapolis.

Thirdly, the CRT will commemorate the leadership of James Ford Bell, the Founder and CEO of what is now General Mills, after World War I in mobilizing Americans in agricultural enterprises to provide food for the hunger in Europe.

Agenda

• Welcome: Stephen Young, Global Executive Director, CRT
• Presentation of Award to Andrew Cecere: Brad Anderson, Chairman, CRT; former CEO, Best Buy
• Remarks: Andrew Cecere, Chairman, President and CEO, U.S. Bancorp
• Remarks: Cardinal Peter Turkson
• Presentation of Award to Don Samuels and Sondra Samuels: Brad Anderson, Chairman, CRT; former CEO, Best Buy
• Remarks: Don Samuels, CEO, MicroGrants
• Remarks: Sondra Samuels, President and CEO, Northside Achievement Zone
• Remarks: Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Founding and Managing Partner, Inclusive Capitalism
• Retrospective Award to James Ford Bell: Mark Ritchie, President, Global Minnesota, and Jeff Harmening, President and CEO, General Mills
• Closing Remarks: Stephen Young, Global Executive Director, CRT

In particular, the Dayton Awards seek to dramatize leadership capacities of vision and prudence.

In 1994, at the initiative of several senior Minnesota business executives, the CRT published the first set of global ethical principles for business in Caux, Switzerland. Those principles then inspired the United Nations Global Compact. The CRT principles have informed the growing global movement for corporate social responsibility, which provides a road map for a more moral capitalism.

There are essential abilities required to lead – integrity, courage, compassion, respect and responsibility:

Integrity is being honest and having strong moral principles. Having integrity means you are true to yourself and would do nothing that demeans or dishonors you. Integrity makes you believable, as you know and act on your values.

Courage is strength in the face of adversity and upholding what is right, regardless of what others may think or do. Courage enables you to take a stand, honor commitments and guide the way. Courage is a necessary element of responsibility.

Compassion is having concern for another. It is feeling for and not feeling with the other. Compassion is concern of others in a more global sense.

Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone. Leaders ought to be respected and they ought to respect those with whom they work. Demonstrating this perspective is essential to motivate and inspire others.

Responsibility is acting on commitment, will, determination and obligation. Responsibility implies the satisfactory performance of duties, the adequate discharge of obligations and the trustworthy care for or disposition of possessions. It is being willing and able to act in a life-enhancing manner. Responsibility is expected of self, as well as from others.

To register, please click here.

Again, this online event will be taking place at 1:00 pm (CST) on Thursday, March 25.

Law enforcement in America is controversial. Is it just? Is it little more than a repressive apparatus, subjecting the vulnerable and the afflicted to the norms of the ruling class in the cause of maintaining “white privilege?”

Police derives from the Greek word for city – “polis,” which came to embrace the idea of political community. In Latin, this became the ‘res publica,’ which gave rise to “republic.” Policing is part of building and maintaining community.

This was recognized by the founder of modern police forces, Sir Robert Peel. When launching the first police force, the London Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert issued ethical principles to direct the application of police power in the community. He insisted that the police are the community and the community the police.

What we must do both to enhance community and to police effectively depends on our insights into human nature – is our species congenitally good or evil or both at once? Human nature – good or bad – guides both members of the community and the sworn officers of every police force. What kind of character is needed for good policing in America today? What kind of character is needed for our citizens to be fair and just with one another?

Please join us for our annual Brandl Program, this year on “Community Policing – the Way Forward for a Divided America” over Zoom at 11:00 am on Friday, March 19th.

The panelists will include John Harrington, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Matt Bostrom, former Sheriff of Ramsey County and Booker Hodges, Assistant Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

The program agenda is:

-Welcome: John Hinderaker, President, Center of the American Experiment

-Presentation of Speakers: Laura Bloomberg, Dean, Humphrey School of Public Affairs

-Remarks: John Harrington, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Public Safety

-Response: Matt Bostrom, former Sheriff, Ramsey County, and Booker Hodges, Assistant Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Public Safety

-Q&A with Speakers: Kate Cimino, Executive Director, Citizens League

-Closing: Jane Leonard, President, Growth & Justice

The event is free and open to the public.

To register, please click here.

The program will conclude at noon.

The Brandl Program is sponsored by the Center of the American Experiment, Citizens League, Growth & Justice, Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism.

Please join us at 9:00 am (CST) on Wednesday, February 17 via Zoom to discuss the Prophet Muhammad’s covenants with Christian communities and what it means for our time.

For no doubt very human reasons, these covenants have been rather thoroughly overlooked by both Muslims and Christians for centuries.

The good news is that we, today, are not bound by the practices of our predecessors. We can read the covenants for ourselves, assess their meaning and, if we choose, apply them in our time to relations between Christians and Muslims.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Participation is limited to the first 25 people who sign-up.

The event will last about an hour and a half.

Please join us for a local Zoom round table at 9:00 am on Thursday, January 28, to consider the strength of our Constitutional republic.

Why are constitutional republics established in the first place? A long forgotten turning point in the road to the Constitution was the abolition of kingship in England, Wales and Ireland in 1649 after the Puritan Revolution defeated King Charles I and executed him for treason against the realm. The act of abolishing the office of King, March 17, 1649, said:

II. And whereas it is and hath been found by experience, that the office of a King in this nation and Ireland, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the people, and that for the most part, use hath been made of the regal power and prerogative to oppress and impoverish and enslave the subject; and that usually and naturally any one person in such power makes it his interest to encroach upon the just freedom and liberty of the people, and to promote the setting up of their own will and power above the laws, that so they might enslave these kingdoms to their own lust; be it therefore enacted and ordained by this present Parliament, and by authority of the same, that the office of a King in this nation shall not henceforth reside in or be exercised by any one single person; and that no one person whatsoever shall or may have, or hold the office, style, dignity, power, or authority of King of the said kingdoms and dominions, or any of them, or of the Prince of Wales, any law, statute, usage, or custom to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.

In Federalist Paper 37, Madison wrote “The genius of republican liberty seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people.”

But Federalist Paper 51 asserts that “It is of greatest importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.”

In Federalist Paper 48, he wrote ”It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.”

Federalist Paper 51 says “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

But Federalist Paper 55 affirms that “As there is a certain degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain proportion of esteem and confidence, Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”

Thus, Benjamin Franklin’s quip: “A republic, madame, if you can keep it.”

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The session will last about an hour and a half.

At 9:00 am (CST) on Thursday, December 10, we will be convening an international Zoom round table on Pope Francis’s new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, and you are invited to join us.

I had a comment on the encyclical in the October issue of Pegasus. The entire encyclical can be found here.

The Pope has, to me, wisely challenged us to think of dialogue and encounter at this time in human history. The Caux Round Table (CRT) began in dialogue and emerged as an encounter among business executives from Japan, Europe and the U.S., each with their own values orientation, but ready to see the affinity of their beliefs with those of others around the table and to accept the truth that all sought very similar outcomes for business – care for stakeholders.

I presume that today, participants in CRT round tables would have the same dispositions and would recommend, as a common good, dialogue and encounter.

Participation will be limited to the first 25 people who register.

To sign-up, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The session will last about an hour and a half.

Even though we don’t yet know who the winner of the U.S. presidential election is, we want to invite you to share your perspectives about the election with us at 9:00 am (CST) next Friday, November 13.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Participation will be limited to the first 25 registrants.

The session will last about an hour and a half.

Please join us at 9:00 am on Thursday, October 15 for a Zoom round table on whether presidential debates matter anymore and should they?

The Caux Round Table Principles for Government make discourse fundamental to ethical government. But what is good discourse and what is discourse that degrades or vitiates the quality of governance in a republic?

Participation will be limited, as usual, to the first 25 registrants.

Please confirm your participation to jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Please join us at 9:00 am (CST) on Thursday, August 20, for an international Zoom round table on the coronavirus.

We’re planning to create a statement drawing upon the experience of the past several months with the virus and we seek your advice and counsel, as well as lessons learned, to be shared with our international network.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Participation is limited to 25 attendees.

For those of you who can’t attend, we would be interested in your suggestions and thoughts, as well. Please send those to us by simply responding to this email.

How has a society and culture so remarkable in the scope of human history for creating wealth and opportunity and maintaining ever expanding enjoyment of political and civil rights and entitlements under a constitutional democracy without relapsing into either anarchy or tyranny come to such a circumstance of division, polarization and crisis over racism – even after the Civil War, Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of middle classes in all ethnic demographics?

Have we failed in something profound so that John Locke’s optimism about human nature is being eclipsed by the pessimism of Thomas Hobbes and Sigmund Freud that society is only a veneer of repression of the urge to engage willingly in a war of all against all?

Here are some thoughts of Thomas Paine when the country was founded:

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
– The American Crisis

“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”
– A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal on the Affairs of North America

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”
– The American Crisis

“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”
– Rights of Man

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
– The American Crisis

Please join us at 9:00 am on Friday, July 31, on Zoom to discuss the crisis we face.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Space is limited to 25 attendees.

Register today.

We are challenged, not only in Minneapolis, but in Atlanta and elsewhere, to set appropriate expectations for our police officers. The challenge implicates virtue, ethics and morality at the level of organizations and individuals – topics of interest to the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism (CRT).

Some years ago, we provided ethical principles for government, specifically the principle that public office is a public trust. This is the principle long since applied in British constitutional practice. This standard would encompass policing.

Most likely not by coincidence, in 1829, Sir Robert Peel promulgated 9 ethical principles to govern the mission and behaviors of the new police force in London. His principles apply the standard of public trust to the relationship of the police to the community.

Separately, we have tried to draw attention to virtue and good character as the foundation for responsibility in the use of power. The then Sheriff of Ramsey Country, Matt Bostrom, advocated the practice of community policing to great success. Matt was a member of our council on character formed to promote character education in public education. John Harrington, when Chief of Police in St. Paul, and now Commissioner of Public Safety, also promoted community policing in his department.

Matt is now working on a Ph.D. at Oxford University on community policing and hiring for character to recruit the most qualified individuals for that approach to policing. Matt has conducted a number of focus groups to elicit community opinion on those character traits of sworn officers most influential in obtaining community trust in its police.

Given current demands for reform of policing, even “defunding” the Minneapolis Police Department, the CRT will convene a workshop on policing as a public trust, including a presentation of his research findings by former Sheriff Bostrom.

The workshop will be held from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm on Friday, July 17 at the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul. Social distancing will be observed and participation will be limited to 25 participants. A box lunch will be provided. The fee for attendance is $25. Register here.