By santiago | February 18, 2008
Great points, Steve! I’d like to add to what you wrote.
Corporate responsibility is also about making sure your company controls its own brand and narrative. In 2006, at the Conference Board’s Business Ethics and Compliance Conference, a speaker from a well-known public company remarked that, for most of their corporate history, they’d assumed if they did right by their customers, that would be enough. And while this attitude is certainly admirable, it didn’t prevent outside organizations from hijacking their reputation and causing them all sorts of reputational and even legal problems. They learned the hard way that actions are not enough.
You need to tell your story “early and often,” because chances are you may not like the way others tell it. In the post-Enron age of transparency, being open about all your practices (business, governance, ethical, compliance or corporate responsibility) is not a luxury but a necessity. The activist/NGO leaders have become masters at taking a brand identity and turning it against a company.
Click on the links below to see some examples:
The nightmare scenario is for a dedicated group of people to organize themselves exclusively around destroying your company. And such groups do exist. The best way to counter their actions is by (1) having responsible business practices; (2) being open and honest and (3) engaging with responsible NGOs in the field of interest. And no, “responsible NGOs” is not an oxymoron. They are out there, and they can help you understand emerging concerns.
Obviously, if your actions don’t match your values, then you have a problem no amount of words can solve.
In other words – take care of your actions and your words. You’ll need both.