On the Elements of a Virtuous Character: Wyden King and His Conversion Antonette Palma-Angeles, Ph.D. and Oscar Bulaong Jr., Ph.D.

Would You Forego PhP2 Million in Daily Profit for Another Life? “Syota” is a slang word in Tagalog that describes the unmarried person with whom one has sexual relations, and it is a short-hand form for “short-time.” This pejorative term originated in the motel industry in Manila, which offers short-time paid lodging. Such an offering is suitable for brief, romantic rendezvous of unmarried couples, since convenience and privacy are what they seek. There is a large and evidently profitable market for short-time lodging, and Wyden King and his Anito Lodge can attest to this. At the forefront of the motel industry in the 1980s and 1990s were Anito Lodge and Victoria Court. These motels were established by Angelo King, who later transferred their operations to his two sons. To the younger son, Wyden King, went Anito Lodge. He expanded Anito into a chain of fourteen motels (approximately 1,400 rooms in total), with a turn-over of three point eight to four times per day (about 11,000 persons daily). At its most profitable period, the chain was earning more than PhP2 million per day in gross sales. At that time the credo that defined the corporate culture of Anito Lodge followed stereotypical business sense: maximize profits by all means necessary. The company enjoyed a strong brand name that represented premium and innovative services. Theme rooms were conceptualized and renovated once every two years. The promotional strategies of Anito Lodge were straightforward: marketing managers regularly visited nightclubs and brothels to distribute “CG Cards” (or Call Girl Cards). These were commission-based promotional cards that

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prostitutes registered for and earned from every time they brought clients to an Anito motel. Wyden King as the chief executive officer (CEO) was directly engaged in the marketing and promotions of Anito, from the conceptualization of theme rooms to the promotion of CG cards in various nightclubs in Manila. He ensured the efficiency of the operations by streamlining manpower input in the cleaning and preparation of motel rooms, thereby increasing turnover rate, and he cut costs by vertically integrating linen washing by setting up a laundry division. Insofar as profit and expansion are indicators of the success of a company, Wyden King was an excellent businessman: remember, he was earning PhP2 million a day from his motel chain. The end began in 1998 when Wyden King closed down one of the fourteen motels.

The Anatomy of a Personal Conversion and Corporate Diversification As a young man Wyden King was a searcher. In high school he considered himself a national democrat. In college he was a left-leaning political activist, whose ideals clashed with his father’s. This conflict came to a head when he was asked to move out of the house, about which he says, “My politics was a source of chronic misunderstanding with my father.”1 Soon after graduation, however, he got married and took his place in his father’s business. Typical of family enterprises, he began at the bottom of the proverbial corporate ladder and made his way to become company president. But he was dissatisfied. He immersed himself in the New Age movement, tried yoga and a variety of other oriental practices that promised spiritual wellness. But at the same time that he was searching for spiritual wellness, he was also succumbing to base bodily appetites. Aside from a semi-permanent mistress, he had occasional casual extramarital affairs—all of which he kept secret from his family. About this point of his life he says, “I had a

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bitter wife, angry children and an unhappy mistress who was pressuring me to leave my family for her.”2 But Wyden King became a born-again Christian in 1992. Six years later, he first closed down one of the fourteen profitable motels, and in ten years’ time not one of them remained the way they were. Right after each closure he would install a banner at the front of the building that declared, “Anito Hotel Closed for the Glory of God.” He returned five of the motels to the lessors, converted seven into family-oriented hotels, and mothballed the last two, or at the time of this writing, left unused. He has, at this point, added to his original credo of “profit maximization” a new motto, “Transforming Lives.” He now focuses on “Building Character,” the foundation of which is the “Grace of God.” In concrete terms, how did the conversion take place? In the personal sphere, Wyden King ended his extramarital affair, and devoted time to restore his relationships with his family. He read the Bible frequently and attended worship services regularly. In his words, “I wanted to bring His Word to my household and to my world of work.” Hence, in the corporate sphere, “prayer and worship became integral parts of our corporate life.”3 One definite means he enacted was to hold regular Bible studies in the workplace. At the beginning only a few managers came, but as Wyden King says, “Later on the Word of God sank, took root and grew in the hearts of family and office members.”4 His conversion was remarkable given how radical it was. It began to penetrate not only the personal life of Wyden King, but his corporate endeavors as well. In his autobiographical essay “Another Kind of Building,” he says, in the beginning, I had no moral qualms about running the motel business and was consumed with perfecting every little amenity in order to ensure a loyal following among clients, [but] continuing to run the motels became incompatible with my new life as a Christian.5 165

His personal conversion led to a conversion in his business, a transformation not only of his management style, but of the core business itself, of Anito Lodge. Other CEOs would have kept the personal sphere separate from the corporate. They would have justified the separation in the belief that the personal has no place in business, and the mixing of the two spheres would be detrimental to both. One could have easily argued in Wyden King’s stead and say that “We are offering a product with the corresponding services, and it sells; what our customers do with this product and what kind of people they are—that’s none of our business. After all, we are doing nothing illegal. Our personal devotions are our own, it is not our place to impose these on our customers.” But Wyden King did not believe this. To undergo a personal conversion is by itself a difficult process because what is at stake is not just money or skills or time. One’s fundamental beliefs and convictions are at stake. Consider further the complexity of bringing this conversion into one’s core business. When Wyden King decided to transform his business and to align it with his personal conversion, the question arises concerning how to accomplish such a corporate transformation and alignment successfully. On the one hand, to expand a motel chain and make it profitable requires a certain set of core competencies. On the other, to change the core business of an already profitable enterprise and to align it with one’s personal convictions require a different set of more complex skills. Why? Because other goals in addition to profit must be set. In King’s words, “The Lord gave me a burden of ‘kingdom building’ in the office.”6 A burden it certainly was. Additional goals, such as “kingdom building,” entail further constraints in decision-making. On the one hand, a skeptic might describe King’s attempt to transform his core business as unwise, that it would have been better not to interfere with a business formula that already worked in the market—in fact, Anito Lodge was dominating its 166

field. On the other, a religious fanatic might suggest a complete divestment of Anito Lodge, that King give up either his personal convictions or his business because they were incompatible with one another. In fact, Wyden King did consider selling Anito outright, but an equally important concern prevented him from doing so, namely, the livelihood of the hundreds of employees and their families. This concern clearly defined the overall business objective of the transformation: to discontinue the “short-time” motel business and diversify into other businesses, while remaining profitable. But many employees were unwilling to adapt to the transformation. King explains: “...when we anchored our staff development plans and our merit and promotion policies on the Word of God, the Holy Spirit did the work of pruning and weeding of the staff for us.”7 Thus Wyden King took the burden of a corporate transformation, instead of the easy exit strategy of divestment. Given all this, Wyden King clearly exemplifies a corporate maverick: a CEO who has radically transformed his enterprise according to his convictions and beliefs, along with or perhaps beyond the profit motive. The diversification resulted in a host of different businesses, which evidently required significant re-conceptualizing and rebranding of products and services that only a sharp marketing mind could have accomplished successfully. For to close down the cash cow that Anito Lodge was and then to enter other markets is no small task and presented no small risks. And yet Wyden King was able to not just change his business but to diversify it, into different products catering to different markets. He transformed seven of the fourteen motels into wholesome, family-oriented hotels. These were: 

three Kabayan Hotels (market: returning overseas foreign workers)

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one Mabuhay Manor (market: balikbayan)

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one Pinoy Pamilya Hotel (market: province-based travelers)

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one Legend Hotel (market: corporate and upscale clientele)

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one Park, Bed and Breakfast (market: motorists)

Wyden King also ventured into other products and services, namely: 

one MyPlace dormitory (market: university students from the provinces)

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Kalinisan Steam Laundry (bulk washing of hotel, restaurant, hospital linen, also uniforms and garments)

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several “suki” markets in Dapitan, San Pedro, Alaminos, Las Piñas (market: middle income families seeking clean wet markets)

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Living Angels Christian Academy, a non-profit school (market: low-income families seeking an alternative to the public school system)

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a housing and land-development company, San Rafael Development

In each of these business locations there is a sanctuary of worship where an employee can seek spiritual nourishment. Employees may participate in regular prayer sessions, cell meetings, worship celebrations, and equipping seminars.8 The conception and implementation of business strategies and policies are undertaken in the spirit of mutual respect and love. The overarching principle is what Wyden King calls “obedience and the fruits of obedience,” in which the profit motive (i.e., the fruits) is subordinate to, but is also a result of, “kingdom-building.” In other words, King believes that to lead a righteous and moral organization (obedience) is to flourish (fruits of obedience). Notice the profit motive is not absent, but it finds itself subordinate to another motive. Analyzing this relationship between motives reveals that the premise is actually simple: when one’s spiritual life is rich and vigorous, one is happier and is free from unnecessary

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appetites. This, Wyden King believes, leads to good corporate decision-making. Or more concretely, the results are: less conflict in the workplace, better operational efficiency, and increased productivity. Based on this premise, Wyden King and his family take active leadership roles in the pastoral care of their employees. Spiritual transformation, healing and restoration are incorporated into the corporate culture. This is what Wyden King calls, “spiritual leadership,” which is indeed a unique leadership style.

Two Examples of Spiritual Leadership In order to illustrate the leadership style being elucidated here, consider the case of Clean Living, Inc., King’s laundry service that unexpectedly began losing money after years of consistent profitability. Before his conversion, Wyden King followed a simple hire-and-fire policy, in which good performance was rewarded and bad performance was immediately penalized with dismissal. In his words, “If you’re good, we’ll throw money at you; if not, we’ll let you go.”9 But after his conversion, King diverted from following this policy, and instead undertook an organizational and financial review to identify the reasons that were causing the unprofitability of the laundry service. He discovered that the business operations were sound, but employee morale was low. He interviewed the site manager, who surprisingly expressed a desire to resign but did not give a reason for such. Soon after the interview, King found out that the manager was having an extramarital affair with one of the supervisors, and as a result became negligent in the handling of business operations and finances. According to Wyden King, it is nearly impossible to make sound business decisions and operate efficiently in a situation of moral depravity (in this case, adultery) because base appetites often cripple good judgment. But

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instead of firing the manager outright, he gave the manager a chance to set things straight by convincing the latter to end the extramarital affair. However, despite prayer and counseling the manager refused to terminate the situation, and decided to finally resign, along with the supervisor. The business had been losing money; its gross margin of PhP8 million per month eventually shrank down to PhP1.3 million. In the end, King’s solution involved reorganizing the laundry business, which meant that Clean Living had to be absorbed by his other laundry service, Kalinisan Steam Laundry, Inc. Despite the losses, Wyden King decided to grant severance pay and retirement benefits to the employees who were adversely affected by the absorption, even if he was not required by law to do so. Since then the losses have ceased and the laundry business has become profitable again. Such a restoration of the laundry business is, for Wyden King, a testament that God blesses those who are morally upright. A second example involves the problem of bribery. In the early 2000s, Wyden King was having a student dormitory built in front of a large university in Metro Manila. The dormitory was supposed to house 400 students and provide them with wholesome community activities. It was to be built in a low-density residential vicinity, in which the city ordinances restricted the height of built structures to a maximum of seven stories. In the past, real estate developers in the same vicinity sought exemptions from this height restriction from the city government hence the presence—and precedence—of several condominium buildings in the area that rise to twelve or more stories. But Wyden King intended to comply with the city ordinances. With his architects and engineers, he planned a seven-story structure and submitted the requirements for a building permit to the office of the local Building Official. In the first of a series of numerous visits to various offices at the City Hall, his representative was explicitly

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offered an exemption to the height requirement as long as the proper “payments” were made to an enumerated list of building authorities. Upon learning of the offer, Wyden King instructed his representative to comply with all the requirements of the building authorities, as long as the requirements were legal, that is, insofar as official receipts for payments could be issued by the City Treasurer’s office. The representative then proceeded to obtain the permits: fire safety, engineering, electrical, among others. Since they were complying with all the requirements fairly and above board, it took five months to obtain the Building Permit. Revisions of the plans and nuisance requirements accounted for the delay. Wyden King knew that it could have taken less than half the amount of time had he offered to make the proper “payments” to the building authorities. But this is not yet the end of the story. Upon finishing construction of the dormitory, Wyden King had to obtain the relevant business permits. His representatives went to the various departments to seek their approval and to repeatedly explain their conviction that they would comply with all the requirements, as long as the requirements were legal. However, when the final approval was needed for the permit, the Chief Assessor nullified all the approvals of the departments because the assessments were, according to the Assessor, too low. So Wyden King decided to visit the mayor. He respectfully explained that he was a born-again Christian and thus he wanted to transact above board, and that he was willing to comply with any and all requirements. In fifteen minutes he got the approval, but by then five months had already passed. Construction was already finished but he could not accept any sales or bookings because he did not have the permit to operate. Had he offered an easy “fix” to each of the department heads and the Chief Assessor, he would have acquired all the permits in less than one month. King’s response to all this is simply to say that,

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“righteousness is costly.”10 But he remains firm in the belief that proper obedience will bear fruit.

Was It All Worth It? Aristotle and a CEO’s Flourishing Many business ethics courses, using Aristotle, would proclaim that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Translated into corporate language, this means that to do the “right thing” is not only profitable in general and in the long term, but it is also beneficial for the well-being of a business enterprise. In this case, the “right thing” is the action or decision that is done for the right reason, at the right time, in the right amount, and in the right way. This is the opposite of excessive or deficient actions, which are motivated usually by base appetites. In the corporate setting, a base appetite such as greed means that profit is the sole motive in corporate decision-making—at the expense of other motives, such as worker safety and satisfaction, truthful financial reporting, consumer protection from defective products or faulty services, or basically the inclusion of relevant stakeholder interests in corporate decision-making. Thus the wise CEO understands that the inclusion of other relevant motives certainly does not preclude the intent to widen profit margins, but altogether ensures the well-being of an enterprise. The unwise CEO, in contrast, considers motives other than profit to be extraneous, perhaps even costly, and thus should be minimized. The perspective that views profit as the sole motive belongs to the lowest level of corporate moral development, namely to the “amoral organization.” Such an organization is dominated by an attitude of making profit “at any cost,” which is short-sighted and narrow-minded. Such an organization usually has no regard for the well-being of the corporation and its stakeholders. This lack of regard often results in decisions that are detrimental to one’s organization.11

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Wyden King is evidently aware of this attitude and demonstrates its opposite in the story of his conversion to Christianity. What he considered as a liberation from his “bondage” to desire amounted to a liberation from base bodily appetites, in his case lust and greed. This gives way to deliberation and good judgment, the essential components for “doing the right thing.” And this is found only by someone with excellent practical judgment because worldly and base appetites hinder this kind of judgment. Thus his conversion and the corresponding transformation of Anito Lodge into other, diversified interests are demonstrations of virtue and excellence. This dual transformation also demonstrates the relevance of virtue and excellence in business–they could never go out of fashion in any corporate setting. In a nutshell, the success of Wyden King can be attributed not only to technical skills, but more so to skills that arise from an excellent character and good judgment. Wyden King truly is a wise and excellent businessman.

Conclusion What the case of Wyden King’s conversion teaches is that in running a business, profitability need not be divorced from personal spiritual convictions. While most other people would simply assume that in a business, all other considerations take a backseat to the maximization of profit, Wyden King has shown us that it cannot be the end-all and be-all of an enterprise. The interesting thing here is that King has been able to find ways to still maintain, and better yet, increase his profits, through his imaginatively diversified projects, without having to set aside his personal spiritual values. He has even made his spirituality a centerpiece of his business: it is not just a token practice in his establishments, but has actually become an innate force that directs and shapes the direction of his businesses into profitability. Wyden King proves

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that one can always try to find ways to make a profit and still make a difference in the concrete lives of the stakeholders.

NOTES 1. Wyden King, “Another Kind of Building,” in This is My Story (Manila: OMF Literature, 2004), 110. 2. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 111. 3. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 112. 4. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 113. 5. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 114. 6. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 113. 7. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 114. 8. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 118. 9. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 114. 10. King, “Another Kind of Building,” 115. 11. R. Eric Reidenbach and Donald P. Robin, “A Conceptual Model of Corporate Moral Development,” Journal of Business Ethics 10 (1991), 275-276.

REFERENCES King, Wyden. “Another Kind of Building.” In This is My Story, 109-117. Manila: OMF Literature, 2004. Reidenbach, R. Eric, and Donald P. Robin. “A Conceptual Model of Corporate Moral Development.” Journal of Business Ethics 10 (1991): 273-284.

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