{"id":121,"date":"2010-12-02T14:10:41","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T19:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcoassociates.wordpress.com\/?p=121"},"modified":"2013-03-14T18:45:50","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T22:45:50","slug":"precisely-my-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/precisely-my-point","title":{"rendered":"Precisely My Point!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quoting from Vault \/ CNBC yesterday, \u201cAt a recent Conference Board event for marketing executives, <strong>Zappos\u2019 <\/strong>CEO Tony Hsieh gave a controversial presentation in which he opined that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vault.com\/wps\/portal\/usa\/blogs\/entry-detail\/?blog_id=1462&amp;entry_id=12140\"><strong>innovative and collaborative company culture should trump profits.<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u201d\u00a0<!--more--> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Further, \u201c<\/strong>Hsieh was followed by <strong>Ogilvy &amp; Mather&#8217;s Chairman<\/strong> (and former CEO) Shelly Lazarus, who took the podium ostensibly to discuss the challenges ahead in marketing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEver so subtly, however, Lazarus turned her address into a tutorial on corporate social responsibility (CSR), and why it is going to eventually become an unavoidable part\u2014and expectation\u2014of everyone&#8217;s job profile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer argument: Being market-driven is not an excuse to avoid discussing your company&#8217;s corporate social responsibility, but the very reason for the discussion. She drove the point home with some eye-catching statistics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 1960, 70 percent of consumers felt business acts responsibly.<\/li>\n<li>By 1980, that sentiment had fallen to 30 percent.<\/li>\n<li>Today, that number is in the low teens.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here are two corporate leaders who get it!\u00a0 And congratulations to Vault for picking up on it!\u00a0 But I would take issue with Mr. Hsieh\u2019s observation in a small way; profit and innovative\u00a0and collaborative culture are NOT mutually exclusive!\u00a0 Profit need not trump CSR.\u00a0 Profit can directly result from an innovative and collaborative culture.\u00a0 Given that point, I agree that the American consumer is tired of greed-based capitalism and begging for corporations to operate transparently and in a socially responsible way!<\/p>\n<p>I believe Hsieh\u00a0and Lazarus understand that successful organizations of the future will be principled, people-centered, servant-led, purpose-driven, community friendly and environmentally responsible.\u00a0 Beyond that, they will make responsible business decisions that don\u2019t throw the consumer or their employees or the communities in which they operate\u00a0under the bus!\u00a0 And, they will define their purpose as fulfilling an individual or collective consumer need, and recognize that profit is not the purpose, but is the reward for being successful.<\/p>\n<p>To Lazarus\u2019 point, \u201cit [CSR] is going to\u00a0eventually become an unavoidable part\u2014and expectation\u2014of everyone&#8217;s job profile.\u201d\u00a0 Of course it is, because performance is personal before it is organizational!\u00a0 Every person in an organization will at some point be responsible and accountable for a piece of their organization\u2019s social responsibility.\u00a0 And, it will extend beyond the job profile to specific tasks and behaviors that will be expected of everyone in the organization from its board of directors to the shop floor staff.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re talking about a substantial\u00a0shift in corporate culture for many organizations; but there are some, like Zappos, that are already there.\u00a0 And, the profit is following the culture.<\/p>\n<p>If your organization wants to earn back the consumer respect that business has lost in rather dramatic fashion over the last 50 years, be prepared to shift gears and let your mission, values, ethics, and responsibility to society drive every decision you make and action you take!\u00a0 Culture and social responsibility, that\u2019s where the money will be, and that\u2019s where your organization had better be!<\/p>\n<p>Here are some steps your organization can take:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Review and restate or redefine your mission, vision, and values<\/li>\n<li>Redefine your purpose in terms of satisfying individual or collective needs<\/li>\n<li>Make sure your ethics are real, not situational and that you have a code of conduct embedded in your organization, and FOLLOW IT<\/li>\n<li>Create awareness of and measure your organization\u2019s impact on the community and environment<\/li>\n<li>Identify and clear away barriers to your employees\u2019 success<\/li>\n<li>Get all of your people on the same page<\/li>\n<li>Clarify and communicate expectations and accountability throughout the organization, from the top down and the bottom up<\/li>\n<li>Let profit be the measure of how well you are doing, not the purpose of your business<\/li>\n<li>Make these changes personal for everyone in the organization<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yes, that\u2019s fundamental and difficult change, but it\u2019s a matter of survival, and yet another of those pesky little \u201cbetter business basics!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quoting from Vault \/ CNBC yesterday, \u201cAt a recent Conference Board event for marketing executives, Zappos\u2019 CEO Tony Hsieh gave a controversial presentation in which he opined that innovative and collaborative company culture should trump profits.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,6],"tags":[11,12,17,18,21,22,30,35,39],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcoassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}