As a spirit of activism stirs in business leaders, so does a range of anxieties and objections. If you’re thinking like an activist, your eyes are on what needs to happen to create change. But this isn’t easy — and one of the reasons is that you’re in an organization where doing this hasn’t been the operational paradigm.
Taking on a big societal issue can bring up real and legitimate worries. As you get started, you will inevitably encounter concerns about the fact that you’re trying to do something different. Concerns are common but look at them as a signal you’re on the right track. As the work gets underway, so they recede.
Here are some of the common concerns that spring up.
‘But we can’t deal with all of these issues.’
That’s right; you can’t and don’t have to — but you do need to tackle those that are most relevant for your business. Yet people can feel overwhelmed by the volume of societal issues crying out for attention. If you resolve to take on one, doesn’t it set you up to have to take on the next — and the one after that — in an unending tsunami of alarm? Sometimes there’s a desire to retreat back to the more familiar, day-to-day priorities of business. But these issues are now firmly on the corporate radar screen: The new expectation of business is to act on them, and the risk of not doing so is getting greater. However, no one expects every company to take on every issue in the world. So, the question is not whether to respond but how to prioritize and where to focus.
‘But nothing we can do will ever be enough.’
That’s true. But nobody expects any one company to solve for the whole problem — however, they do expect you to do what you can do. Still, given the scale of these issues, it can be daunting when you start out. It can feel like stepping into an enormous open-ended commitment and, realistically, as you start making progress, new dimensions of the challenge continually come into focus — that’s the nature of progress. There’s sometimes an underlying view that maybe it would be better not to get involved at all in trying to tackle problems where so much lies beyond the company’s control. But, in practice, companies on this journey gain capacity and confidence in their role over time. The opportunity is to start by focusing in on where to show up in a way that’s true to your position and capabilities as a company.
‘But we can’t fix it alone.’
Again, that’s true. The scale and complexity of the issues means that no single actor, no matter how brilliant, how resourceful or how powerful, can “fix it.” As we’ll see, working on the issue opens the way to working across the industry and in collaboration with civil society organizations. This is an attitude shift for many companies: We commonly encounter an entrenched antipathy toward regulators, NGOs or subject-matter experts that makes it feel unfamiliar, and even unnerving at first, to stand shoulder to shoulder in problem-solving on these issues. But doing so makes it possible to reset how you engage with a wide range of stake- holders positively, even critics.
‘But we’re already doing so much good stuff we don’t get credit for.’
Most companies have sustainability departments, with people working on everything from reducing carbon emissions, to managing waste, to worker welfare, to human rights in the supply chains and diversity and inclusion in the business. These are the baseline requirements of responsible business today, in the same way that operational or product safety is a given. In a big company there may also be hundreds of philanthropic initiatives. You can understand why many business leaders might think, “Isn’t all that enough?” That’s why focus is so helpful: Decide what really matters and elevate the most relevant initiatives with a spirit of activist.
‘But we’re not an NGO, you know.’
Sometimes the preconception in business leaders is that we’re suggesting these societal issues should take precedence over commercial priorities. “We’re a business, at the end of the day,” they remind us. Absolutely true. But this is a false dichotomy: If you look at the leading companies that approach these issues with an activist mindset, they’re well-run global companies with a long track record of delivering shareholder value. Focusing on societal issues is part of their business strategy, not separate from it. This is not about becoming a nonprofit; it’s about how you deliver your profits in today’s world.
Adapted from The Activist Leader: A New Mindset for Doing Business by Jon Miller and Lucy Parker (HarperCollins, 2023).
Jon Miller is a partner of the Brunswick Group, where he co-founded the Business & Society team in 2011. In 2015 he founded Open For Business, a coalition of global companies advancing LGBTQ+ equality.
Lucy Parker is a strategic advisor at the Brunswick Group. She has more than 20 years’ experience across a range of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to engineering, from retail to telecoms.
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.