My OperaFive Features of Great Socially Responsible Leadership
Friday, May 8, 2009 1:33:45 PM
The new CEO of GlaxoSmithKline Andrew Witty has startled commentators,
campaigners, and probably a few shareholders, with his announcement
that the company would slash the cost of many of its drugs to people
that need them in developing countries. It was a perfect example of
the difference that leadership can make. It raises the question - what
counts as great leadership in socially responsible business?
There is a wider list to be produced on that topic, but I wanted to
highlight here five key thoughts in the light of the GlaxoSmithKline
example and a few other things that have appeared in the last few
weeks. And we always have the sharp contract of poor leadership we
have seen in the last few months of the financial crisis.
Things that count as great leadership in socially responsible
businesses.
1. Being prepared to challenge the logic of your industry.
2. Doing something because it is the right thing to do, and then
working out how to make it pay
3. Understanding that the leaders sets incentives - and sometimes the
bottom line is the wrong incentive
4. Understanding when to follow the rules, and when to use common
sense in the face of unintended outcomes
5. Knowing that just because people around you see you as a leader, it
doesn't mean you're a good one.
1. Great leaders are prepared to challenge the logic of their
industry.
For years, the pharmaceutical industry has said that no more could be
done about the issues of drug pricing in developing countries. Having
made the catastrophic mistake of banding together to sue Nelson
Mandela's government some years ago, they had taken a number of steps
to try to meet expectations.
But there were a number of obstacles, particularly around the
sacrosanct status accorded to intellectual property. Witty has now
thrown down the gauntlet on all of these by committing GSK, one of the
biggest players in the industry, to a completely new approach. He
would have known as he did so that it would be an action that would
provoke considerable resistance from his peers. But ultimately it
would force them to respond.
We rarely see this sort of leadership. We need to see the tobacco
company that will step outside the defensive position of its sector.
We need to see the airlines that think radical about the carbon
constrained future. What's your version?
We did see it some time ago in oil, when BP left the climate change
coalition set up to deny the existence of climate change. It hasn't
been so much in evidence there recently.
2. Leaders are prepared to do something because it is the right thing
to do, and then work out how to make it pay
Those of us that are used to promoting the business case for corporate
social responsibility will struggle with this. After all, the people
that argued that unless companies did things for "the right reasons"
it doesn't count were always looked down upon as being unrealistic and
idealistic. Often they were, because they were arguing courses of
action that would be unsustainable, and often would probably not be
good for society anyway.
Because that doesn't mean to say that the opposite is true - only
initiatives that deliver short term cash to the bottom line can be
considered. This isn't licence for companies to rush out with whacky
well-meaning schemes that lose money. But it is recognition that
sometimes there is a moral bottom line - there are some things you
should just do, or not do, because there are human consequences that
can be avoided, albeit at some cost.
When the UK company Marshalls uncovered endemic child labour in the
production of Indian sandstone, they had a bunch of options about how
they ensured their supply was free from it. But the key thing was
that, even though it would increase costs, they knew that the idea of
young children caught in the most dirty, dangerous, hard manual labour
was not a cost / benefit equation - it was just not acceptable.
Sometimes you have to recognise that the business case has been
trumped by something starker and more human.
And you take that judgement in the face of possibly sceptical
shareholders.
3. Understanding that the leaders sets incentives - and sometimes the
bottom line is the wrong incentive
The whole deal about CEOs and others getting stock options in their
companies was meant to be about aligning their interests with those of
the shareholders. It is an approach that has not been a success. The
interests of the shareholders is often used as an argument against
executives exercising their judgement about the right thing to do,
because the interests of shareholders are assumed always to be in
maximising financial returns.
Barry Schwartz tells the story of two social scientists, Bruno Frey
and Felix Oberholzer-Gee, who polled Swiss citizens about nuclear
waste dumps around 15 years ago. Each person was asked one of two
questions. The first group was asked whether they would be prepared to
accept a nuclear waste dump in their neighbourhood. An astonishingly
high 50 percent said 'yes', showing the high degree of citizenship
that was a cultural fact in Switzerland. People knew that there would
be a cost to them if such a dump was close by, but they understood
that the dumps had to go somewhere and they had a duty of citizenship
to be prepared for it to be close to them.
A second group was asked the same question, but offered six weeks'
salary every year in return for saying yes. You would expect the
percentage of people agreeing to this to be higher, with such a
powerful incentive. Yes?
Actually, the opposite happened. Only 25 percent of people said yes to
the offer with the money. By offering money, the question was moved
from the zone of "what is right" to the one of "what serves my
interest". In that zone, the equation was very different.
Whenever the incentives go wrong, Schwartz argues, people always say
that the incentives weren't smart enough, and need to be rethought.
Sometimes, however, no incentives are going to be smart enough. And
people become addicted to incentives, and stop asking themselves the
question "is it right?".
That is a perfect description of what went wrong in the banking
community over the last few years.
4. Good leaders understand when to follow the rules, and when to use
common sense in the face of unintended outcomes
This is a tricky one for those of us that promote corporate social
responsibility, because half of the CSR community lives and dies by
companies setting rules, assigning responsibility for those rules, and
monitoring them.
After all, how can you say you have a corporate culture of behaving in
a certain way unless you train your people to behave in that way?
Consistently. Across the organisation. And that means that you take
away people's discretion, because taking bribes should not be a matter
of discretion, and neither should allowing pollution.
That is right, but it is also potentially disempowering for people who
can see in front of them a problem that needs to be solved. How many
customer service people have failed to help solve a customer's problem
because the rules said they couldn't. It wasn't their department. They
didn't have discretion. And so on.
Barry Schwartz again told the story of the father and son at a ball
game. The father accidentally bought a lemonade drink for his son that
contained alcohol. He didn't realise. Before you knew it, a security
guard had called the police, who whisked the child off to hospital,
who then put got the child placed with a foster home for three days,
and then a judge said the child could go home, but only if the father
checked into a hotel, and it took about two weeks to reunite the
family. At every stage, the officials concerned said that they hated
doing what they were about to do, but they had no choice. The rules
made them do it.
It's important to note that rules like that come about because of a
past failing when something went badly wrong - a child was allowed to
fall into the hands of an abusive parent.
And many of the CSR rules within companies come about because somebody
polluted, or bribed, or discriminated. And suddenly you get a culture
of zero discretion. That is safe. But it is often also stupid.
Train your people on the spirit of the outcomes, get them to
understand why, and empower them to make the best judgement. Then it
will be part of the culture, even if it goes wrong occasionally.
5. Just because people around you see you as a leader, it doesn't mean
you're a good one.
The governments of the world have been berating the broken shells of
great leaders of finance over the last few months. "Masters of the
Universe" they were called - largely because that was how they used to
behave.
They were admired and feared as great leaders. It was assumed that
their commanding presence was an indicator of their great judgement -
their personal styles were that they did not want to waste time with
people that argued or disagreed with them.
Two social scientists, Cameron Anderson and Gavin Kilduff carried out
a study to understand whether people that were naturally accepted by
groups as leaders were actually more competent or otherwise deserving
of that status. They set up groups of strangers, and gave them a task
with the incentive of a $400 prize if they won. After they worked for
a while, group members rated each other for their level of competence
and influence.
The people that spoke the most were rated as competent and
influential. People that spoke the least, the opposite. Even on tasks
that were maths based, and therefore the competence of each person's
contributions could be objectively assessed, it showed that there was
no link to the view of the group and actual competence.
To be regarded as a leader, in other words, only requires that you
behave like one, without apparent lack of confidence or doubt. Mostly
in the study, that meant talking a lot. Putting forward ideas, even if
wrong.
As the 'masters of the universe' found, this is seductive and
destructive. If you conspire with your co-workers to believe in the
myth of your own infallibility, you are more likely to make crucial
errors of judgement. And it is in the quality of your decisions and
your actions that your leadership is ultimately judged.
Going back to GlaxoSmithKline, one of Andrew Witty's first actions as
the new CEO of the company was to rearrange the furniture. More
specifically, he pulled the top executive team off their 12th floor
ivory tower, and put them on the ground floor next to the staff cafe.
It was an early statement that they, as leaders, needed to be closer
to the heart and soul of the organisation, and hearing the news about
what was really happening. It's a good sign that he will be a good
leader.
About Mallen Baker
Mallen is currently responsible for developing Business in the Community's approach to marketplace issues, which includes how companies manage issues that arise around their core products and services.
He initiated the Business Impact Review Group - the group of 20 companies who developed a common approach to CSR reporting, and was responsible for the work of the Business Impact Taskforce which produced the landmark "Winning with Integrity" report. To read more of Mallen’s blogs visit www.mallenbaker.net.
campaigners, and probably a few shareholders, with his announcement
that the company would slash the cost of many of its drugs to people
that need them in developing countries. It was a perfect example of
the difference that leadership can make. It raises the question - what
counts as great leadership in socially responsible business?
There is a wider list to be produced on that topic, but I wanted to
highlight here five key thoughts in the light of the GlaxoSmithKline
example and a few other things that have appeared in the last few
weeks. And we always have the sharp contract of poor leadership we
have seen in the last few months of the financial crisis.
Things that count as great leadership in socially responsible
businesses.
1. Being prepared to challenge the logic of your industry.
2. Doing something because it is the right thing to do, and then
working out how to make it pay
3. Understanding that the leaders sets incentives - and sometimes the
bottom line is the wrong incentive
4. Understanding when to follow the rules, and when to use common
sense in the face of unintended outcomes
5. Knowing that just because people around you see you as a leader, it
doesn't mean you're a good one.
1. Great leaders are prepared to challenge the logic of their
industry.
For years, the pharmaceutical industry has said that no more could be
done about the issues of drug pricing in developing countries. Having
made the catastrophic mistake of banding together to sue Nelson
Mandela's government some years ago, they had taken a number of steps
to try to meet expectations.
But there were a number of obstacles, particularly around the
sacrosanct status accorded to intellectual property. Witty has now
thrown down the gauntlet on all of these by committing GSK, one of the
biggest players in the industry, to a completely new approach. He
would have known as he did so that it would be an action that would
provoke considerable resistance from his peers. But ultimately it
would force them to respond.
We rarely see this sort of leadership. We need to see the tobacco
company that will step outside the defensive position of its sector.
We need to see the airlines that think radical about the carbon
constrained future. What's your version?
We did see it some time ago in oil, when BP left the climate change
coalition set up to deny the existence of climate change. It hasn't
been so much in evidence there recently.
2. Leaders are prepared to do something because it is the right thing
to do, and then work out how to make it pay
Those of us that are used to promoting the business case for corporate
social responsibility will struggle with this. After all, the people
that argued that unless companies did things for "the right reasons"
it doesn't count were always looked down upon as being unrealistic and
idealistic. Often they were, because they were arguing courses of
action that would be unsustainable, and often would probably not be
good for society anyway.
Because that doesn't mean to say that the opposite is true - only
initiatives that deliver short term cash to the bottom line can be
considered. This isn't licence for companies to rush out with whacky
well-meaning schemes that lose money. But it is recognition that
sometimes there is a moral bottom line - there are some things you
should just do, or not do, because there are human consequences that
can be avoided, albeit at some cost.
When the UK company Marshalls uncovered endemic child labour in the
production of Indian sandstone, they had a bunch of options about how
they ensured their supply was free from it. But the key thing was
that, even though it would increase costs, they knew that the idea of
young children caught in the most dirty, dangerous, hard manual labour
was not a cost / benefit equation - it was just not acceptable.
Sometimes you have to recognise that the business case has been
trumped by something starker and more human.
And you take that judgement in the face of possibly sceptical
shareholders.
3. Understanding that the leaders sets incentives - and sometimes the
bottom line is the wrong incentive
The whole deal about CEOs and others getting stock options in their
companies was meant to be about aligning their interests with those of
the shareholders. It is an approach that has not been a success. The
interests of the shareholders is often used as an argument against
executives exercising their judgement about the right thing to do,
because the interests of shareholders are assumed always to be in
maximising financial returns.
Barry Schwartz tells the story of two social scientists, Bruno Frey
and Felix Oberholzer-Gee, who polled Swiss citizens about nuclear
waste dumps around 15 years ago. Each person was asked one of two
questions. The first group was asked whether they would be prepared to
accept a nuclear waste dump in their neighbourhood. An astonishingly
high 50 percent said 'yes', showing the high degree of citizenship
that was a cultural fact in Switzerland. People knew that there would
be a cost to them if such a dump was close by, but they understood
that the dumps had to go somewhere and they had a duty of citizenship
to be prepared for it to be close to them.
A second group was asked the same question, but offered six weeks'
salary every year in return for saying yes. You would expect the
percentage of people agreeing to this to be higher, with such a
powerful incentive. Yes?
Actually, the opposite happened. Only 25 percent of people said yes to
the offer with the money. By offering money, the question was moved
from the zone of "what is right" to the one of "what serves my
interest". In that zone, the equation was very different.
Whenever the incentives go wrong, Schwartz argues, people always say
that the incentives weren't smart enough, and need to be rethought.
Sometimes, however, no incentives are going to be smart enough. And
people become addicted to incentives, and stop asking themselves the
question "is it right?".
That is a perfect description of what went wrong in the banking
community over the last few years.
4. Good leaders understand when to follow the rules, and when to use
common sense in the face of unintended outcomes
This is a tricky one for those of us that promote corporate social
responsibility, because half of the CSR community lives and dies by
companies setting rules, assigning responsibility for those rules, and
monitoring them.
After all, how can you say you have a corporate culture of behaving in
a certain way unless you train your people to behave in that way?
Consistently. Across the organisation. And that means that you take
away people's discretion, because taking bribes should not be a matter
of discretion, and neither should allowing pollution.
That is right, but it is also potentially disempowering for people who
can see in front of them a problem that needs to be solved. How many
customer service people have failed to help solve a customer's problem
because the rules said they couldn't. It wasn't their department. They
didn't have discretion. And so on.
Barry Schwartz again told the story of the father and son at a ball
game. The father accidentally bought a lemonade drink for his son that
contained alcohol. He didn't realise. Before you knew it, a security
guard had called the police, who whisked the child off to hospital,
who then put got the child placed with a foster home for three days,
and then a judge said the child could go home, but only if the father
checked into a hotel, and it took about two weeks to reunite the
family. At every stage, the officials concerned said that they hated
doing what they were about to do, but they had no choice. The rules
made them do it.
It's important to note that rules like that come about because of a
past failing when something went badly wrong - a child was allowed to
fall into the hands of an abusive parent.
And many of the CSR rules within companies come about because somebody
polluted, or bribed, or discriminated. And suddenly you get a culture
of zero discretion. That is safe. But it is often also stupid.
Train your people on the spirit of the outcomes, get them to
understand why, and empower them to make the best judgement. Then it
will be part of the culture, even if it goes wrong occasionally.
5. Just because people around you see you as a leader, it doesn't mean
you're a good one.
The governments of the world have been berating the broken shells of
great leaders of finance over the last few months. "Masters of the
Universe" they were called - largely because that was how they used to
behave.
They were admired and feared as great leaders. It was assumed that
their commanding presence was an indicator of their great judgement -
their personal styles were that they did not want to waste time with
people that argued or disagreed with them.
Two social scientists, Cameron Anderson and Gavin Kilduff carried out
a study to understand whether people that were naturally accepted by
groups as leaders were actually more competent or otherwise deserving
of that status. They set up groups of strangers, and gave them a task
with the incentive of a $400 prize if they won. After they worked for
a while, group members rated each other for their level of competence
and influence.
The people that spoke the most were rated as competent and
influential. People that spoke the least, the opposite. Even on tasks
that were maths based, and therefore the competence of each person's
contributions could be objectively assessed, it showed that there was
no link to the view of the group and actual competence.
To be regarded as a leader, in other words, only requires that you
behave like one, without apparent lack of confidence or doubt. Mostly
in the study, that meant talking a lot. Putting forward ideas, even if
wrong.
As the 'masters of the universe' found, this is seductive and
destructive. If you conspire with your co-workers to believe in the
myth of your own infallibility, you are more likely to make crucial
errors of judgement. And it is in the quality of your decisions and
your actions that your leadership is ultimately judged.
Going back to GlaxoSmithKline, one of Andrew Witty's first actions as
the new CEO of the company was to rearrange the furniture. More
specifically, he pulled the top executive team off their 12th floor
ivory tower, and put them on the ground floor next to the staff cafe.
It was an early statement that they, as leaders, needed to be closer
to the heart and soul of the organisation, and hearing the news about
what was really happening. It's a good sign that he will be a good
leader.
About Mallen Baker
Mallen is currently responsible for developing Business in the Community's approach to marketplace issues, which includes how companies manage issues that arise around their core products and services.
He initiated the Business Impact Review Group - the group of 20 companies who developed a common approach to CSR reporting, and was responsible for the work of the Business Impact Taskforce which produced the landmark "Winning with Integrity" report. To read more of Mallen’s blogs visit www.mallenbaker.net.
