by Herman Manson (@marklives) At a time of political crisis, should corporate leaders expose their political thinking and address issues of national importance? Or is it too risky for brands to manage? We emailed a panel of key industry executives for their take and we’re publishing their responses throughout this week. Today it’s the turn of Joshin Raghubar, founder and chairman of iKineo.
- Monday: Mike Abel on business, politics & matters of conscience
- Tuesday: Erna George on taking a stand vs making a difference
- Wednesday: Joshin Raghubar on how business leaders can speak up
- Thursday: Odette vd Haar on political minefields and the bottom line
Joshin Raghubar
Joshin Raghubar (@Joshin) is an entrepreneur in the media, marketing, and technology sectors. He is engaged in the evolving role of entrepreneurship, trust and innovation in the ‘good society’: he is the founder of iKineo, a Pan-African customer engagement agency; Sprout, digital media performance firm; and Explore Sideways, an online purveyor of wine tourism experiences. Joshin is chairperson of the Bandwidth Barn and non-executive director of Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative (CITi), Enke, Africa Leadership Initiative (Southern Africa) and African Leadership Network. He is a fellow of 2016 Yale World, ALI, Aspen Institute’s Global Leaders Network, US-Southern African Centre for Leadership and Public Values, and a Bertelsmann Foundation’s global Transformation Thinkers programme member.
It is incumbent upon leaders to light up a path for their employees and stakeholders, and to empower the communities they lead to walk this path successfully. It is simply not real leadership to hide in the shadows in the hope someone else will solve shared challenges. There is some risk in taking a public position on matters of social and political importance; however, the risk created by not acting is far greater for both corporate and public value. It is not a matter of should leaders should step up and address issues of national importance, but rather how best to do so.
Brands and companies are corporate citizens, and as such, have the right and responsibility to actively engage in social and political matters. It is simply the right thing to do. Consumers agree and that is why it is also good business.
Acts of justice
The 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer indicated that 69% of people trust businesses to keep pace with a changing world, while only 47% of people trust governments to do the same. The world is changing. The dominant logic, of charity being the sole extent of social responsibility, is firmly shifting to a dominant logic of justice. Charity softens the blows of an exploitative system while preserving the status quo, whereas justice heals wounds and changes the system itself. Customers appreciate your corporate acts of charity, but they need your acts of justice, too.
People are moving away from using brands to show ‘what I have’ to rather embrace brands that show ‘who I am’ (August 2016 Trendwatching Brief). A recent study by Havas Worldwide, entitled ‘Ten truths shaping the Corporate World’, which includes South Africans in the sample, found that 68% of respondents believe that big business bears as much responsibility as governments for driving positive, social change; a majority expect big businesses to espouse a clearly communicated set of values; 84% deem it important that corporate leaders serve as role models within the company; and more than 75% think they must also serve as role models outside the company. Brands and corporate leaders who demonstrate the right social values and who are on the right side of justice are simply more influential and powerful.
In the US earlier this year, big business (including companies such as Coca-Cola, Disney and Delta Airlines) had a direct impact in preventing regressive human rights laws being passed in certain states that were deeply prejudicial to the LGBT community. These companies were effective through active economic and investment protest action.
Set to change
Sadly, in South Africa, these public-interest acts of corporate leadership are too few. Perhaps this is set to change. SA business leadership was finally mobilised into action by the notorious political events of 9/12, and this had a crucial impact on the subsequent appointment of a respected finance minister and the stabilisation of our economy.
It is not a matter of should leaders be actively engaged in matters of national and social importance, but rather how best to do so.
- Corporate leaders should strive to develop and articulate a values-framework that explicitly aligns personal, company and public values. This should be the basis of an organisation-wide policy and staff engagement that empowers leaders and employees to act. Guidelines of when an intervention is in accordance with the company’s public values, and whether or not it is in a private or company capacity, should be clear.
- Leaders must expand their sphere of knowledge from matters of the bottom line to include more-complex social and political issues. Leaders should be informed, empathetic, considered and networked. It is worth expanding commissioned consumer research and expertise to include social and political issues, and expanding partnerships to good actors in the political and civil society space.
- Lastly, it is important to always contextualise statements or positions. In an age of all media being social, it is easy to be quoted out of context and run the risk of this turning into a negative runaway meme. Even your employees are considered ambassadors for your business in the court of public opinion, so have a clear social-media policy in place.
Solutions for shared challenges
There are certainly risks with making a values-based intervention. If the environment has drifted such that a company may lose its license or ability to operate due to its values-based position, then, frankly, the corporate leadership may have engaged in society way too late, anyway. Brands will also risk losing customers who do not agree with its leadership. However, brands will also attract and deepen relationships with customers who do subscribe to similar values. The value of a base of loyal customers is much more-valuable in the long term then a loose mass of appeased ones.
There is plenty going on in SA and the world right now that continues to fuel social and political tension. People are looking for new solutions to shared challenges. Business leaders have no choice but to bring their creativity, influence, and expertise into the public sphere in a world where social injustice, political gridlock and public malfeasance are real threats to one’s business; to do otherwise is not just short-sighted, it’s an abdication of responsibility. An active and re-contextualised corporate leadership is critical to creating a just society.
Launched in 2016, “The Big Q” is a monthly column on MarkLives in which we ask key industry execs for their thoughts on relevant issues facing the ad industry. If you’d like to be part of our pool of potential panellists, please contact editor Herman Manson via email (2mark at marklives dot com) or Twitter (@marklives). Suggestions for questions are also welcomed.
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