[ad_1]
Hi, Quartz members!
The horrific conflict between Hamas and Israel calls on corporate leaders to once again take a stand and deliver a public message.
Do they have anything useful left to say?
As recently as a decade ago, keeping business and social or geopolitical issues separate was the norm. But then came major threats to gay rights, a spate of horrific school shootings, a US president who tried to undermine democracy, a video of a Black man dying with a police officer’s knee to his neck, and this newish thing called social media that offered a bigger megaphone than companies had ever had before. In that time, CEOs got a lot more willing to speak out about hot-button issues.
Watching executives take early steps to break protocol and oppose same-sex marriage bans or pressure gun manufacturers was no doubt a thrilling development. Finally, corporate leaders were open to using their considerable power to influence policy and public opinion—not just on business and regulation issues typically covered by lobbying budgets, but on a range of debates affecting their employees, their customers, and their surrounding communities.
But lately, the C-suite seems to be suffering from issue fatigue.
With every terrible turn of the news cycle, we see a few leaders who meet the moment and handle controversy or tragedy with grace and feeling. But mostly, we’re trapped in a frustrating cycle: a difficult issue arises; people look to their employers for signs of support; companies issue anodyne statements and perhaps pledge donations to a related cause; executives get lectured about their failure to speak, let alone act, with moral clarity; a vocal but ultimately small group of customers threatens boycotts; and the news cycle moves on to the next epic disaster.
It shouldn’t be this hard, or this contentious, to voice opposition to violence and human suffering. But we know these issues are rarely so simple.
War fries
NYU Stern professor Alison Taylor, whose forthcoming book Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World will be released in February, lamented the politicization of business in a thought-provoking post on LinkedIn. Riffing on an article in Mint headlined “War fries: McDonald’s Israel and Middle-East outlets clash over supporting Palestinian ‘brothers and sisters in Gaza,’” she wrote:
When I express concerns about companies taking political stances, people usually shrug and say there is no other option today.
But this is where it ends up. Employees and customers of a global multinational pushing a *burger chain*, which ought to be focused on the *climate impact of its core product*, to “take stands” on an overwhelmingly complex conflict.
She continued:
This is insane. And it ends nowhere good.
What’s better advice?
Clean up your own mess.
Treat workers with dignity and respect.
Focus on your business.
It’s excellent guidance. But there’s the rub. Are you treating workers with dignity and respect if you aren’t directly acknowledging their suffering? Are you focused on your business if you’re not thinking through the politics of responding, or not responding, to major crises that could be affecting them, or your customers, or your brand reputation?
These are open questions, not rhetorical ones. And the inevitably subjective answers are likely to be applied at most companies on a case-by-case basis.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-Israel conflict will present new case studies in leadership choices, just like the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Jan. 6 insurrection, the George Floyd murder, the covid-19 pandemic, and the #MeToo movement before it.
Advice for leaders
If weighing in is inevitable, you shouldn’t do so without being prepared. We’ve compiled some of the best advice Quartz has ever published for leaders and managers who face the task of addressing social and political conflict.
✋ Don’t ask if management should be political. “Instead of agonizing over whether to intervene [in politics], executives would be better off accepting that they will,” organizational behavior professor Gianpiero Petriglieri wrote in the wake of the 2020 US election.
💬 Consider what you say by saying nothing. Apple’s Tim Cook was an early exception to the tradition of US corporate leaders keeping social and political views to themselves. “As a CEO…I think silence is the ultimate consent,” he said in 2017. “I think that’s not acceptable to your company, to the team that works so hard for your company, for your customers, or for your country. Or for each country that you happen to be operating in.”
📣 Expect employees to be ahead of you. “So-called progressive companies have been caught off guard by the momentum behind the new employee activism movement,” former Quartz reporter Lila MacLellan wrote amid pandemic-era waves of labor organizing. Workers now anticipate their organizations will advocate on political and social issues—and leaders who fail to meet their standards can expect public pushback.
🚪 Tackle tension with an open door. When a mass shooting in California prompted shoemaker TOMS to pledge millions toward gun control, leaders knew they would face dissent within their ranks. As chief impact officer Amy Smith told Quartz this year, seeking tension was crucial for getting employees on board. “We wanted to make sure we maintained this really open door policy for people to come…and dissent,” she said. Talking through the dissent was key to making sure employees didn’t feel pushed out by their employer’s values, she said.
Thanks for reading! And don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, or topics you want to know more about.
Wishing you an uncontentious weekend,
—Heather Landy, Quartz executive editor; Gabriella Riccardi, Quartz at Work deputy editor
[ad_2]
Source link