Nudges & Bridges: As Good As It Gets

By Timothy L. Fort, PhD, JD, Eveleigh Professor of Business Ethics, Kelley School of Business at Indiana University

The insights in the Nudges and Bridges series aim to help everyone, including business people, understand how they can contribute to peace. The category As Good As It Gets is about a sense of joy. Think to a time when you experienced something that was just, well, as good as things can get. What mood does it put you in? How do you feel about others? Do you have a sense of wanting to connect with others, to share, to build a bridge?

The category As Good As It Gets is about a sense of joy. Think to a time when you experienced something that was just, well, as good as things can get. What mood does it put you in? How do you feel about others? Do you have a sense of wanting to connect with others, to share, to build a bridge?

In this video, I reflect on a few experiences where I had this kind of feeling. Then I ask the listener to give some thought to their moments of feeling things are as good as it gets. I give a few examples from sports – since these first episodes describe the seven categories primarily in sports terms – but of course, I don’t want to limit the experience to that cultural artifact. There could be many others as well.

These are not the easiest of times. The world has gone – and is going – through disease, war, economic hardship, fractured relationships, and climate change. It’s not a bad idea to relish those moments when we had a as good as it gets feeling. I don’t mean escapism; I mean to take notice of those moments. When times are good, these can be experiences and memories of pure joy. When things aren’t so good, they can give us a sense of hope. And they can also nudge us to want to build bridges with others.

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Editor’s Note:

Why might business contribute to peace?
This video podcast series with Tim Fort aims to help us build bridges with others in the pursuit of peace. The insights are applicable to all of us, including businesses. During past discussions held on Business and Peace in the Business Fights Poverty Forum, three main reasons were offered for why businesses might contribute to peace.
The first is that it is simply a morally good thing to do. Business people are, after all, just that: people. Human beings generally do fare better during times of peace and stability and, regardless of what the motivations are, there is a shared desire of businesses, people, and business people to live in an environment of peace and stability.
The second reason pertains to instrumental reasons. Companies will fare better if bombs are not dropping on office buildings and a company’s brand and reputation will likely be better off if associated with peace rather than violence.
Another insight in the discussion was that of timeline. A long term approach to business success might lend itself to an incremental, but strong contribution to peace. This might even occur without a business being aware of the impact of the actions it takes. If, for example, it is true as some have argued, that strong ethical conduct correlates with peace, then long-term, responsible conduct of a business may also influence peacebuilding.
As a result of these conversations, another insight offered was that the biggest impact business can make to peace is in those areas that are neither the most stable nor the least stable. There may be little a business can do in the midst of the chaos of war and, in a stable country, any given contribution is likely to be small and incremental. Yet is in the “in-between” kinds of societies that businesses may make the biggest contributions and this is particularly true in regional and intra-state conflicts rather than in conflagrations occurring across borders.
The insights in the Nudges and Bridges series aim to help everyone, including business people, understand how they can contribute to peace.

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