Social Responsibility and the Profit Motive
[ 458 words ] “How do you get past the profit motive?” a business consultant asked me. The consultant wanted to know how to engage business leaders in social responsibility. My first answer was true: “Well-planned social responsibility enhances profit. There’s no...
Fear of Competition and Social Responsibility
[ 458 words ] Why collaborate on social responsibility with customers or competitors? Too frequently, we get stuck in a zero-sum world, thinking competitors are nothing more than potential client stealers, and customers are solely targets for negotiating a higher...
Creating Value with Social Responsibility
[ 543 words ] What’s the often-missing ingredients to meaningful value through social responsibility? Willingness to be creative. You certainly need a pragmatic, analytical foundation to deliver value to both investors and society. But you also need to depart the...
Leaders Value Social Responsibility
[ 493 words ] Is social responsibility a time-sink best avoided by the serious businessperson? No. Social responsibility is an opportunity to learn, connect, and create value for both investors and society. Even when you’re exhausted by other tasks, social...
Social Responsibility Fails to Scale
[ 487 words ] Is ‘scaling up’ socially responsible effort really the key to improving society (as #PaulPolizzotto suggests in Forbes)? No. Increasing effort doesn’t necessarily enhance impact. Even when a small-scale test seems promising, growth can destroy...
When Business Damages Society While Delivering Social Responsibility
[ 689 words ] How should we view efforts to solve social problems by organizations simultaneously committing horrible acts? Such organizations have an opportunity to learn. Create even more good, and even more value can follow. Consider how a child develops. A...
Wasting Money on Society Yet Delivering Profit
[ 487 words ] What does social responsibility have to do with maximizing the value from traditional business activities? A lot. Effective social responsibility is NOT a marketing or public relations activity that sits on the side of a business. And it doesn’t have to...
Social Responsibility is not a Weak Business Function
[ 487 words ] For many companies, giving back to their communities is an afterthought-- something only done after they’ve turned a profit. And the social responsibility function is a placeholder to be eliminated in the next recession. Yet, does the social...
Enhancing Profit Through Meaningful Corporate Social Responsibility
[ 522 words ] Can meaningful social responsibility really be a powerful tool to directly enhance profit– in addition to attracting millennial employees and consumers? Yes! Value destroyed by social failures amount to trillions of dollars, which are...