Olympic Legacy: The role of Business

Can Business Help to Build Help to Build an Enduring Legacy?

There are no more superlatives left with which to describe the Games; the organisation, the performances, the volunteers and spectators have all been rightly praised. Even business has come out of the process with an enhanced reputation for the ability to manage such a major multifaceted project and deliver it on time and largely on budget. The last few weeks have demonstrated the power of sport to electrify people and countries, to bring out the very best, both in the arena and around the country. Capturing that has to be our first priority.

But before the final curtain came down commentators were already focusing on ‘legacy’ thatill-defined but key component of the UK’s success in winning the Games for London. How can business benefit from and help to create a lasting legacy and rebuild trust?

Legacy is one of those things like ‘Britishness’, beloved of politicians and commentators, that means different things to different people depending on your point of view. So as with Britishness there will be as many interpretations of legacy as there are stakeholders – and we are all in some way stakeholders.

The legacy issues that have been most talked about are sports and buildings, but when sport is the issue do we mean elite sport, school sport, community sport, women’s sport, disabled sport, general health and well being or all of the above? And what of the elderly? And then the money issue; how much gets spent and where; who pays and who distributes? Above all who measures and who is ultimately responsible?

This is a great challenge with huge opportunities and some risk, but the risk is mainly in not availing ourselves of the opportunity, of retreating into our self-deprecating, but somewhat defeatist mode, and not maintaining the pressure and the capability to do something exceptionally well. It’s great to see the London Legacy Development Corporation in place and to see that the Prime Minister has appointed Lord Coe as his legacy advisor.

Over the past few years I have spoken to sponsors, businesses, academics, institutions, politicians and others, but whilst everyone agreed it was important, no one really wanted to get involved; partly because they didn’t know who was in charge or what role they might play. Business now needs to step up and take additional responsibility. Taking the initiative and developing legacy linked objectives and programmes will help repair the trust in business that has been so badly tarnished in the past few years.

There have been calls for wealthy business people to sponsor elite sport, for more Government money, for schools and teachers to make greater commitments, for more general participation in sport. Business should focus on the benefits of creating a sporting legacy as part of their Corporate Responsibility objectives, not as a charitable objective, but in terms of developing talent, creating positive role models and relationships, boosting well being and self esteem. Camilla Batmangheldjh (founder of the charity Kids Company) has written about the exclusion of marginalised kids from the whole Olympic process and how tapping their potential through sport can give them a route back into society and confidence in their abilities and potential.

 Many great schemes exist, but we need to raise their profile and make the information more widely available to everyone. This great national success, in which business has played a vital role, must not be allowed to dissipate into our preferred news media role and national characteristic of carping and criticism that is so damaging to confidence and self esteem. We should not forget, in heaping justifiable praise on the volunteers, that McDonald’s provided the training for 70,000 volunteers!

We have previously suggested that a Legacy Management framework needs to be put in place to enable business and other stakeholders to understand their position and what they can contribute in the overall scheme of things and have those efforts recognised. There will inevitably be stakeholders who will find their interests marginalised; a clear framework will enable them to fight their case better or understand why the overall priorities may not align with their’s.

The 2012 Olympic Games came alive not just because of great performances but because so many people took such great delight in participating, volunteering in huge numbers, turning out in all weather to see the flame cross the country and watching at venues, giant screens and on TV. This great sense of commitment to doing something brilliantly well is the true legacy that we need to keep alive! The Paralympics has already begun and interest in them has never been so great; this is another legacy that we can celebrate.

So, if you are feeling critical, hold your thought; talk upside not down and enjoy the moment and think of ways in which your business can contribute. Consult your staff – ask ‘what can we do locally to keep the flame burning? ‘They will love being involved, as will your customers and other stakeholders. See what the spirit of the Olympics can do to enhance your business, its reputation and esteem. Capture the moment, the enthusiasm and energy, and plan your own legacy. There has never been a better time to make your mark.

 

Your views

We have developed an on-line survey, which can be accessed via our website, www.enactconsulting.com, seeking your views about Olympic Legacy and how business can benefit. We would be grateful if you would take a few moments to give us your views and you can also use the survey to seek the views of your staff and other stakeholders to decide how best you might create your own Olympic Legacy.

Ethics and CSR

Ethics and CSR

I was at a talk at the Institute of Business Ethics a couple of weeks ago, where the discussion was about Ethics and the City. It focused naturally on the events of the last 4 years and the poor performance of City management in showing leadership and ethics. Unlike Enron which managed to suspend its Ethics policy before it went bust, this financial mismanagement  happened in spite of every large bank having CSR reports winning plaudits and awards from bodies like BiTC, of which all the major banks just happen to be members.

The speaker suggested that the fault lay with light government regulation and what we needed was heavier regulation and greater enforcement; time to see the guilty in prison. A vote winning proposal to be sure!

But the presumption of more regulation is that regulation itself and the regulators themselves are ethical: more ethical than bankers perhaps, but sufficiently ethical to change the way business is done?

Governments do not command any great respect, so there seems to be a fallacy in this argument. How can CSR help to remedy this situation? CSR has had many detractors, who suggest that it is simply window dressing, and events like the banking crisis go a long way to proving them right. CSR practitioners have to take much of the blame for having allowed reporting to become the standard by which all CSR activity is judged, rather than looking more deeply at the structure of CSR. By considering corporate CSR objectives, strategy and management, looking beyond the big consulting firms cosy ‘assurance’ reports, it is possible to get a clearer picture of what is actually happening and how in tune management is with its stakeholders.

How many companies do we see developing new values, signed off by the CEO, for the workers to read on the walls of the office to make them better people! And these values only resonate if we see those same people living those values. If there are real values in an organisation they rarely emanate from the top, more often coalescing from the core beliefs of the silent majority who work in the company. They can be reinforced by good leadership, but are not created by it, with some notable exceptions.

Shareholders are guilty too, pushing for ever greater returns, focusing on quarterly results, churning stocks and failing to look at long term value and corporate objectives.

We need to articulate what we really mean by ethics; it’s a complex subject, but one which receives little priority in education at a time when the role of religion in setting the ethical framework has all but disappeared. It is becoming more complex, particularly at the frontiers of science where immensely complex ethical problems are being forced upon us. The business issues are relatively straightforward but we need to address them with rigour and CSR practitioners should be at the forefront of this debate.

 

Tom Peyton

Olympic Legacy: Can business help to build an enduring legacy?

There are no more superlatives left with which to describe the Games; the organisation, the performances, the volunteers and spectators have all been rightly praised. Even business has come out of the process with an enhanced reputation for the ability to manage such a major multifaceted project and deliver it on time and largely on budget. The last few weeks have demonstrated the power of sport to electrify people and countries, to bring out the very best, both in the arena and around the country; capturing that has to be our first priority.

But before the final curtain came down commentators were already focusing on ‘legacy’ that ill-defined but key component of the UK’s success in winning the Games for London. How can business benefit from and help to create a lasting legacy and rebuild trust?

This is a great challenge with huge opportunities and some risk, but the risk is mainly in not availing ourselves of the opportunity, of retreating into our self-deprecating, but somewhat defeatist mode, and not maintaining the pressure and the capability to do something exceptionally well. It’s great to see the London Legacy Development Corporation in place and to see that the Prime Minister has appointed Lord Coe as his legacy advisor.

Over the past few years I have spoken to sponsors, businesses, academics, institutions, politicians and others, but whilst everyone agreed it was important, no one really wanted to get involved; partly because they didn’t know who was in charge or what role they might play. Business now needs to step up and take additional responsibility. Taking the initiative and developing legacy linked objectives and programmes will help repair the trust in business that has been so badly tarnished in the past few years.

There have been calls for wealthy business people to sponsor elite sport, for more Government money, for schools and teachers to make greater commitments, for more general participation in sport. Business should focus on the benefits of creating a sporting legacy as part of their Corporate Responsibility objectives, not as a charitable objective, but in terms of developing talent, creating positive role models, boosting well being and self esteem. Camilla Batmangheldjh (founder of the charity Kids Company) has written about the exclusion of marginalised kids from the whole Olympic process and how tapping their potential through sport can give them a route back into society and confidence in their abilities and potential.

Many great schemes exist, but we need to raise their profile and make the information more widely available to everyone. This great national success, in which business has played a vital role, must not be allowed to dissipate into our preferred news media role and national characteristic of carping and criticism that is so damaging to confidence and self esteem. We should not forget, in heaping justifiable praise on the volunteers, that McDonald’s provided the training for 70,000 volunteers!

We have previously suggested that a Legacy Management framework needs to be put in place to enable business and other stakeholders to understand their position and what they can contribute in the overall scheme of things and have those efforts recognised. There will inevitably be stakeholders who will find their interests marginalised; a clear framework will enable them to fight their case better or understand why the overall priorities may not align with their own.

The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games came alive not just because of great performances but because so many people took such great delight in participating, volunteering in huge numbers, turning out in all weather to see the flame cross the country and watching at venues, giant screens and on TV. This great sense of commitment to doing something brilliantly well is the true legacy that we need to keep alive!

So, if you are feeling critical, hold your thought; talk upside not down and enjoy the moment and think of ways in which your business can contribute. Consult your staff – ask ‘what can we do locally to keep the flame burning? ‘They will love being involved, as will your customers and other stakeholders. See what the spirit of the Olympics can do to enhance your business, its reputation and esteem. Capture the moment, the enthusiasm and energy, and plan your own legacy. There has never been a better time to make your mark.

 

Plan A it isn't!

M&S have done great innovative work in corporate responsibility and sustainability, largely incorporated in Plan A. So I was very surprised to see 'shopping' hit the airwaves last week, apparently being the first time anyone has ever thought of recycling old clothes and giving the proceeds to charity!

There are two fundamental problems with this concept: the first being that the claim manifestly isn't true!

The second being that it sees large corporate and charity muscle invading the space of a host a much smaller local charities for whom the local shop is the key funding lifeline.

Everyone involved in this from national treasure, JL, to Oxfam should know that this is enormously damaging to these small local charities that have relied on this channel to provide much needed funds. In a sector that is feeling the fund raising crunch quite acutely, the entry of large organisations using their big budget muscle to compete in this arena seems to me to be bordering on the unethical.

How much better to support in general the recycling of clothes, which is obviously sensible, and promote the funding means of all those small charities who have been doing this for years, than to imply ownership of an old idea and do it with an international charity who have many alternative methods of raising funds.

Finally I would suggest it is condescending to its customers and the general public to suggest that, now we finally got the hang of recycling old cans and papers, we might now be able to cope with the more arduous concept of recycling our clothes as well!

There is nothing new in clothes recycling and second hand charity clothes shops and M&S should be ashamed of suggesting that there is.

Prize for the silliest headline of the week goes to Dominic Lawson for...

" ‘Responsible’ firms are really just stealing "

The Sunday Times 26 February 2012

The argument about Corporate Social Responsibility is not about corporate philanthropy. It’s about profit. I agree that companies have no right to give shareholders’ money to charity, unless there is a business justification for doing so. But responsibility is about understanding the wider social and economic impacts of a company and acting on them to make the company a stronger and more sustainable business for the longer term.

The article takes no account of significant academic and business research that provides reasoned evidence that companies with strong CSR programmes are generally better managed and produce better returns for shareholders than those that don’t. It takes no account of issues such as recruitment, programmes for local communities, human rights and environmental protection. Of course, reports that cough up non-material issues such as a bank’s green energy are less than helpful. Focus on the actions, not the reports.

Friedman was indeed the apostle of profit. The argument that the responsibility camp has with the common interpretation of his famous dictum ("The business of business is business") is whether we should focus exclusively on the short term, as the City, and the bonus culture, seems determined to do, or look at longer term shareholder return. After all most investors, and in particular pension funds, are in it for the long haul. Consumers are becoming more ethically aware, investors in SRI funds are now a significant part of the market.

Not all companies with CSR programmes get it right. But if we take BP as an example, when the disaster occurred at Macondo, BP moved quickly to put funds and resources in place to alleviate the distress. Compare this with Exxon, still going through the courts 23 years after the Exxon Valdez spill. If this had been a government or an insurance issue, the burden of suffering would have been far worse.

Like most other sectors of society, business is regarded with distrust. There is significant value in trying to turn this around. CSR needs to be understood in terms of profitability and efficiency, taking into account the social costs for which business is responsible, but not currently charged. Lawson stands guilty of the same charge he mounts against the Prime Minister, ‘grotesque and wilful misrepresentation’.

CSR and Charity

Some companies give generously to charity as part or even all of their contribution to social responsibility. But what authority do directors have to give away money, which belongs to their shareholders? The only answer must be that money given to charity has long term benefits to the fundamental purpose and objectives of the company.

In today’s economic circumstances with public sector budgets being cut and the funding of charities shrinking due to government funding cuts and pressure on donors purchasing power, the corporate role in charitable funding and volunteering has become much more significant. Therefore charities and companies must both seek to find common ground in the work that they do.

The means to do this is through aligning the company’s overall strategy and its CSR objectives with the purpose of the charity. This is best achieved not through one off donations or volunteering events, but by developing partnerships and sustainable relationships that benefit the community in which the company is located, providing facilities and services that enable people to lead more productive lives and feel proud of their work place.

There are many historical examples of companies that have thrived on these principles, Unilever, John Lewis, the Co-operative to name just a few, who have built on those successful traditions and continue to operate today under those same founding principles.

In our CSR work we have worked with a number of charities to help them create links with corporate responsibility objectives and focus their efforts on building relationships with companies that share a common outlook and objectives.

We are currently working with Demelza, a children’s hospice based in Kent and South London. Like all charities they are finding their resources stretched in the current environment and need to be able to say something different to a company that has many calls on its time and resources, to make them different and worthy of that extra attention. Focusing on CSR objectives has enabled them to establish relationships with a number of new donors.

We are also working with the Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) who are an aid agency working in Africa and Latin America to provide rural communities with access to energy. Over 1.3 billion people do not have access to electricity, so while we are quite rightly concerned about the price and security of supply, their everyday living is constrained by lack of something we all take for granted. Our role is to help them find exploration companies who are developing large infrastructure projects in these areas and want to provide facilities for their local communities. GVEP provide the skills and knowledge to enable local SME’s to set up business providing energy to their communities, backed by, but independent of, the international company running the development project.

These are just a couple of ideas of how companies can align their objectives with those of a charity, justifying the expenditure to their shareholders and creating long term value for all.

Think of them, not so much as charities, more as strategic business partners

Responsibility at News Corp

The News of the World is dead, but does the fallout stop there! Is this a crafty damage limitation exercise to curtail further investigation into News Corp practices?

Much has already been written about the disgraceful practices that News Corporation allowed at NoW and the total lack of accountability in its management hierarchy. Whilst the legal case and subsequent public enquiries will rumble on for years, there seems to be almost unanimous agreement that News Corp has acted unethically in its phone hacking of innocent victims and their families. Whether its politicians, bankers or journalists, plausible deniability seems to be the watchword. It may constitute a legal defence, but when will public figures learn that ‘I didn’t know, I’m as shocked as you are’ doesn’t really cut it anymore!

How quixotic that companies flourishing scarce advertising dollars, concerned for their brands, are the new arbiters of ethics, probably the only constituency that has any influence on News Corp behaviour. Well done Ford et al.

How bizarre also that News Corp should have a Code of Ethics for the CEO and Senior Financial Officers, but not one for the rest of the organisation! In the light of past events, it is quite clear why! No one wanted to restrict the questionable methods of those sent out into the murky twilight world of News of the World ‘investigative journalism’. Interesting also that ethics in the eyes of News Corp is only related to money and those who are responsible for it; values principles, responsibility seemingly have no part.