having what it takes

Recently I've been thinking about the whole topic of interviews, skills, competencies etc and have had to explain to a few people what it is that people look for when recruiting someone. Of course every job is different, but I do want to discuss a couple of key concepts.

It is not what you know that matters that much. It is what you are capable of doing and what you want to do. If you have the capability and the ideas of how to direct that capability to achieve the results, then that is wonderful.

It is not what you achieve, but how you achieve it. Sounds contrary to my previous statement; but in my point of view this is crucial for modern organisations. It is not just about issues like corruption or management, it is related to an organisation's culture. Will you be someone who is inspired to achieve a numerical result or inspired to achieve the result of that result? Will you be content with reaching a goal or want to go further? Are you motivated by the number or the consequence? Do you have a plan or a vision? First you need to have a vision or a dream of where that plan leads to, then you create the plan. You have to be inspired by the vision primarily, not just the plan.

The how matters, because when you join an organisation you do just that -join an organisation. This requires communication, teamwork, motivation and so on. When you work with someone who challenges you, inspires you, provides ideas, helps you generate ideas then you are very lucky! But that is what makes an organisation a success and that is what makes an individual a success: even if a job does just require you sitting by a computer and a phone, there are still people around you to talk to, to eat lunch with and at the other end of the email or phone!

Real teamwork cannot be measured. It is not just having team meetings; it is about helping others to achieve and helping others to help you achieve.

Now, all this said, having these qualities (or an organisation that allows these qualities to develop and exist) is not easy. I'm yet to find either a person or an organisation that is perfect -but still, when you are interviewing someone you want to try to find that perfect person, and you want to try to develop that perfect organisation.

And if you don't, then you need to! Which comes to the final quality: Perfectionism is not an optional trait. Everyone needs to aim to be perfect, to achieve perfection somehow -when you define perfection aim high (and realistically) -and yes perfectionism requires persistence. The problem is, how many leaders know any of this, let alone try to make it happen? I hear about some organisations where all this is true.. let it be known that I hope to create an organsiation like this some day!

partnerships

Reflecting back on a 'Strategic Marketing' course at University reminds me that I did learn something.. and indeed, still remember something of use from University. Namely that though partnerships tend to be seen as a end in themselves, and a very popular concept nowadays, partnerships to really be a mean to an end.. and once the end is achieved (or as close as can be), the partnership should be dissolved (therefore when it is created, such a dissolution point should be planned for).

I also remember that the professor's definition of strategic partnership made for interesting thinking: combining different strengths of organisations together for example, or that a partner often enters a partnership hoping to actually beat its partner -partnerships are rarely equal and partner's unstated goals rarely the same. Of course there was much more to the course, such as the difficulties of creating and integrating joint activities, managing them and so on.

In my work I look at strategic benefits in a philanthropy way: between organisations of different sectors, which explicitly have different objectives from partnerships: a company might hope to improve its reputation whereas a charity might want to help poor people. However these partnerships are often fairly successful.

What about partnerships where all partners' over-riding goal is a philanthropic one? This strikes me as interesting because everything in 'business' is about motivation: if the motivation is so strong and commitment so great, might success be achieved? So the recent trend for all kinds of people to start joining coalitions or partnerships to fight some aspect of poverty. Many are not real partnerships; indeed a coalition is often just a membership of a club where you contribute something and a central secretariat actually does something with it. But for actual partnerships; with each partner contributing something, doing something, having a direct stake in the outcome etc -then are these partnerships more successful (the typical MBA textbook will state how often mergers fail to add value, or how often partnerships do not bring much benefit to either partner!) than traditional business partnerships (which my professor was talking about)?

I hope to find out more over the course of my career; one thing is sure, is that these new partnerships (Cross Sector Partnerships, Corporate Community Engagement and so on) are rarely assessed adequately in the context of how successful the partnership is (if it is actually a partnership, rather than just a 'sponsorship'); and only the outcome of the partnership is assessed (and often badly).

prioritising

In business it is tough to prioritise. Can you really choose what is more important to your business -your employees or your customers? You obviously need both; and this is just a very simple example. There are many situations where prioritising is difficult and complex.

Leading CSR thought is along the lines of integrating CSR and responsibility into management decisions. In this way the impact of decisions can be viewed through a 'responsibility lens'' thus if there are guidelines within a company for how to select priorities, the litmus test is where is sustainability or responsibility in these guidelines.

I write about the difficulties of prioritisation because we, as human beings face similar problems daily. The world, it seems, is now moving climate change up the ladder of priorities, but at what cost? Will the environment (in a traditional sense) or poverty reduction drop down a few rungs to compensate?

It is clear we cannot focus on all issues; and all have their merit. It is also clear that all issues are inter-related. Yes you cannot generate economic growth if the people who generate wealth are dying from HIV/AIDs, and their future successors are not being educated or looked after. But at the same time, you cannot generate wealth, if there is no water for growing crops or cooling factories, or for drinking. Another simple example, but this I believe is an issue we are struggling to deal with.

There are too many issues with complicated solutions and not enough will power or resources to solve them all. The Copenhagen Consensus was an interesting concept, when it started in 2003 -and its great to discover it is still going. The Copenhagen Consensus process aims to establish a framework in which solutions to problems are prioritized based upon the best information possible. The idea is a great one, and they have wonderful educational resources which I think every institution should use to stimulate debate and ideas.

Their founding conference in 2004 came up with these top 4 priorities: HIV/AIDs, Nutrition (Micronutrients), Trade liberalisation, Malaria. (Interestingly the youth conference came up with Malnutrition/Hunger, Communicable Disease, Governance/Corruption and Education). Now they are updating their framework and preparing for a similar conference in 2008. What will the priorities they come up with be then? Will Climate Change still take 3 of the bottom 4 places?

Thankfully there is some follow-up, including an interesting book (a rich set of arguments and data for prioritising our response most effectively).

On a personal level, as much as we may all care about helping others, there is the question that we hate to ask ourselves.. Is watching a 2 hour movie going to really make much difference to the World? Is our job really what we want? This discussion shall be had another time!

HIV/AIDs as a reflection of our society

just watched a movie called A closer walk which I encourage everyone to watch; one of the many very good points is that HIV/AIDs and our failure to stop it spreading reflects about our society in general. Of course every society is different between regions, countries, cities etc; but there are some interesting thoughts that came into my mind.

First I started thinking about social stigmas -related to sex, related to old or disabled people, related to people of other races and sexes. And the obvious truth that we start with a negative stigma of almost anything different or anything we do not understand, but once we come into close contact with it and reach across the divide to make a personal connection, then we can lose the stigma. But the problem is if we think this way then we start with holding stigmas towards so many people and have to work to overcome them -rather than the opposite. I understand the evolutionary perspective of having to earn trust and fear people or things that are different or we do not understand for own survival; but today we come into contqact with so many people and things that are different: much more than in the past; and we effect so many more people that are so different to us, without even knowing it!

How can we change these stigmas? Are we as humans, humane people? It seems not. Despite knowledge and awareness we often do nothing, for so many reasons -some simple and some complex. The more reasons there are, the more solutions there are -which makes it harder to solve on one hand, but also offers more opportunities for us to do something -just pick one small solution that fits our personal situation. Despite evident visibility on our own streets of people less fortunate, we as humans don't seem to do anything about it. It's not often about desire, or about means, or ability (though all often are missing); but more generally about behaviour.

What does it take for society to change? To take responsibility for itself? I mean, our society is killing itself in so many ways... Yes, there are 'bigger picture' ideas: of there being more people creating more diseases killing more people, of poverty being inevitable no matter what and so on.. but what strikes me, is that we COULD actually do something about it.. it is not just out of our hands!

Now for a problem I do not have an answer for- if in some countries 40% people have HIV/AIDs and whole families and friendship networks are dying from it; why is HIV/AIDs becoming a bigger problem? Surely everyone is affected by it; surely they can see it, see the effects and will want to stop it -for their own, selfish sake -but this is not happening. If there are cultural reasons for this (man involving the role of women in society) then how come the culture does not change? Yes, we need to understand different cultures, respect them etc. But there is no point in preserving a culture if it is not fit for the modern society.. if by preserving a culture it wipes its own people out. They need to change their culture to survive (and not necessarily change to a certain or specific culture; but make some kind of change)!

Finally a point was made by the Director of the movie, that there are somethings that are fundamental rights and others that are a privilege: The rich may have more priviledges than the poor, but we should not have more rights.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

I am a convert! -after the BAWB Global Forum in Cleveland, I've been researching more and more about this so-called 'Bottom of the Pyramid' concept -that it is in business's own interest to help society, and the best way to do so is, through doing more business. Sometimes known as 'doing business with the poor', this is not necessarily a new concept: indeed the poor have been integrated into (and benefited) from global supply chains for a while -and will continue to do so.

The 'new' trend (by that I mean a trend that only recently academic studies have discovered is happening and started researching, though i am sure inspired individuals and business throughout time has been involved in this trend for centuries) is basically about how important innovation and entrepreneurship is to doing business with the poor -and therefore I am convinced that entrepreneurs have been doing this for years. It's great that Multinationals are getting more involved, since they can scale-up and mainstream.

The fundamental learning point is very much about understanding the market. The market might for your business yet, but if you can provide a useful service, the market will buy it. The product or service does not necessarily have to benefit society per se; but by creating a successful product or service, it will provide some benefit in its use and in knock-on wealth creation (jobs, distribution etc). There is 1 caveat though, in that these products or services should not be harmful. Writing this, it is clear that the best example of BOP is the illegal drugs market -where there are incredible innovations in supply chain, distribution, marketing and so on -and huge buyers of poor people some how become buyers (unfortunately often through crime).

Now companies are listening more, engaging more and experimenting more: another example of CSR just being good business -a logical evolution of what had been happening previously. Often serving this market requires a new product or service, and often it requires rethinking the associated business functions entirely. Thus businesses need to encourage more entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, give their employees free-rain, flexibility, and take a long-term approach to profit making. Society needs to encourage innovation more; it needs to encourage entrepreneurship in its educational systems, in its economic frameworks, in its recognition and status socially and so on. Much more needs to be done about this urgently. We need more leaders with more ideas to solve the many challenges we face.

Supply Chain and Development

After a recent conference on Supply Chain Management I came to realise a few things. The most important is how great a lot of the stuff Brands are doing: they are (for various reasons) demonstrating fantastic leadership and I believe had made a big difference in the last 10+ years. There are of course multiple problems still to contend with; especially considering what they are doing is not driven my much local pressure; and most of what they are doing should, to some extent, be done by the government (enforcing Health and Safety laws, working hours laws etc).

There are some fantastic pilots taking place that really bring 'CSR' to local managers in factories and engage with all stakeholders in such programs (including, crucially, the workers) -so that the managers themselves see the business benefits of CSR -and are actually able to understand CSR as a holistic concept, rather than what they see at the moment (compliance, training etc). There is further to go, not least in addressing the scale-up challenges involved.

Scaling-up is the buzz word in the development world (where I work) and it is clear that the CSR world needs to take a leaf from the development world's book -or at least learn the lessons the development world has gained from many years of failures, and some successes attempting such grand initiatives. The Business world may be great at scaling up marketing, but scaling up CSR/development programs is different. For too long pilots have occurred in the supply chain and not expanded, there has been a lack of involvement of government, policy makers and academics, there has been limited attempts at partnership with other sectors (or with competitors) and not enough capacity building.

Maybe Supply Chain Staff should meet Marketing staff and realise that distributing products requires partnerships and adequate distribution channels, as well as effective communications, effective research and so on.

This takes me to the lesson the Supply Chain only seems to have recently learnt: the need to engage with stakeholders and more than this, provide for the stakeholders to make the decisions. In the development world the community is encouraged to make decisions -an example might be an offer of funding for a community to improve the community. Now, the funder might not actually care what the community chooses to do with the money, what they care about is the process the community went through to make the decision. Thus the community has buy-in and is accountable to itself as well as the funder, and the community will learn the lessons. At the conference people were finally talking about the need for a bottom-up approach; an engagement approach and so on.

There is of course a lack of people around who can facilitate this process, inspire the stakeholders to be involved, or trust the stakeholders enough! But, for Supply Chain Improvements to really take off, that is what must happen. The Buyers will need to reach a stage where they trust their suppliers and step back -audit less not more.

A Factory is different to a village community though, so Buyers need to empower the managers to willingly want to empower and engage with their employees and other stakeholders. Not much sustainable benefit to the buyers doing all the 'csr' on behalf of a factory they do not own! When a Factory manager spoke to us, he was not knowledgeable about CSR as a concept -and indeed most auditors are not 'csr experts' -they are auditors, and this is the problem. Most trainers (either from the company, ngos or consultancies) are training bits and pieces as required by whoever pays their services.

Development looks at comprehensive needs of a community, takes into account external factors, spends as much on research before a programme and evaluation after the programme (plus disseminating learning points) as the programme itself. Development requires spending LOTS of money, but aims to do small things well, then identify opportunities to scale-up -often involving government, business and other stakeholders.

The key to development though is that those being 'developed' want to be developed -they see the benefits, and this is not something the supply chain movement started with; and is something it has tried to create -Brands are having to go in and convince the factories of the benefits of CSR. Will this and other lessons be learnt? I suggest a dialogue between development NGOs and the Supply Chain actors; share some lessons, and then lets make sure that what is happening is sustainable. I don't believe much of the supply chain movement is sustainable. There are some fantastic examples, but these are few, and the sample a tiny proportion of all 'supliers' that exist -which is almost any company that sells something to someone!

Though the migrant workers complained at the conference about lack of training and how they wanted innovative training, career development opportunities and so on; they are much better off than in their villages -if not they would not be there. Ambition is a great thing. How about they take some of these lessons back to the factory outside their village, and take some leadership upon themselves? I think there needs to be some re-thinking about scaling-up. Let's hope that future conferences focus on that. Too much good stuff is happening to be wasted on having such low impact.

Is this great stuff bringing the whole field up? Maybe some of the factories in apparel, toys and electronics in a couple of geographical areas are getting better. Is the entire field of factories getting better, no matter where they are based or what product they are making? No, but some leaders need to start re-thinking, re-planning and being more ambitious.

Market Failure

The Stern Report states that we are witnessing the biggest market failure ever -and the consequences are climate change. It would be hard to argue with this. The report contains many suggestions and most are dependent on someone -business or government mostly doing something; rather than just talking. Whether this will happen or not depends on how sever climate change becomes (and the short-term impacts) and particularly on public opinion.

Public opinion does seem to be, finally, changing. After a recent conference on Supply Chain, I wonder if there are some lessons that could be learned from what has been going on there in the last 10-15 years or so, since public opinion started to become vocal through NGOs (though how much the average public really cared might still be debatable). The labour conditions is actually not a case of market failure: but it is a case of how a non-financial/tangible/measurable matter became a more important driver than economics.. In climate change we cannot wait until we run out of cheap coal before we find alternatives!

It is interesting how, I believe, average people still do not care much about poor labour conditions (often workers do have a choice of going back to the countryside if they wanted to, for lower wages and more poverty) or even about starving people in Africa -since that still persists even though it could be easily solved if there was the individual will. Instead changes come about through a few passionate people and the systems they use to stimulate change: specifically the International NGO and the media -both are leading the campaigns about climate change too. Good job they exist; good job they are doing something. Ironically various Sustainable Development Communication email lists are buzzing with the problem of people being confused with so many messages, and none of them seemingly working. It seems that the more popular an idea becomes, the more competition there is in the arena, the worse a problem becomes the harder it is to mobilise people with a simple message, simple solution, simple actions.

There have been lists around for years about how we could save water or energy, yet toilets still use up way too much water in a single flush than they need, and shops still sell inefficient light bulbs. The simple message is that we need more individuals who are going to make brave decisions: either for ethical reasons or because they can spot a market opportunity. Climate Change surely offers both as well -the World just needs more individuals to make the different, be different, and then they (and the World) can reap the benefits.

Decline in leadership- what next?

When your leadership role decines, and this seems inevitable, what do you do? Try to postpone the inevitable; try to prevent it through eliminating the competition; accept the decline and manage it to your own benefit or are there other options?

Some could argue the USA faces this option in the next 20-30 years. As sure as people cannot live forever, empires cannot live forever and the USA will need to sacrifice its individual dominance of the World at some point -maybe to China, maybe to China and India combined, or maybe it will just have to share its dominance with either of those (or Europe etc)?

Previous empires have tended to implode through over-stretching or because the competition beat them (often in a group) or because someone else just developed to be better.

Let me introduce: The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle. Now this seems to imply that the USA will not give up its leadership position.

Fair enough -let PNAC research this (and who knows how much support it actually has from the 'powers that be'. But what would be better for the USA is to also have another think-tank entitled: Project for the Non-American Century which could explore what the future might look like under a different country (or group of countries)'s leadership. It could explore what the US could do to ensure it still benefits from this decline, how to deal with the psychological implications, how to prevent a nuclear attack on the (overtaking) competition and so on.

Even more interesting it could explore peaceful means of how the US could retain its leadership role in a way that is good for itself and others; in partnership with others. Unfortunately political international partnerships (e.g UN) rarely work due to the inherent fundamental need to preserve one's self-interest over all else... simple game theory does not adequately explain irrationality based on human kind's selfishness; or if it does (I am not an expert) then why has no one put forward suggestions to make partnerships like the UN Security Council or WTO work better?

The Leadership of the US needs to be responsible to itself and to others by creating several scenarios of the future and explore each one in detail. Instead of just presuming there is only 1 possible scenario (continued dominance) and exploring how to best ensure that scenario happens. As we are slowly, slowly realising we are an interconnected species on a small planet (witness climate change) and we have to put the 'whole' ahead of ourselves. Other species seem to be able to do this. Are human beings up to the task?

I would hate to see yet another cold war of some king... one that might end up warming up just a little too much..

bbc

I'm a big supporter of the role of 'the market' to allocate resources effectively and balance long-term with short-term consequences. It is not perfect by any means and despite the interesting use of the stock market to counter for long-term impacts (e.g. futures), the time lag between our reaction to certain problems and our decision to do something about it is still too great.

There is though, always other problems, such as out lack of ability of how to do something about a problem (once we eventually realise it is a problem).There are also some things where a 'market concept' has not developed -and maybe cannot develop. One example is politics; which should be the model 'market' but is often not; another is the Media. For several years I have held a great interest in the role of the media, its power, its use, its ownership, its impartiality and so on. What strikes me as interesting is to consider the 'marketisation' of the media, into monopoly ownership (is it a bad thing? if so, won't bad things naturally fail to be replaced with better things?), onto the internet (how many of us would love to spend all out time viewing all that media up there -too much!) and how it impacts it's content.

I think the UK is in an interesting situation regarding the media. There are some media providers who are purely commercial (though still regualted by the government and forced to show a certain number of 'educational shows', or to limit the amount of advertisements, for example) and then there is the BBC. The BBC is about broadcasting TV and radio (nationally and globally), funding and making content for itselves and others and providing the UK's most popular website (and a top site globally). Although it is sort of a non-profit entity, its existence is entirely dependent on the government to give it its 'license' -i.e. remit on what it can or cannot do. Thus the government controls the BBC -but the funding comes directly from the people (everyone must buy a TV license), though this is not a tax it is barely a 'user fee' since usage of the BBC is so loosely related to how much is paid (compared to a normal market commodity).

As much as the BBC loves to hate the government it has to rely on the individuals within the government who are willing to support something that might be bad for the government (its controllers). Indeed what makes the BBC so interesting is this weird balance of control and ownership.. because it impacts what the BBC is able to do, and crucially, what the content is.Thus the media is a unique issue to discuss in the context of responsible leadership.

Many argue (at a macro level) about the crucial role the media has to play in informing the public, in playing an active role in supporting democracy, freedoms (of speech etc). Others can argue (at a micro level) about whether the media should promote domestic talent (since it is paid for by domestic money) or whether it is stifling other competition. It makes the mind boggle to consider how complex a responsibility the BBC has -given its international role, its influence across so many types of media and its remarkably high level of trust that almost everyone holds in it (in a world where no-one trusts any thing nowadays!).

My take is that there is a responsibility to stimulate a healthy democracy and debate, there is a responsibility to inform people about issues that they need to be educated about (climate change, poverty or whatever), there is a need to provide fantastic documentaries even if so few people watch them, there is a need to provide a platfor for new talent and new ideas and there is also a need to show shows that people actually want (e.g.soap operas).

Getting the balance right is not easy; it seems the BBC is doing ok with this balance at the moment, and the government is doing a fair job of both controlling and not controlling the BBC in a way that is best for the 'public good' (who can decide what THAT is?). I hope that it continues in it unique and weird form to continue to be a fantastic organisation.

Pandas

The 5 other animals that are in the same species as the Panda (debated as to what exact species the Panda is) have all disappeared -most of them hundreds of thousands of years ago, and not because of mankind. Now the Panda has started disappearing, partly from human activity and partly from other animals or natural changes.

To some extent, yes, it is because of humans that the Panda is now facing extinction -but at the same time, it is also simple evolution that the panda has failed to react adequately to climate changes; failed to change its eating habits; failed to escape from or attack predators; failed to mate quick enough etc.

Much is made of manking altering nature for our own good, well should we be artificially protecting the panda; which currently only survives in zoos or protected reserves. I believe only 1 panda has been returned to the wild (ever); no matter how much we can increase the population of pandas, what is the point if they cannot survive alone in the wild, unsupported?

Do we have an obligation to protect species from going extinct? Should we continue to keep them alive in order to study them, their breeding habits and so on, so we can increase our knowledge of nature, animals and history? Are we only protecting the panda because it is cute (and other animals that are not cure, are disappearing)? and so on....

What should we do, what is the responsible thing to do? I can definitely see value in protecting the panda in order to study it and learn from it; but then i think that what we should do is have these kinds of discussions about the panda, about extinctions and about mankind's place in this world. Instead of information in zoos about how we should support the panda, donate money to WWF and environmental conservation, we should be telling children the panda's story and discussing with them these and other philosophical questions.

Rarely does anyone learn about philosophy at school, unless they take it at 16, 18 or older as some academic option, but at a time when the debates are growing into the general public demain about the role of business in society, about the role of humans on our planet, about the role of the person flying on holiday (is there a right to travel?), then i think that a great philosophy class could tie all of this together in a fun and interesting way (the panda is a great example). This helps the future generations learn about the past, explore the present and challenge the current preconceptions. Right now the most responsible thing we can do is explore new ways of living; of surviving -we cannnot go on as we are.

Stability

Stability and change. Most people, especially in the corporate World will argue that you need to continue to innovate to succeed. In literary terms you can find 'sayings' both for and against change; in political terms everyone is always talking about change; in our personal lives we are always against change and upheavals.

I find this topic interesting just because in different situations, leadership might require stability, and others might require change -and it is impossible to create any kind of generalisation or advice on this. There are, of course, issues related to responsible leadership: a duty to understand what impacts changes might have on people (many are unforeseen) or a duty to be brave enough to change ahead of the times rather than after the times, in order to remain competitive.

I want to focus on the Political World though: Looking at Iraq, life was not great before Saddam Hussein, and it will hopefully be much better 'after him' -though when the 'happy' 'after him' period arrives is anyone's guess. Change is never easy (personally, politically or professionally) and Iraq is a simple way of asking, is the change process worth it? Even if the end result is better than before the change, the change process might be so bad (or so long) that is outweighs the benefits of the change altogether.

People like stability; people do not like to take risks and there needs to be a big enough motivation to take risks; or else those risks won't be taken. You could argue that in Iraq things were not bad enough (yet) that people were willing to risk doing whatever was needed to change the status quo. Now its clear that it is not so simple as to say that the US acted like an external consultant, assessing that 2002 was the time that the change should happen: that the risks were good enough (because there were many reasons for their intervention); but looking at a political situation through a corporate viewpoint draws interesting parallels.

Who should instigate change? The internal staff (or citizens) or the external consultant/new CEO (revolutionary leader or attack/'invasion' by another country)? How can the change process be best managed -and what is the goal of that change? Interestingly I think looking at Iraq from a business point of view it's clear that the US (apologies for simplifying such a controversial and complex issue) had a vision for the 'post-change period', but had only though of the first few strategies for getting there, underestimated the time to complete the change, forgotten to think about what the impacts of the change might be on different stakeholders, ignored what the 'competition' might do, misjudged the time frame and so on. Anyone reading this could draw their own parallels to various situations.

The end of the day is that business knows how hard change is, there are thousands of models and theories and good and bad examples.. there are though some simple rules that most MBA schools will teach. But what about political change? Even looking at more modest changes, like a domestic election leading to a change in political party leadership, there seems to be no real understanding of how to create the change, what the vision is, what the strategies are and so on. At least, that is a very initial statement.

With deeper reflection, I believe that there are many successful cases of political change, and what seems to be common with all of them is that change was so desperately needed that it was simple and obvious to work out the details, the strategies, to get stakeholder support etc. Nowadays most western countries don't have serious need to change, therefore whatever supposed changes they initiate (and most mainstream parties in most developed democracies seem to be very alike) they are not very successful. Now if change was really needed then an extreme party (communist, fascist or whatever) would take over... therein lies the issue: these parties will take over once the need is great enough and they get enough support. However it is in the current mainstream parties interests to stop that from happening.

The competition in the corporate world is much greater; the need for change is often more pressing and more is at stake. Politically countries can afford somewhat to just be stable, making minor changes, and sometimes companies can do the same -other times companies cannot afford that whatsoever. So maybe politics needs to look at itself from a corporate viewpoint; to look at issues about stakeholders, visions and strategies, goals and accountability, 'change or die' perspectives, scenario planning, competitive analysis and so on. This is an interesting topic to explore more of in the future.

Meanwhile I'm more interested in the 'tipping point' that leads to successful changes.. when are what pressures so great that change happens? who instigates the change? was the change worthwhile? For me, time is the most important issue with change. Try to make the change quickly. Get it over with, then tweak it. Everyone will argue with change, no-one likes change, everyone is suspicious of new things and demands will change, pressures will change... so much will change as time drags on that the whole change process becomes based on a cause that has changed and a vision that is no longer relevant. So, responsible leaders need to understand this (no matter what they are leading), they need to prepare, research, strategise. But most of all they need to get their timing right. Make the change at the right time -get it finished when that time is still right.

Then start thinking about other issues in change mangement: expectation setting, vision setting, leadership, buy-in, progress communication, stakeholder participation and agreement etc etc. How much of this has ever been done politically? Only when the situation was so bad that enough people could easily identify the problem and the problem was so serious that it had to be changed NOW and quickly has political change been successful (of course other factors are useful too, like outside support or copying other successful models) -overall change is about time, and about need. Right now some of the world is slowly starting to realise that change is needed, and quickly, to stop climate change or HIV/AIDs. But the world is not there yet. The pressures for change are not direct enough, not important enough, not relevant enough to create the tipping point needed. Lets hope though that this change will come, it will come quickly, be done quick enough, and be successful. Isn't is scary to compare the battle in Iraq with the battle against HIV/AIDs?

When will the end come? Who really wants the end? Are those who have the means to end it willing to end it or do they know how to end it? Is it just getting worse? The longer it goes on, the worse it gets -that is for certain.

Sustainability takes off

So Sustainability might have finally taken off. The general public seem to know about climate change, have heard something about hydrogen replacing oil and have had to suffer either an electricity shortage or water restrictions recently. Many have read about the pollution in and from China, about the destruction of ecosystems globally and problems of slums, droughts, war and all things 'Africa-related'.

What is exciting is that all of these above things, including normally 'Africa-related' problems are becoming problems for the very people creating them -us, developed world's consumers. There are campaigns and 'days' or 'years' of all kinds. Companies are launching awareness campaings, politicians are fighting to be greener than their rivals and consumers are sometimes choosing 'fair-trade' or 'organic' products -or at least have probably heard about them.

The problem with all this, is that the World is a very big place, with many people, and many problems. Most of the causes for the problems we have are large-scale, and though its good to be aware of the cause and to have a solution. Actually implenting the solution on a scale that makes a difference (and hopefully reduces the problem) is another thing altogether.

So we are short of oil or water? It's not easy or quick to find more of either. So there is too much carbon in the atmosphere? Right now we are still pumping more into the air each year, let alone reducing our emissions, or finding a way of taking out what already is in the air! Our buildings and infrastructure waste water and heat. Newer (eg. LEED certified) ones are 10 times more efficienct, but look how long it has taken (and how little success their has been) to but energy efficient lightbulbs, let alone replace our water pipes, homes and offices.

I am excited by the trend that has started and is growing exponentially. But at the same time worried, because by the time the trend and the 'noise' gets big enough it might be too late. Recently a Nobel Prize-winning scientist has drawn up an emergency plan to save the world from global warming, by altering the chemical makeup of Earth's upper atmosphere. Uh-oh

Losing our responsibility

I'm often talking about PSR -Personal Social Responsibility- in the context of each of us should try to save water, recycle, help others and so on. But, actually in the last 20 years especially, we are all losing our sense of personal responsibility.

A recent article in the Telegraph newspaper puts a humerous twist on it:
-Did the credit card company force us to sign up to 6 credit cards and spend the money available on them?
-Do McDonalds force you into their restaurants to eat unhealthy food?
-Does your employer force you to not wear a safety mask?

Of course an employer should make sure their workplace is safe. Of course they can provide healthy products as well as unhealthy products. Of course they should not use advertising irresponsibly to attract you (or especially children) to smoke.

But it is almost sad when companies are providing training to their employees about sexually transmitted diseases or about traffic safety; because their employees do not know this information already (and the company does not want employees missing work from illness or injuries). Yes -there is a business case for companies to protect their employees from themselves, but why do employers have to do this?

innovation, CSO and BoP

I was having a discussion with a friend about Nike and it developed into a new realisation for me. I suddenly realised the obvious linkage between innovation, CSR as CSO (Corporate Social Opportunity -not as just a responsibility) and BoP. BoP is the Bottom of the Pyramid theory that is popular nowadays, as a reason to motivate companies to create more products to sell to the poor in society, since they have some money, and if companies can create accessible products for them, they will be able to improve their quality of life.

In Nike's case there is not such an obvious proposition. They need to keep their products at a certain price to maintain the brand's status as well as make a profit to pay for their manufacturing and marketing costs. The proposition would be that Nike could create another brand (not called Nike at all, or called Nike Base or something) that would be at prices to rival local products (or the fake brand's products!) but would be based on Nike's quality standards. The products might be made from cheaper materials and would be proftable because there would be no need for R&D costs, promotional costs etc. It would not have maybe the same design benefits -since many people at the BoP require products for their use, not for their image. Thus this would differentiate it from the main nike products.

The conundrum though would be how to not lower nike's brand globally whilst still being able to sell these new products at a profit.

The next line of thinking is how to not just sell products to the poor -the idea is that the poor will benefit from these products, by the way, not just be exploited. How can Nike help the poor make more money (either to buy their products, or just to become less poor)? This would require looking at new manufacturing or distribution models. For distribution, you could look at a simple coca-cola model, where local distributors would sell their products and make money by doing it. One may ask why would poor people need nike clothes.. quality is not that big an issue for clothes. The locally made ones might be very similar to Nike's.

What makes this interesting is to tie this in with one of the key aspects of Nike's brand: of an active life. Sports and physical activies DO have huge benefits for people -anod not just in keeping them healthy, but in bringing people together for team activities as well as developing individual skills (team-work, motivation etc) or inspiring young people. This is the problem fo r Nike. What they can bring to the poorer people is a brand that will inspire people to be active..but they would need to keep their brand on these lower costs products to do this. What's the answer? Comments please, but there might be one somewhere out there.. Alternatively a low cost retailer might want to create a new brand: the ethos of Nike, but at lower costs!

How else could Nike help poor people? Apart from paying them to be distributors, they could also pay them to do marketing, to be sports coaches (if there was a business case to this then leading to greater sales), or to be involved in manufacturing.

There has been renewed debate against global supply chains and for local supply chains. Global Supply chains are the best way to maintain quality and be cost efficient, but the goods have to travel with climate change impacts and affecting the time to market from production. Groceries is a key player in this discussion at the moment: sourcing locally rather than centrally. But what if Nike's products could be made locally in small workshops, in local houses -much like 200 years ago in pre-industrialisation times.. and what if this was more beneficial than centralising everything, someway?

The point of this post is to show that for any company there are various options of innovating that might provide new market opportunities. Of course none of these might be feasible.. why should nike bother about producing locally, let a local entrepreneur or a mother stitch her own clothes! But, what if companies started to investigate and ask themselves these kinds of questions, to explore all kinds of new opportunties? Then, with some radical thinking, some determination and some innovation, we could get something, maybe. Maybe it won't benefit Nike, but if it can benefit society, someone else can take it up!

Transparency

Transparency is important and becoming increasingly so. I am a big champion of transparency, but then I work for an NGO, so I would be!

I was wondering, in the context of the previous post about the 'invisible line', about how transparent a business could be. Nothing is simple. I looked before at why businesses are not responsible, since no-one seems to focus on this as much! Likewise, why is the 'publish what you pay' coalition (seemingly) such a failure? Why are companies not telling everyone how much taxes they are paying? Why in their Annual Report do they not geographically break down their payments? I think there are some unforeseen consequences. These could be positive but they could be (almost) revolutionary (sounds so dramatic). Let me introduce some scenarios:

-Shell says how much it pays the Nigerian government in taxes; the local people try to find out where it is getting spent and then civil unrest starts. This forces Shell to stop producing and to leave the country -for how long? Alternatively say Chevron pays less taxes and everyone tries to work out if this is justified or not (maybe from less income) -since tax regimes are so complicated that unfair comparisons are likely to be made and little achieved.

-If Wal-mart declared part of internal financial statements then competitors can work out their margins. Suppliers will realise the actually costs or sales of their products and renogotiate. Maybe this is stupid: but this is transaprency. Imagine that the current trend of supply-chain management develops so that customers demand more. Not just wanting to know if the company supports illegal forests, but wants to know if they use any of this or that chemical, they want to know how many products are bought locally (to support the local economy) and they want to know which ones. This could be fantastic: a concerted drive to source locally since customers might pay more for locally sourced goods it if keeps their neighbours in business, and so Walmart buys more locally... One way or another Wal-mart is forced, or voluntarily, reveals all this kind of information.

-If the terms of a contract were made public, how would this impact future competitiors wishing to bid for the contract? Granted if this was unusual, there would be (presumably) inequality in bargaining power, in knowledge disclosure and so on.

What I am really getting at, is that transaprency could work. But if it is to work, it needs a totally new paradigm: a new society with a new perspective on transparency with consequences that would (if transparency were the 'norm' -ie. legally enforced, and so everyone had the same access to the same knowledge) completely revolutionise how business is done. Would business be able to survive in this environment? I wonder if anyone has thought about any modelling of how it might, or how business could compete with total transaprency?

If we presume, that this would not be possible, then we have to work out where the line is between no transparency to total transaprency. Then we need to establish the motivations behind increasing transparency: legal or just self-interest? Transparency will increase when organisations think it is in their own benefit. Otherwise it would not be sustainable. No wonder 'publish what you pay' is destined to fail. NGOs might wield power of a sort, but its influence is limited when its demands unreasonable and when the impact of its activities (even if successful) may be limited: the unintended consequences could be graver. I'm a believer that someone will do something if they think its right. Telling them its right is not as effective as showing them.

Back onto the topic, what if transparency was not total: but more complicated (even those complexity usually makes things worse, in my opinion). What if different disclosures were made to different groups at different times (or when asked) and what those groups did with information did not affect the company's competitiveness or comparative advantage? Well, lets see if this will work. It seems this is the way the World is going... I can imagine in the near future that Transparency International will get certain information, create a report and say 'trust me' without revealing all the details. But what makes this interesting, is that companies are now refusing to trust governments with their details (ID cards in UK, google in the US), so why should we trust NGOs, or any other organisation for that matter?

I'm looking forward to how the current experiment in transparency works out and would be much more interested to look further into a concept of a world with total transparency: what would the ramifications be for salaries, costs, negotiations....?Why, we might end up in a world totally different -would it be a world that works better than the current one? Maybe, but will it be better for those who control the world now -no. So how likely is it to happen? So, going backwards somewhat (to reality), how likely is transparency as a concept to develop anyway? It is a concept that SEEMS to only have negative effects to those benefitting from an untransparent World. What is the future of transparency?

The invisible line

Assumption:
-Partnership between sectors and organisations are good. eg. government and business collaborating on new laws that businesses could abide by and benefit from or companies in the same sector creating a voluntary code that they will agree to (such as not advertising chocolate to shildren)
-Corruption is bad. eg. business paying government to make, or not make, a certain law or businesses working together as cartels to create artificial price fixes

You'll see what I am leading to... where is the line between partnership and corruption? That the line can be greay and not black/white means it is harder to define the boundary, but more importantly, it is harder to interpret. So a company may quite happily have 2 principles: 1 of partnering to achieve more and 1 of refusing to be involved in corruption. It may strive to work closely with its suppliers and customers so it can better service them, it may give preferential treatment to preferred suppliers. But when does this preferential treatment become bribery?

Consider the case of treating a customer to dinner, or the case of a business partner also being a friend. When does the dinner become a bibe and when does a social conversation about their sector end up as a tacit agreement to collude or lead to sepcial favours? When recruiting someone, it is sensible to take into account personal experience or recommendations, but how valid is this, and does this not lead to discrimination against those who you did not know before?

Thinking about this more and more show that there are so many more examples -how do you draw the line? Presuming you do not intend to break the law then the line is very subjective. It is defined in reference to the 'norm' (ie. the normal circumstances that you think everyone does all of the time as part and parcel of the job). This creates a problem if there is no established 'norm' or if you do not know what the 'norm' is. In the case of China, where everything changes so fast (including the legal framework) and where most foreigners enter the market without understanding the culture or even being able to communicate effectively these issues might become especially valid.

On a slight tangent, this question leads me to think of the separate role of government and business. Is there a separate role? In every country the role is different. In some cases governments provide training, healthcare, utilities, salaries (pensions, unemployment benefit) etc etc. In others it is different. On a micro level in China you will find the British Embassy offering some free advice to British companies wishing to set up here, since the government wants to encourage business success, yet the company could also pay a special consultant for more in-depth advice. In fact often the government might subsidise this kind of advice directly.


What do companies do? Provide services in return for money? well governments do the same: you pay in your taxes and receive benefits. Governments tend to then themselves pay another company to do some of those services (outsourcing) and then it can all get complicated and confusing. I think the concept of CSR is struggling somewhat since it is trying to establish the rold of business in society: in reducing poverty, in creating a successful, sustainable society and so on. But this is also the role of national, local or international governments. Then there are NGOs: many bigger and with more influence than business or governments. Many performing services that are effectively government services outsourced.. but to an NGO not to a company. No difference, except in name.

All types of organisations have the ability to accrue debt or make profit. It could be possible to argue that governments are elected, other organisations are not: but this has nothing related to role of the organisation itself: maybe in the future, since stakeholders are becoming so important in business, that business will not just hold itself accountable to its stakeholders, but will go even further and hold itself electable to stakeholders. It will certainly gain legitimacy and trust! Though this may seem pointless since many countries struggle to have high turn-out in their governmental elections anyway!

So, the invisible line: macro and micro level discussions. Impact on individual level? How the individual defines their own lines, in the context of how the individual believes others see the line, and how the individual thinks others expect the individual to draw the line. Its all to subjective... no wonder corruption is a problem!

Why do companies behave irresponsibly? -2

So how is the internal environment of an organisation influencing CSR? First I'll convince you that it is important. Look at Shell and BP: 2 of the best companies in the World for CSR (apparently); Shell had to revalue its oil reserves 2 years ago in a transparency disaster and this year BP has had an oil spill in Alaska from pipes that used to be inspected by 4 people but now only by 2 (to cut costs) .

Its clear that many of the best run global companies still have not mastered CSR by integrating it into their culture, despite valient attempts to. It seems that I should try to remember something about the module on 'OB' -Organisational Behaviour that I sudied at University, but I cannot! Anyway once again it shows that if you learn something in real life you'll remember much more. So what have I learnt? (and lets hope I'll remember!)

detachment. I have mentioned this before, and it is hugely important that you see the impacts from your actions. So many people don't even know what their impacts are, let alone try to ackowledge what those impacts might mean if they were aware of them. Will the BP person who originally decided to cut the oil pipe inspectors from 4 to 2 realise what has happened? Or was (s)he sitting in a head office, has now switched jobs or (if (s)he read the news) is (s)he blaming the accident on something else?

individualism. People tend to have individual targets and goals, and this is what they focus on. This detracts from seeing the bigger picture or caring about what other people are doing... or even thinking if what you are doing is related to someone else or not. As long as you do what your job is properly, then that's ok? Probably not, since it won't leverage any synergies in the company, it won't create the best solution for larger problems and it will only create a sense of responsibility to yourself, not to the organisation or to society.

reward and punishment. Punishment is always used too much, and is rarely effective. Reward is a better motivator, yet is rarely motivating anyone towards sustainability or responsible actions. You reward a sales person for increasing sales this year, you don't care whether those sales will be re-sold next year. Similarly you'll reward someone for a project completed on time, but won't think that they should write a report on how they did that which could help someone else repeat that accomplishment or consider the impacts of the project 5 years down the line (by requiring a post-project completion impact report or something). Companies need to reward in the right way in order to create the culture they want, and if they are serious about creating a sustainable, successful, organisation, their reward should support this.

misalignment. I find is fantastic that organsiations have values, goals, strategies and plans. Yet are they aligned? Are you rewarding employees for exhibiting the values you want to encourage? Are the goals sustainable and related to a long-term plan -what is their impact? Its fine to increase sales by 20%, but what will that do? Make people 20% fatter? Make employees work 15% more overtime? Reduce costs by 25% from your supplier who then goes bankrupt or pays their employees 25% less and so reducing product quality or requiring you to change supplier the following year, incurring the necessary switching costs? Will this growth generate bigger bonuses to employees who might then get poached by another company due to their success? All kinds of issues should be considered. I don't know if a framework exists in order to consider these -but maybe one should be! Life and Business is complicated -but it should be possible to make it simple: align, motivate and achieve.

decision-making. Also mentioned before but something i am becoming more intrigued in. What are the improtant factors when making a decision? Why will someone 'take short-cuts' or cheat? Who needs to be consulted for a decision to be made, and if everyone involved all has different motives might the outcome be a compromise for everyone and unsatisfactory for everyone at the same time? Is a decision based on the past, present or future, and how can you measure either: is a projection reasonable or is it biased?

I am sure these kinds of issues play a very important role in an organisation -i guess they are not very well understood. I think they need to be better understood for each of us to be responsible leaders, and for our organsiations to be responsible leaders.

Why do companies behave irresponsibly? -1

It just dawned on me that instead of sitting in these conferences, always talking over and over again about why CSR is so good and why everyone should do it; it might be better to question first why are companies NOT doing it, since it is good business.

Is it a case that these people are stupid? or bad businessmen? Maybe it is. But also maybe it is much more complicated. I really do not think that the managers of mining companies in China want to kill their workers, but many of them end up hurt. Why?

It seems there are 2 main areas for discussion here: the external framework (that is often location specific) and the internal environment of a company/organisation.

At one event I went to recently, the GM of a state-owned railway company, spoke about the pressures he faces: he says a project will take 4 years, the government says to do it in 2 years! How can you implement a prject sustainably when you have to do it in half the time you expected it to take? The private companies also said that when they bid for a project they expect it to cost a certain amount. Then they are told that if they want the project they will have to do it for 25% less. How can they do that? If they do not accept then they have no business -if they do accept they will have to make some short-cuts to save on costs!

It is no wonder that there are health and safety problems: pressures to use cheaper materials, pressure to do things quicker and take less safety precautions. In this short-term situation it is hard to use the normal CSR lines to convince the company. On one hand there will be extra costs if there are injuries or problems with a bridge collapsing for example, but maybe you can complete the project without any of these problems.. and so the company tries to do this. In this case the solution seems to be about the development of the external framework to be more ameniable for CSR.

Thus, NGOs or government will pressurise the organisation awarding the contract, so make sure that all the companies that bid must meet certain minimum requirements. This means there will be a certain cost that no-one can go below, and the awarding body will have to accept that it cannot continue to force down the cost. Alternatively customers will actually start to care about CSR: so they will choose the best company for the project, not the cheapest. Right now costs is always the most important factor. I believe some companies like Shell take other factors into account to some extent, but when you make billions in profits you can afford some luxuries like this!

Management problems

When writing my ideas for submitting an essay to the China CSR Map's essay competition I started thinking about CSR in China from an objective, long-term perspective: trying to think about why CSR is growing, is it growing and where is it going...

One of the issues I draw upon is related to the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in China. The largest national ones have all been put under the control of SASAC (State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council) in order to reform and restructure the SOEs. The question I posed was oringnally just about CSR: If the government wants to encourage CSR then it should tell the SOEs and they will do it, or not?

Now ignoring the issue of CSR and just looking at the issue of owners telling the managers to do something, you come to several problems. Key, for me (especially in a CSR context) is that it is likely that some of the instructions will be beneficial to the SOE, but not to the manager. If we presume that implementing CSR has negative short-term implications (financial and human investment required) but positive long-term implications, then the Manager might not care about the long-term. In addition, they might not want to accept more responsibilities or more targets, or anything that makes their life harder, more complicated or more difficult. How much power does the owner wield? For non SOEs, the bigger issue is that short-term investments often lead to lower profits and lower stock (share) prices; both of which managers are measured against to judge their success.

Presuming that current governance models, therefore (either government owned or publicly owned) have these inherent problems (and many more, that I will not delve into right now), what can be done?

There are 2 focus areas. The first is to try to create an organisation that acts responsibly, which can mostly be done through creating such an organsiational culture (as mentioned many times before on this blog), but this is not easy -especially if you have to change the current culture of a large organisation. It would be easier to try to create the necessary processes that create a responsible organisation. This could be creating a reward system that rewards the kind of beahviours or results that you want, or it could be from the 'stick' approach: through governance and reporting systems.

The second is to create individuals who act responsibly which is also tough. Responsible leadership is important: since setting an example and acting as a role model can really make a difference. You need to create people who see what is best for the company, and do that -even if it is not best for them. Create the culture of 'what is best for the company is best for me'. This is not easy though... so there are some little tricks that can be employed.. For example, try creating buy-in from the individual by tapping into their loyalty to the organisations or by instilling a little fear.

At the end of the day, this problem is one that is inherent and wide-spread, with no simple solution. The solution is tough and demanding: the solution is to recruit and employ individuals with an ethical stance, with the sense of responsible leadership. Create the framework and the system for this attitude to thrive and this should mitigate the ownership-manager conundrum.

CSR at Board Level

Where does CSR sit at Board Level? Well probably under the External Affairs team, or maybe there is a specific person responsible for CSR. If there is, what are they called?

A survey of 100 fortune 500 companies could reveal some interesting results. In the meantime I'd like to propose whether the title means a lot or not. Personally I don't think the title means all that much. What is most important is the job description and the responsibility/respect the person has. However the job title might imply these. Thus there may not be much difference between CSR or CR but there is for Community Affairs and Legal (which may also be responsible for CSR).

A few leading companies have redefined 'CSR' as CR or R or many others (some including ethics which is to be aplauded). One that I like is CSO: Corporate Social Opportunity, thus someone's 'CSR' report was titled CSO: Turning Corporate Social Responsibility into Corporate Social Opportunity (it may have been P&G I am not sure). Although this may work for some, for others they may not have the ability to capitalise on CSR as core to their strategy and a source fo comparative advantage or innovation.

What I would encourage for companies not yet at the CSO level is another title; one that is more short term focused, more financiall and legally focused -and thus easier to define a short-term business case: Risk Management. Whilst investigating our own CSR report, we've realised there will be a number of various focuses. 1 is what we are doing badly, not as well as we want to, or can do better and achieve more. Another 1 is what risks we face now that we are not addressing and what ones we should be anticipating in the future.

Risk Management is a really great way of defining the most pressing aspect of CSR: the one with the most examples, and the one that can most easily be understood by other Board level Directors.

Organisational Culture

Since CSR is an attitude, it must start with a personal attitude (which each organisation could help develop) but of course, it must also be the organisational attitude.

I say attitude which of course means 'culture' but is more than that. Organisational Attitude is how the oganisation approaches decisions and stakeholders. Decisions should be approached with a view to be fair, to be balanced, to look for the best (long-term) answer. Decision-making processes need to consider so many factors I can hardly list them here, but if employees are aware of the concept of considering the impacts of their decisions on them, on other employees, on other decisions then they might just make better decisions. And these decisions could also be more responsible on a personal, and organisational, level. A good start for decision making could be to look at consequences from a few different models: Triple Bottom Line (Social, Environmental and Economic), Stakeholder (Employee, Customer, Supplier, Shareholder, Community and others), Time (Past, Present, Future) or more 'academic' ones such as the 3 lenses framework* (Contribution to Purpose, Consistency with Principles, Inmpact on People).

According to the World Bank online course on CSR and Sustainable Competitiveness, there are a few other interesting considerations such as Why do 'good' Managers make bad choices? Apparently because they believe the decision is ethical, or it's in the indivudal/organisation's best interests or no-one will discover its impact. An organisation needs to consider issues like these in light of how the people it recruits makes decisions, how it encourages or rewards certain types of decisions and how it creates the frameworks for company decisions as well as personal decisions.

Then there is how an organisation approaches its stakeholders. Does it communicate, and is the communication effective? Does it appreciate or respect them? Are stakeholders able to impact each other (and therefore provide a motivation to manage each other)? How much control can one have over stakeholder's actions (like media, government etc which are not equal to the organisation)?

Crucially with the issue of organisational culture is to start with the most important thing in the organisation: its people, and this is what the term commonly refers to. Some leading organisations tie culture in with branding, since culture is normally internal, and branding normally external. Realising that the 2 are actually the same ensures a cohesive message is portrayed to all stakeholders. Entire courses are written on both branding and culture, so what could I write in 1 paragraph or even claim to know (having not read many of those books)?

Well, as always, I like to focus on the important things: having a culture defined, communicating it to others ALL the time and not just tangibly, but also intangibly. Intangible company culture -hmm, not the easiest of topics -but one that I truly believe is what defined an organisation. Its what you feel when you walk into the organisation's building, its how people talk about their organisation (with love or hate!) and its what keeps employees, keeps customers and creates a team spirit -an attitude of working together towards common goals, or doing so responsibly!

The problem with CSR is that how many organisations have the ability or the time to consider issues like these? Not many -and this typicalises why CSR is currently still dirven by large organisations; those with smart people and the money to pay for people to spend their time on these issues. These are crucial issues. Surely the businesses that can consider them will be more successful than those that cannot, thus ensuring larger businesses go from strength-to-strength but smaller ones might find it much tougher to grow or compete! There are of course many cases of how this cycle is broken (every large company was once a small company!), it would be interesting to find out how?

There is also the problem of outsourcing. Where are the limits of the organisation and how much control does an organisation have? Does it force new employees to change their values? The perils of outsourcing are that you lose control over creating a culture, and this is the reason behind outsourcing failing: conflicting objectives, lack of team spirit towards common goals or passion towards the organisation, no feeling of belonging, trust or respect. In fact, the reason why so many SMEs are so successful and have no 'obvious' CSR' is because they are small, often dominated by the personality of their leader and work closely in a team with a great culture. They don't need to have to analyse so many issues related to decision making or creating and communicating a culture since it happens naturally. But when they start transitioning to becoming larger companies then they face these problems. In fact when any organisation goes through change it faces problems, and this is a topic for a later post.

*For more information on this framework, refer to Lynn S. Payne, Three Lenses for Decision Making, Harvard Business School, August 7, 1996, 2-396-200.

CSR is PSR

What is CSR? CSR is an attitude.

This has been one of the key learning points personally over the last year or two and one that others seem to share. It is also what I try to convey to others. Thus CSR is a personal attitude and very much related to how you live your live and what you care about: PSR -personal social responsbility. PSR is mostly about a) awareness and b) action (or laziness to be more pessimistic). There is a continuing need for more awareness around how you can be more personally socially responsible; not because the 'how' is so complex, but because no-one spends 5 minutes to sit down and think about it.

What should you do? Sit down and think a bit about your appartment, your office and what you do in them and in between them (and what you do elsewhere of course too). Do you re-use your cup, turn the lights off in the toilet or your office/room (even if you just leave for 5 minutes), leave your computer on overnight, or whilst you pop out to lunch? How are you travelling, how are you treating people? It would be great to come up with some brief structured list of questions that each person could use to sort of do a PSR report (like a company's CSR report). Maybe this already exists? I am sure there could be some basic award or something that a school could give to the most PSR schoolkid (or most improved!).

Actually, the best thing to do might be to team up with someone else and take it in turns to spend a day monitoring the other person and what they do. It can be a competition to see who can list the most things the other person could do to improve their PSR, since it is hard to recognise your own actions but easier to observe someone else's. It is with great joy I discovered the 'We are what we do' website yesterday (www.wearewhatwedo.com/).

It lists 50 things each person can do at work, at home, at school and 'out and about' (and have received a further 5,000 suggested actions!!). Have a look, and maybe they could develop their concept further. So think about your PSR today!