Ethics and Values

From Michael Sauvante

It is always difficult to wear one's ethics and values on one's sleeve, as many people are skeptical of those who talk about themselves, especially in positive terms. Nonetheless, as this site is all about setting the record straight on who we are, what we believe in, and what we have done to conform to those beliefs (particularly since they are at the core of the issues being dealt with here), I feel it is appropriate to talk about my ethics and values.

As the primary person responsible for the concept that led to the creation of Rolltronics et al. and the gathering of a team to advance that concept, and also as the chief fundraiser, I also take responsibliity for setting the ethical tone of the enterprise, and therefore feel it appropriate to speak personally about this topic. 

The vast majority of the stakeholders (management and shareholders) who joined with us did so because our values resonated with them. In fact I made sure that they all were fully exposed to those values, and expressed agreement with them, before inviting them to join us.

The sum and substance of all those negative accusations have been very difficult for me to shoulder, as they represent values that are as diametrically opposite from mine. Nonetheless I have tried to make lemonade out of those lemons.

Now let me tell you about me and the basis and evolution of my personal value system.

I was raised in a Catholic, career military family where my parents were very clear on the concepts of right and wrong and deeply imbued them into me and my younger brother. So much so that I can remember the pangs of guilt I felt when once while in high school I took a metal coat hanger from our communal laundry room, one that belonged to someone else and from a large, rarely used pile. Nonetheless my conscience bothered me for a very long time after that, not because of the value of the object, but the because of the principle that I had taken something that didn't belong to me. At 61 years old I still remember that.

That alone should give you a clue into my heart and where I stand on taking things from others.

And, as I grew into a young adult, I found that I deeply desired to get a better understanding of who and what we are, and why we are here. That led me into a deep exploration of spirituality and exposure to quite a few moral, spiritual, ethical and religious belief systems.

I met my wife while pursuing that journey, while she was on a similar quest. We came together in the early 70s around that common interest and it has served as the bedrock of our lives ever since - over 37 years now.

Our mutual quest led us to one particular body of knowledge, and it became the key source for ideas, understanding and motivations into how we should live our lives. For those who are curious, the books by Alice A. Bailey are the ones we worked with.

However, just as we would say that it does not matter what religion one follows as long as it leads that person to be a better human being, we consider the source of our inspiration not as important as the key ideas that we have integrated into our lives.

One of the most important tenets is reflected in the phrase, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." However, it doesn't stop there. These teachings advocate that each human being accepts full responsiblity for, and learns from, all of their actions, good, bad or otherwise. They are all learning experiences and by experiencing, experimenting and expressing, we slowly learn, move forward and become more perfect with each experience.

Once I felt that I had absorbed the main lessons from that source and could use them as a clear guideline for what I did with my life, I made the conscious decision to go back into the world to put those ideas into practice. I went back to college, first as a physics major and then I discovered a passion for business and made that my major. Shortly after leaving college in 1976, I started my first business, and have been an entrepreneur for most of the time since.

Along the way I endeavored to apply my training in spiritual principles in my everyday business world. One example is the telephone systems contracting business in the San Francisco Bay area that my wife and I owned for seven years. By applying my values to how I conducted business, I found that within one year, 100% of our new customers came to us as call-in and/or referrals.

Our clients became our friends and taking care of them was our number one priority. It speaks well of us that in seven years as a contractor, we had not one single complaint with either the state contractor's board or the Better Business Bureau (a rarity in the contracting business). In fact, at no time in our entire business career did we have any kind of legal dispute with any of our customers and/or shareholders until these claims surfaced in the Rolltronics set of companies.

What is all the more sad in this recent circumstance is that we attempted to incorporate all the "best of the best" ideas we had accumulated over the years about ethical, social and environmental behavior and set out to build a model company around those values.

For example, in the very beginning we created a non-profit corporation and granted it 25% ownership of the company. Its purpose was to promote the ideas of social, environmental and economic responsibility. You can see a slightly updated version of the primary document here that we submitted to the IRS to apply for our tax-exempt status. It summarizes our values and how we were attempting to run our company and our vision for the world.

We likewise granted large blocks of stock to the team members, at no cost to them.

These are just a few of the things we did with our company that should give you a sense that we were anything but what we have been accused of.

And if you would like to know more about our thoughts with respect to business and its responsibility to the world, I would encourage you to read other articles I have written on the topics of ethical, social, environmental and economic responsiblity in the business world. You can see a number of them on my personal website at: http://www.novaquestventures.com/articles.php.

Thank you for taking the time to read these thoughts and entertain an alternate view from the public criticism we have received. May you never have to endure anything like this in your life.

Here is wishing you success in your endeavors.

Michael