The Hofburg, the palace of the Austrian Emperors located in the centre of Vienna, the capital of Austria, and one of the Festival Halls in the palace was the setting for the Vienna BCC Annual Management Conference in 1984.
Initially planned in the 13th century as the seat of the Dukes of Austria, the palace expanded over the centuries, as they became increasingly powerful. From 1438 to 1583, and again from 1612 to 1806, it was the seat of the Habsburg kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, and thereafter until 1918 the seat of the Emperors of Austria. Since then the palace has continued in its role as the seat of the head of state and is today used by the President of Austria.
For centuries, the greatest minds in the West convened in Vienna: Wolfgang Mozart (a prolific and influential Austrian composer of the Classical period) and Ludwig van Beethoven (German composer and pianist who remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music); Sigmund Freud (Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic); Gustav Klimt (Austrian symbolist painter and noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objects d'art), Egon Schiele (Austrian Expressionist painter) and Franz West (an Austrian sculptor and Conceptual artist.) all called it home.
1983, was the Year of Management which helped so much in the dynamics of BCC’s evolution. 1984, the focus was on a marketing movement characterised by a burning desire for success. The emphasis shifted on quality, from profit to marketing.
The quest for truth and reality is a constant factor in human life. This sublime quest found a full and magnificent expression at this year's annual management conference in Vienna.
At the very beginning of the two-day conference, delegates who were employees of the BCC family from around the BCC world expressed the hope that BCC will live forever in the dimensions of quality and humility. As a management conference, the topics under discussion focused on the technology, the science and the art of management. Humility has a rightful place in this discussion as the essence of Real Management.
The development of the concept of Real Management has been a major feature of the past year. BCC executives and managers are now very clear about the differences between conventional management and Real Management. While conventional management confines itself to the limitations of what can be seen, Real Management is concerned primarily with the spirit, the soul, or the psyche, which cannot be seen but which is the source and guide of everything visible.
Humility is the wonderful key that allows us to enter and to experience our invisible energy psyche. Humility is not a concept; it is a feeling, a state where the world of experience blends with the world of no-experience. In truth, totality is both existence and no-existence at the same time. That is why we seek to interweave both dimensions in our psyche, so that we can live simultaneously in a state of existence and a state of no-existence.
In its highest form, humility is a vehicle for communicating with totality. If we can achieve this, even for a moment, and experience time, space, quality and silence as they are in the state of existence and in the state of no-existence, then the dynamics of change are within our comprehension.
‘LOVE FOR MARKETING ... MARKETING FOR LOVE’
Real Management brings us into contact with the invisible resources of human energy. This is qualitatively different from other forms of natural energy. BCC is, in a practical way, at the forefront of a movement to under¬stand human energy. It is our belief that humility unveils unlimited reservoirs of human energy.
What we see and know of our fellow human beings is limited and incomplete. We are beginning to understand that the personality of each member of our family is a universe as complex and as rich as the cosmos itself. The role of managers is to ensure that each individual has the opportunity to develop that universe to the full and to belong to our family. In fellowship, love and compassion we have an opportunity to recognise the worth of others.
‘WE ARE MAKERS OF HISTORY’
A dynamic organisation needs humility in order to grow. And we are growing in a way that fulfils our destiny. History is beckoning BCC. We should never forget that. But, once again, this is not something that is susceptible purely to rational understanding.
The spirit that is releasing our energies is a very real experience. But it is not always easy to define spiritual qualities or their connection with the cosmic spirit. One thing that we do know is that we are responsible in our daily lives for the spirit of each other, for its quality and vitality. The success of BCC over the past 12 years is simply a manifestation of this collective spirit. It is a gift of God and to feel this spirit is to be part of BCC.
‘THE IMPOSSIBLE CAN BE ACHIEVED’
Purpose is an essential ingredient of our spirit. Our purpose is to reach towards totality and towards the spirit of God. We are consumed by a burning desire to change the spiritual atmosphere of our times.
Hope is so important in this context. We can define hope as the desire to have something with the belief that it is attainable. Hope lives in our feelings and in our psyche. Its dimensions are as vast as the psyche and its quality is · as pure as the psyche. Hope is a reaching out. It is faith in our destiny. Without hope, life is mere existence but with hope life assumes its true quality.
We live in the hope of reaching God, who in His infinite mercy bestows the gift of hope on a person that he may live beyond himself. Hope is a measure of a man's spirit. The truth and reality of BCC's history is in Giving. Giving has its own virtue. It underlies all life. Totality gives something of itself to each part and each part, in humility, offers itself to totality. To serve humanity, there is no greater power than Giving.
One delegate said that humility is dignity in all its majesty. It is, he said, a state of total purity. It enlightens and refreshes the spirit. It is the most powerful tool in the art and science of management. Just as the essence of all sound is silence, so the essence of all actions lies in the state of no-existence, in the bliss of complete inner silence. Another delegate compared BCC to an orchestra where all the members are interdependent and interrelated. The great beauty of a symphony emerges as a result of interfusion. No one musician on his own can create the grandeur and the totality of a symphony.
‘WE ARE LMNG IN THE SHADOW OF A MIRACLE’
Only the highest degree of interfusion amongst all 10,000 members of our family will enable us to realise our aspirations. Interfusion is the art of communication in its most developed form. It allows the personality of one person to become part of the personality of another in such a way that the joint personality thus created is much more than the sum of its parts.
One way of assessing interfusion, in its management aspect, is the extent to which each part can inspire the whole on its journey to suchness. Suchness, in BCC terms, is the essence of life, the silence at the heart of sound, the meeting point of the state of existence with the state of no-existence.
In BCC we are developing a high emphasis on accepting each other and on trusting each other. This comes from an unconditional positive regard for the members of our family. This brings with it a high-quality awareness by which we can focus our attention in a very strong but gentle way on the needs and aspirations of colleagues. This focus of attention comes naturally, because it follows our love.
'INSPIRATION IS THE LIGHT OF GOD.’
The development of human personality in management is a fascinating art. As managers, we have an opportunity to help people grow into their full potential. Each person carries within the self the seeds of his or her own totality. The art of management is to nurture those seeds and to help them grow. The manager's way is through trust, love and compassion.
Like any natural thing, interfusion cannot be forced. It happens of itself, through the purification of soul and spirit. Interfusion can exist on many levels - on the level of friendship, on the level of respect and on the level of love. At each deepening level, there is increasing value, meaning and mutual responsibility. At the most sublime level, interfusion means communicating with totality to such a point where there is complete and utter surrender to God.
‘SPIRIT IS A DIVINE GIFT’
This process begins in innocence and humility. We begin to absorb the environment; its ethos and culture. In a state of suchness, nothing is strange to us. We are at home everywhere. Through this gentle process of interfusion we are approaching a quantum leap in_ terms of our invisible human condition.
We are all more than we appear to be. By absorbing the qualities of the environment; and of totality, we can become what we really are. This is the power of interfusion. It is the channel by which we can expand our inner volume. But this is possible only if we love others as we love ourselves.
There is a feeling in BCC that we are standing on the threshold of a new age in human affairs, an age where the divine purpose will be unfolded through spiritual growth, harmony and a new balance in world society. This quantum leap in BCC has already started. Soon other organisations will look to us and see what is possible. Then they will begin their own process of growth and enlightenment.
‘BCC - A MANIFESTATION OF HUMAN CREATIVITY’
The conference, with delegates from all over the world, was a fusion of moral and material aspirations. This year has been designated the Year of Marketing. Each year in the past has had a special emphasis. 1982 was the Year of Profit. In many ways, this changed the direction of the bank. In '82 profit flowed and has continued to flow ever since.
‘FEELING BEYOND ... REACHING BEYOND - THIS IS THE ART OF MARKETING’
Last year, 1983, was the Year of Management which helped so much in the dynamics of our evolution. Now, in '84, the focus is on marketing.
The fulfilment of the imperative of marketing needs three main elements: clear vision, intensity of 'desire and the involvement of the greatest possible number of family members. The imperative of marketing demands that we adapt ourselves to the full range of possibilities that are open to us. These opportunities, in all parts of the world, are beckoning us. They are saying: 'Come; see what we offer; make use of us. '
‘THE POWER AND STRENGTH OF OUR IDEAL’
The great charm and beauty of BCC's annual management conferences is that they give us an opportunity to create the ethos of the year in a dynamic way. The 1981 conference was a milestone in marketing terms but we have evolved since then, in both corporate and individual terms. A major change is that we have started to travel in the dimension of quality. Quality is becoming the hallmark of BCC in every way.
We need to understand truth and reality in their abstract forms in order to understand the limitless dimensions of quality. Quality is not a tangible substance. It contains all beauty and power. It contains infinity and eternity. Just as sound vanishes into silence, quality contains all that is the opposite of quality.
‘BCC SPIRIT IS BETTER FELT THAN EXPLAINED’
Quality becomes tangible and visible as soon as it is synthesised with any part of the state of existence. Then the totality of quality flows into a part of totality.
Quality is that stage in the evolution of a bank when the emphasis shifts from profit to marketing. In doing this we are only responding to the call of history and to the personal instinct which each of us has for marketing. This instinct becomes an active force in the marketplace when we realise that, morally, we own BCC. This moral ownership gives all of us an unlimited opportunity to realise our individual and collective potential.
‘HOPE - A REFLECTION OF THE QUALITY OF SPIRlT’
It also brings with it an obligation to succeed. This obligation is part of the natural order of things. We used to market BCC's products and services out of a desire for reward and recognition. Now we market them for the value of marketing, for the dignity of work, and as part of the unfolding of God's Grand Design.
A true spirit of marketing is being born in the hearts of 10,000 people. It is coming from the realisation that we are all growing to meet the magnitude of the task that lies before us. The market place in which we operate is defined by our vision of the market place, and our vision embraces totality. We have a global market in which we operate with one personality.
Our objective is simple: to make the highest profit of any bank by the end of the decade. Any strategy to realise this vision must be dynamic, evolving and responsive to developments in the market. That is one reason why BCC is an all-purpose bank. We relate ourselves to the totality of the market and from totality we travel to parts. This means that we can become whatever the requirements of a particular market might dictate.
‘A SEARCH FOR OURSELVES, A SEARCH FOR OTHERS AND A SEARCH FOR TOTALITY’
As ever, we are keen to find business in low-cost deposits, bulk commodities, personal accounts of high net worth individuals, travellers cheques, remittances and in mobilising the mighty dollars. For this, humility, vision, creativity, action and movement, flexibility and perseverance are needed today, just as they were a few years ago. But today we can add to that list: desire, aspiration, purpose, quality of spirit and hope. From these qualities will come a systematic penetration of the market and an ever increasing market share.
In Vienna delegates launched a marketing movement, characterised by a burning desire for success. The spirit, thus awakened, needs to express itself in marketing. This movement has momentum and power. It is energising all members of our family, pervading our individual and joint psyches. As the spirit of this movement takes shape and form, marketing begins to show tangible results and BCC will soon generate the highest profits of any bank. Thus will the· imperative of marketing be met.
And why should all this come about? The simple answer is for the fulfilment of God's Grand Design which in human terms is felt in that high-quality joy, that ultimate serenity, that emancipation and that state of transcendence that lies at the heart of BCC's corporate identity.
Acknowledgement:
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