Ethics and creativity promote ‘good work’

Ethics and creativity promote ‘good work’
Dewi Susanti and Kayee Man, Contributors, Jakarta
Recently, when opening her e-mail account, Dewi’s attention was caught by news titled “The Memory Pill” with this short description: “If you have experienced a painful or traumatic event, would you want a pill which could lessen the bad memories of what happened?
That option might soon be here because of a drug called propanolol.” Intrigued, she clicked the hyperlink, which brought her to a short 60 Minutes segment on the subject (http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/21/memory_drug).
The coverage discussed propanolol, a drug that blocks adrenaline and makes us forget intense fear and stressful situations that have happened in the past. 60 Minutes also covered opposing views on the subject. Those in favor of the drug said how helpful it would be for people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to overcome their suffering, while those against worried the drug could be used to manipulate people to achieve a fake “happiness”.
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A research project named “The Good Work Project” (www.goodworkproject.org) launched by prominent psychologists comes to mind. In 1995, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, William Damon professor of education at Stanford University, and Howard Gardner, a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of education, investigated the aspects contributing to “good work” in the fields of journalism and medicine.
They have since extended the application of “good work”, defined as “work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and meaningful to its practitioners” in fields such as arts, business, education, law, medicine, philanthropy, and sports. They also separated “good work” from “compromised work”, defined as “work which is legal, but undermines the core values of the profession”, and from “poor, substandard work”.
The researchers identified four elements that condition “good work”: personal standards — values, religious faith, self-image; social controls — reciprocity, trust, community needs, ethics boards; cultural controls — requirements of job, traditions, professional codes, and outcome controls — extrinsic benefits, power, prestige. Because of these factors, it is far easier for individuals to perform “good work” in an accountable, open, and democratic society, rather than in a corrupt, untrustworthy, and autocratic society (The Good Work Project, 2006).
In the case of Indonesia, although conducting “good work” is urgent, it is very difficult to pursue because the standards for social and cultural controls are, frankly, rather poor. One of the seemingly innocuous, but potentially damaging aspect of Indonesian culture for the promotion of “good work” in the work context is inarguably the concept of sungkan.
Full LInk
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20070128.F08&irec=8