For me, care is a difficult notion. Karl Popper ^[1] said: “The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.”

Where does care begin, and where should it stop? When do we talk about care, and when are we dealing with business? Is it possible to care, when we are aiming at profit maximization? And are we caring, if we are not keen on doing business and growing wealth?

I feel, all of this is a big trap. Because, where ever you take your positioning, you will find adversaries who will certainly fight you with certainly splendid arguments. In other words: whatever you do is wrong – - or right, according to your perspective.

I started to think about it when we started to re-position Merck Thailand on the notion of CARE. And again in a blog I wrote in August 2009. And in March 2010.

In March 2010 I attended a 5 day professional training in systemic conflict management. One of the group exercises was to decide to rescue 6 people out of a cave in which the water is rising. You only could rescue them one after the other risking that the last of them might drown. The task was to provide a short list for the rescue-team, the only information given were the CVs of the six people.

This exercise was extremely painful as the group tried to find the seemingly right answers – - a hopeless undertaking. All of a sudden, you find yourself in the middle of fascist approaches and not even the “highest” values in the name of life would have ever justified your choice. Humans are no gods.

So, the experience showed me that even a value focused individual life; a value focused corporate identity with trustworthy and authentic actions in the foreground, will not provide a measure to take decisions in a way, that you will not find adversaries, opponents, people who are set back.

And this is true for a notion like CARE as well.

And even more, when it gets mixed up with business.

For you: yes, we care – and for you: no, we don´t. And at the same time, via CSR, I try to make a bargain out of it. Because it is about money.

So what? This is not a crime, when in the end the both sides have an advantage. What kind of morale is this??

Some of the Buddhist teachings I read recommend not to acting at all. So, how are we dealing with Amnesty, Greenpeace, street workers, the Salvation Army and, and, and?

“Look at the Catholic Church, look at politicians, especially the social ones; look at the green logo of BP. – All born to fail; all in the lead in certain contexts.”

Look at the Catholic Church, look at politicians, especially the social ones; look at the green logo of BP. – All born to fail; all in the lead in certain contexts.

And what about CARE now?

Friedrich Schiller ^[2], one of my favorite authors of the German classicism in the eighteenth century, said that the highest way to care for somebody is to sacrifice your life for somebody else. He calls it love sacrifice.

Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Therese, and all those, who are unknown… – what does it take, to integrate into your attitude what might be fallible, in order to hold up to your standards?

Arnold Mindell ^[3] calls this: to sit in the fire.

In his book “Sitting in the fire” ^[4] Mindell points out that even in humanitarian societies or companies the belief is widespread “First our interests and second those of the others, and second only in case they support our objectives.”

The challenge here is to accept all possible view points and integrate them. Because if not – marginalization takes place, minorities are created, powerless are created and will form up to be adversaries. This leads into conflict.

Sitting in the fire – and thus taking care by deploying a high level of awareness for this mechanism – means to endure conflicts and to pace them down to a balance or temporary solution. In terms of change management, this approach is based on the awareness of how humans really make a contact with eachother and build up relationships.

And actually, inside this kind of awareness (or care) there is everything in: all those suppressed emotions, unfulfilled needs, the search for happiness and meaning – all topics which are crucial for organizations, regardless of their vision and objectives, says Mindell.

And it is hard to be a caring leader at that point.

Because caring does not imply those, how do not want to care…

How to deal with use or abuse of hierarchical privileges, rivalry for power, racial issues, relationships in between men and women, old and young, misuse of nature, and spiritual questions. Mindell says, as long as we do not admit that diversity is existing, we kindle the fire in which we are actually sitting.

Integration by admitting diversity and thus balancing social systems could be a thin line to a trace what caring leadership might need to do in order to stay on the light side of CARE.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, Edmund Burke ^[5] reasons.

Our turn now.