This was also released a few weeks ago on Slideshare and LinkedIn. If you have read it there it hasn't changed.
I do have a new piece that will be released this week. On CSR communication mistakes to avoid
Seven
proven ways to get colleagues on board with sustainability and corporate
responsibility
A CSR Thoughtpiece from the CSR Training Institute
- Wayne Dunn
The best
investment you make in the sustainability of your stakeholder engagement and
corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs could be your internal stakeholders. Seriously!
The people
dealing with communities, stakeholders and responsibilities are too often ghettoized
in a corner of a project or company and not seen as part of the ‘real business’. This costs the company money and can be
demoralizing.
They are
tolerated, sometimes even encouraged, but when budgets get tight they are often
squarely in the cutting line.
It’s not a very
sustainable position, for them or the company.
So if that’s where you are, you need to change your positioning and make
successfully engaging internal stakeholders a priority.
Do it right and
other parts of your organization will recognize the important contribution CSR
and stakeholder engagement make to profitability, shareholder value and their
specific interests.
Drop the ball on
internal stakeholder engagement and you’ll be near the front of the line the
next time cuts and downsizing happens and near the back of the line for budget
increases.
The good news is
that the core principles for successfully engaging internal stakeholders are
much the same as for other stakeholder groups. They include, in no particular
order:
1.
Ask what’s in it
for them? Think of their interests
Ask what CSR has
to offer your company from top to bottom and side to side, through finance,
human resources, investor relations, engineering, C-suites, etc.
Work out how
your own success contributes to their success.
And think
through how it impacts on them if your work fails, if your project or company
loses its social license?
Then capture
these thoughts, make lists and communicate them (see items 3 & 5 below).
Use each new specific example as an opportunity to remind them.
2.
Build allies, find
champions
Even with your
most compelling arguments not everyone will become a raving fan of your work. If
you engage appropriately, however, some will, and others will at least be
supportive.
Your colleagues
are your allies; work with them. Help
them to know more about your work and what it means for their area and
interests, for the company and for other key areas.
With the right information,
support and rationale you can then turn one or two into strategic champions for
your work and its value to the company.
3.
Share stories from
their peers
Stories are
great for communicating and engaging, so use some to help you reach internal
stakeholders.
Find short,
pointed stories on how CSR/stakeholder engagement and other related areas had
big impacts on particular areas and then share them appropriately – and
strategically, as this example demonstrates.
I was near the
conclusion of the project, an assessment of the company’s social license/CSR
work in a particular geographic region it was working in.
The work they
were doing was incredible, clearly one of the best examples in the world. This
was back in 1999 but is still one of the best – they were way ahead of the
game.
However, the local
systems and successes I assessed were not consistent across their entire operations. They had countries and regions where they
were doing little or nothing. Big
risks. And they didn’t see them.
So, I explained
the risk to the CFO saying that if they had a problem, if something came up in
those other areas, they would have a hard time to respond to an agitated public
and confrontational stakeholder groups (think about making friends in the
middle of a mob!)
But he didn’t seem
interested. I think he was happy to see me leave his office.
About a month
later the company had a cyanide spill that, while technically not a major
concern, quickly became a major international issue both for them and for the
country they were headquartered in.
The spill
happened some distance from their mine.
However their vehicles routinely passed through a local community with
whom they had not fostered any relationships at all.
You can imagine
how the community felt as trucks drove through daily, going to and from the
mine, and with nobody from the company ever coming by. They didn’t even have much
opportunity for jobs or business at the mine-site.
So, when the
spill happened, the community used it to get some major attention. Suddenly
there were advocacy and special interest NGOs all over the community and the
incident got a lot of global media attention.
Share price
plummeted and the company went into emergency response. Except, they didn’t really have the
relationships with local or international stakeholders to mount a quick and
effective response to this situation (think again of building relationships in
a mob!).
A couple of
months later when I was back at headquarters, the CFO actually asked to see
me. He had been through a pretty rough
period.
As the share
price tanked the company was suddenly getting all sorts of attention it didn’t
like from investors, lenders and other financial stakeholders.
The company
found itself offside of important agreements like debt to market capitalization
covenants.
Now a previously
skeptical CFO had become a believer. Now
he could see how the success of stakeholder engagement and CSR programs had
real meaning and value for his job and the company.
4.
Don’t be a ‘do gooder’. Keep your organization’s interest paramount
Do good work but
don’t be a ‘do gooder’. Your work and
the good you do is important for sure.
But so are the interests of your company. Keep your work consciously aligned with the broader
interests of your company.
Always, always,
keep the company’s interests at the forefront.
Link your own job and goals to what is good for the company in other
ways, for example mitigating risk for the company.
Lose that link
and you are lost.
Your company
wants good work but not a do-gooder,
and the same applies to the stakeholders you are working with.
5.
Learn their
language
You will be much
more effective at communicating with various internal stakeholder groups if you
‘learn their language’. Hint: Do-gooder
language won’t get you very far in the CFO’s office!
By ‘doing’
stakeholder engagement and CSR you can seem like an alien from another planet!
So learn enough about your colleague’s world and priorities to communicate with
them in a way that they can hear and understand.
6.
Be passionate, but
not fanatical
Most of us
working in CSR and stakeholder engagement are passionate about our work. But so too are many who work in other areas
of your organization.
Passion is a
gift. Cherish it. Fanaticism is a curse. Avoid it.
It is perfectly
fine to be passionate about your work and the impact it is having (both on and
for stakeholders AND for shareholders).
But, don’t be fanatical about it.
Passionate is constructive.
Fanatical is destructive.
This is a simple
communication skill but often can be challenging to apply, especially when
projects and initiatives feel so important.
Always remember that
there is a fine line between passionate and fanatical and stay on the
constructive side of the line.
7.
Assertive
Humility: Humble AND assertive
Temper all
internal stakeholder engagement with assertive humility. We’ve all seen do-gooders that come across as
‘holier than thou’. It is a turn-off.
We’ve also seen the meek and mild who struggle to make a point but fail to communicate effectively.
The work you are
doing is important. Very important. So is the work that others in your company
are doing. Recognize both of these
realities.
Remember – internal stakeholders are key to the
success of your work.
Do not assume
that they are automatically on your side.
Invest time in understanding them and their interests and in explaining
how and why your success supports their success.
Learn to engage
and communicate with them in effective ways and you, your work, your company
and your other stakeholders will all benefit.
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