Nick Jones on CSR - fit for today and tomorrow at #PRFest
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This document discusses the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in today's "post-truth" environment where misinformation spreads easily. It argues that companies need to not just do the right thing, but communicate about it effectively to build trust. Examples are given of how General Electric communicates its CSR efforts. Public relations professionals are encouraged to promote both tangible CSR programs and compelling narratives to encourage positive change and influence other organizations.
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Nick Jones on CSR - fit for today and tomorrow at #PRFest
- 1. CSR Fit for Today and Tomorrow Nick Jones For the Knowing of the How Ltd
- 4. Does doing the right thing matter anymore? In a post-truth era of fake news it is even more important for companies to do the right thing and tell others about it in the just the right way
- 11. Trust remains the issue Who says what is as critical as ever http://www.edelman.com/news/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-global-implosion/
- 12. Can business save the world? No, your client can http://www.edelman.com/news/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-global-implosion/
- 13. Selling the upside is no longer enough Innovation story can be incendiary http://www.edelman.com/news/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-global-implosion/
- 14. So, how does PR do the right thing? Encourage CSR Both the hard and soft options Both create cut-through content for story telling Be aware Post truth – putting an emotional response above a logical one
- 15. Feed this mill and be fed by it Who at Which has an interest X X X www.attenzi.com
- 16. Tie it back to the people on the bottom line Access to financial system for unbanked and underserved Inspire and empower next generation of entrepreneurs Tech and coding education for underrepresented communities Enable e-payments access for 500 million unbanked / underserved adults Train and educate (# TBD) of future entrepreneurs Provide tech & coding education to (#TBD) underserved individuals PILLARS 2020 GOALS OBJECTIVES Financial Inclusion Financial Literacy Tech Careers Readiness FUTURE CONSUMERS FUTURE EMPLOYEES FUTURE MERCHANTS ALIGNMENT Education on how to manage money wisely for youth and adults Reach (#TBD) people with financial literacy programming FUTURE ECONOMIC PARTICIPANTS Entrepreneurs
- 17. Influence the influencers Dow Jones Sustainability Index topicsI
- 18. Hard CSR: what investors ask about Shareholder Proposals, 20161 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Change-of-Control/Government Service… Equity Compensation Other Social Policy Human Rights Other Corporate Governance Other Executive Compensation Employment Rights Special Meetings/Written Consent Proxy Access Voting Rules Separate Chairman/CEO Political Spending or Lobbying Environmental Concerns2 2015 2016 1Based on 231 companies holding annual meetings by August 31 2 Environmental Concerns include climate change, deforestation, water, waste and sustainability reporting
- 20. Purpose is good for you
- 21. Thank you nickmacjones@gmail.com @njones on Twitter @nickmacjones on Instagram
Editor's Notes
- Hello, thans for the invite to be here today to talk about CSR Corporate & Social Responsibility. It’s a bit of a buzzword and when things buzz about it is not always clear what they really are. Here’s a whole list of things I’ve been asked to do ‘coz it’s CSR’ But, it is really quiet simple…
- ‘Do the right thing’, as director Spike Jones says. And, if yo are looking for a good film to watch, time trip back to 1989…. On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence. So, back on track, we are hear to discuss doing the right thing. But does it matter anymore? So, before we get onto discussing fake news and the right thing and the right way. A little about where I am coming from
- So, back on track, we are hear to discuss doing the right thing. But does it matter anymore? In a post-truth era of fake news it is even more important for companies to do the right thing and tell others about it in the just the right way But before we get onto discussing fake news and the right thing and the right way. A little about where I am coming from.
- I’m Nick Jones an for over 20 years I’ve been moving comms from the analog to the digital. From 1.0 to 2.0 to whatever is next. A bit like this shot of Larry at 10 Downing Street where I ran digital comms. This was taken before I arrived. Formal and proper. It’s how its been down for decades
- But this is what I really did. Moved Number 10 into a social media world. This is a social media post of Larry dancing at his birthday party. A data-driven commissioning of cut-through content that generated significant reach and engagement. OR FAKE NEWS! I am out of shot dangling a cat toy and he’s jumping to catch it. Not quite the disco cat birthday party
- More recently I worked at Visa protecting and improving its reputation among B2B and B2C audiences. This is my then 4 year old son’s take on financial services Making payments work involves a lot of trust. That’s what a 60 year old brand is all about. A re you going to be the one who sends the tweet that scrubs 60 billion dollars of value from it. And I also ran CSR in Europe, more of that later .
- More recently I am leading digital strategy for HS2 – which aims to link 8/10 of our largest cities with a 350km of high speed railway. Massively increasing capacity and connections not just speed. A lot of companies talk about changing their market or the world. Well, we can safely say HS2 will change our country. The geography, the economy and our society And here’s some of our social media content. The winner of a competition to design the hoarding for our Birmingham Terminus. The winning design student taking some of the great railway heritage that abounds and giving it a great 60s twist. We have form in this country on changing the things with railways! It’s a perfect example of engaging with our community. Birmingham is host to one of our terminals. We’ve already caused a building boom in the city, we’re energising the city and that will re-generate communities there and all up and down the route. Now, not everyone likes us. Lots need to know how their home, town and environment is affected. So we have a Engagement team tht goes out nd meets them where they are. In church halls, golf clubs and community centres they are listening, explaining, and trying to help. How to get compensation where necessary What will happen to the newts in that pound Where the vast new planting of trees will go How that station might interact with that bus or tram or road Educating, informing, persuading elected officials, planners and NGOs We take our responsibility to society seriously. That; why there are thousands of pages of law, environmental impact statements, legal mitigations, promises and assurances. But there is still a lot of misconceptions out there. And out there means a world of ‘fake news’
- It’s easy to make fake news. Here’s my bad example.
- Here’s one that many might wish to be true. But we have to realise Fake News is having an effect. It makes it more difficult to communicate More difficult to listen, to tell stories, to engage. It is eroding trust.
- Who says what is therefore as critical is ever. January’s Edelman Trust Barometer neatly nailed the proble Media not trusted CEOs not trusted Government not trusts But your mate is trusted just as much as the expert. Which begs the question…
- Can business save the world? 75% thought business can do something to improve the world around the respondents. Even among the uncertains business is still trusted more than the other institutions Who is business? Business is your client. So what role do you have in doing the right thing?
- You need to defend that trust your client and business has. That means persuading them to step up to a role in society. But be aware. ‘Shiny shiny’ is not going save society alone. Too often we assume the ‘innovation story’ is the the good news story PR loves novelty but novelty no longer cuts through when everyone is transforming but many remain worried about the side effects.
- Slo, how does PR do the right thing? Embrace and encourage CSR It has stories to tell Stories that engage better than a lot of other news. But be aware. CSR needs to balance both hard and soft options Manage the logical and the emotional We are in a post-truth world. Amol Rajan, the BBC’s media editor puts it well. Post Truth is putting an emotional response above a logical one. Hands up anyone in PR not guilty of every being a tad emotional?
- To do the right thing around CSR we need to feed the stakeholder mill and be fed by it. Here’s a great diagram put together by Philip Sheldrake in his book Attenzi. The channels are the the numbered arrows. What’s been different about social media is 2 and 3 and 5 and six. Our channels should not just be about broadcast or send But enable that interactivty with our stakeholders, audiences and customers AND among themselves. Remember how much they trust their mate?
- So we understand the environment we need to do the right thing in. Now what’s the deliverable? The meat in the truth sandwich. It will vary from company to company. Here’s what we worked on at Visa. It’s a simple aligned CSR model. It aligns social need with business need. And that is vital. Too often CSR is a nice to have distraction that emplyees, customers and stakeholders can’t relate to. Chosen by a form CEO’s partner in another age. Alignment also needs to drill down and tie back to people on that bottom line. What does doing the right thing mean for future, consumers, future savers, entrepreneurs, employees and businesses? This helps your empplyees and sales people imagine CSR a whole lot better. It’s the people they meet, their kids and colleagues.
- This business-like aligned approach heads us towards the harder end of CSR The world of Sustainability strategy and monitoring This table is the DJSI. Potentially yawnsome but it is critical. This is a third party analyst analysing publically listed companies and publishing data. This is devoured by investors who increasingly make decisions on the raft of criteria on the left. This table moves share prices. Sustainability effects the bottom line. The apparently fluffy CSR programme translated into hard business logic.
- And it gets harder than that. CSR is one factor that drive shareholder activism Here’s a list of the proposals shareholders make of the companies they own. More and more are driven by social and political issues What’s your crisis comms plan for an angry activist shareholder on the war path?
- So, that was hard CSR. Let me talk about soft CSR. Bear with me. Last month, I attended Radley Yeldar’s round table on the relationship between business purpose and sustainability. I’ve had the invite for a while so had been thinking about what I might contribute. Of course, going on Easter holiday meant all that work thought went out the window. Off to my parents house I went and there I picked up an old paperback to while away some time – Jaws. It’s a page turner. Settling down for a good read I didn’t expect the world of work to interrupt. However… Let me set the scene. Brody, the police chief of Amity, where the shark attacks, is grudgingly hosting a dinner party for some of the ‘summer people’. One of the guests is Hooper the young marine biologist come to find the shark. Brody’ wife Ellen invites Daisy Wicker as a date for Hooper. Brody and Daisy make awkward conversation at the fireplace and she asks. ‘Do you like being a policeman?’ ‘Brody couldn’t tell whether or not there was hostility in the question.’ ‘Yes, it’s a good job and it has a purpose’. A typical 1970s conversation between youth and the old ensues with Daisy giving the policeman a hard time for telling people what not to do. Later Brody is taken aside by his wife and told off for giving Daisy a hard time in his response. ‘Whats the matter with you?’ ‘I guess I don’t like strange people coming into my house and insulting me.’ ‘Honestly, I’m sure there was no insult intended. She was probably just being frank. Frankness is in these days, you know?’ Reflecting on this conversation, I was struck by Brody’s sense of purpose for his job. His character in the book is strong because his purpose is clear. He protects people. No matter the costly shenanigans of the local politics. He didn’t just do the ‘how’ of policing, he knew the why. And, that was one of the lessons from that purpose and sustainability workshop. Purpose is the why. Sustainability is the how. It’s why you are in business. It’s why your client is in business. Even when the CEO changes Even when there is another new strategy to replace the last one. Go find the people who have that purpose and help them tell their story. Some final thought from Jaws. Ellen’s comment that “frankness is in these days’ still holds true. Think social media. And there is another lesson from that workshop about that. All of us participants were quite frank about the lazy language that pollutes companies. We are at drift on a sea of visions, values, missions and cultures. CSR is responsible We need to learn from Brody. The how to his why was not ‘operationalising a marine predator mitigation platform’. He said: We’re gonna need a bigger boat.** Well, actually, nowhere in the novel does he say that. We have to thank the script writer and the PR for putting it on the posters!
- Finally, a wordof encouragement, literally. Could you help someone find their purpose? Some of you may know Oli Barrett, he’s a force of nature who networks tech, PR and the future of our country – young people He recently went to compere the Careers & Enterprise Company event in Sheffield. For once those cabaret tables were not just filled with the suits. Instead it was students, teachers, careers , employers – people who care about this stuff. Oli tells this fantastic anecdote that just about sums up the points I am making. One pupil explained that a key turning point in his life was when "a guy at Bloomerg said I was good at maths" during a school visit. A casual comment. Yes, some changes and programmes take years. Sometimes though, one kind or encouraging comment can change a life. Take time to find your purpose and yur client’s purpose Identify the truths and stories that can communicate that And get out and do great PR