Turkey's new story should be built on 'common values'

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

BURSA, Turkey

The Turkish society should reevaluate its common values if it wants economic progress and higher social welfare, a leading Turkish businesswoman said Friday.

Delivering a speech on the first day of the Uludag Economy Summit in northwestern Bursa province, Begumhan Dogan Faralyali, Board Chairwoman of media giant Dogan Holding said Turkey should build its future story on strong values like trust, justice and morality.

She pointed out a 2005 survey which found that more than 70 percent of Turkish people polled at the time did not want to do business or be neighbors with someone who voted for a party that they did not support.

"The consequences of that research were really heartbreaking. We tried to understand the reason why and in order to tackle that problem, we initiated the Shared Values Movement Project," she said.

The project was launched last September, and the results were published on October 29, the Republic Day.

Faralyali said that according to the research on approximately 2,000 Turkish people, the top individual values were justice, morality, family, tolerance and honesty.

"When we asked them what were the values that they saw in society, their answers were unemployment, ignorance, violence and poverty," she said. "As for the values they wanted to see in society, the answers came as justice, morality, trust, respect and peace."

"If we all want to see this kind of society, we should build this new story on these values and the critical point would be security. Everyone wants to feel secure," she added.

Faralyali noted that according to another survey carried out last year, nine out of ten people in Turkey do not trust strangers.

“But in Denmark, only one out of ten people say they would not trust a stranger. Danish people say goodwill and security are the building stones of a society,” she said.

Commenting on Denmark's success not only in economy but also in terms of social capital and happiness, Farilyali said the key point was trust which brought with it economic welfare.

"The Turkish society needs to rebuilt into one that is based on such values. Actually 99 percent of people in Turkey are kindhearted. Let's listen to and try to understand each other, and recall our shared values," she said.

- Cultural capital: the new front

Speaking at the same session, Richard Barrett, founder of Barrett Values Centre, said values united people while beliefs separated them.

"You can get different religious leaders sitting around a table and you can say 'come to an agreement on your beliefs'. It will never happen. But you can say them 'come to an agreement about your values' and they will get that very quickly," he said.

Underlining the current way of doing business, Barrett noted that the cultural capital was the new front of comparative advantage, and suggested leaders change their organizational culture into one based on employees' common values in order to be successful and to bring the country stability.

"Not only be a value-driven leader for your own company, but also create values for the Turkish society," he said. "I believe honestly that business can create the change that is necessary in the world."