Description
The documentation explain whether the corporates can have a conscience.
Can a Corporate Have A Conscience?
Introduction People are different; therefore we should expect corporations to be different. The naturalist Henry Thoreau summed it up in a 19th Century essay: “It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.” While it should operate honestly and ethically, the corporation is not moralistic by nature; it’s pragmatic. Mostly, it is conservative – dedicated to nurturing and growing shareowner assets. Its first duty, as we see it, is to manage its affairs properly and profitably. When it does that well, it is fulfilling its greatest obligation to society. It has a duty to compensate employees and reward investors fairly. It has a duty to create favorable and safe working conditions for employees and produce goods and services of value. It has a duty to deliver on its promises – to customers, to employees, to investors, to the community, in fact, to all stakeholders. A poorly managed corporation that fails to deliver on basic obligations cannot make up for inadequacies with good deeds that have little or no bearing on daily operations. Management should never forget that the corporation is a social as well as a business entity. No corporation has a monopoly on virtue; no corporation has a monopoly on sin. Some corporations have the capacity for both responsible and responsible acts, and sometimes can and will behave both ways simultaneously -- just like people. We know of companies that set high environmental standards, but pay little attention to promoting females to managerial jobs. We know of companies that are exceptional at hiring minorities, but lax in enforcing safety standards. The real measure for the socially responsible corporation is not organizing itself to lead social
change; the real measure is whether it has organized itself to anticipate and to respond appropriately to social change. When to react to social change is a critical decision in which public relations plays a crucial role. Corporations which react early and voluntarily are, by and large, regarded as socially responsible – or, at the very least, responsive to social change. Those who wait until the deadline are usually stigmatized for being unresponsive to social needs and requirements. Timing is critical. The buying public no longer looks only to governments and wellfinanced foundations to solve major societal problems. Corporations are not only adapting themselves to fill this space but see it as a reputation and market building opportunity. Going “green” is just one manifestation. Example: Coca-Cola has great expertise in processing water. It also has the largest footprint in all of Africa. It was only natural when it decided that its most useful contribution to the people of Africa would be helping bring water to water-deprived villages. Doing so makes sense and is a constructive use of corporate assets. In today’s competitive economy, companies and products – brands – seek differentiation at a time when differentiation is harder and harder to achieve. Competitors nowadays often use the same computer design and manufacturing programs. Stand on any busy big city intersection and see how much the cars look alike. And because of the huge impact of national retailers, price points are getting narrower and narrower. It’s a perfect scenario for a new metric – social responsibility -- which many customers use when making a purchasing decision. What’s better than a reputation for social responsibility? Who keeps the conscience of a corporation? Is it the role of the Board, senior management, the whole company? After all, its identity as a ‘person' is just a legal fiction. Surely, it is only real people that might be said to have the capacity to
respond to the still, quiet voice of conscience. And, even if a corporation could have a conscience, would this be a good thing? Perhaps it would be an unwarranted distraction from the prime task of creating wealth for shareholders? These are but a few of the questions that arise, from time to time, in the field of business ethics. Others are of more immediate concern. For example, many in business ask: 1. Can we afford the cost of making this product safe? 2. Can we afford to admit negligence even though we know that we did the wrong thing? 3. Can we afford to let the company's accounts show the real value of our assets? 4. Can we afford to refuse to carry out a client's instructions even when, in all good conscience, we believe to follow them would harm the community? 5. Can we afford to resist paying bribes in order to secure a contract in a difficult overseas market? 6. Can we afford to resist taking advantage of an unintended loop-hole in the law or a contract? Both types of question are common in the field of business ethics. Some people wish that they would go away. Their reasons vary. It may be that the questions are too difficult to answer. It may be that they trespass on area that people try to reserve as ‘private' or ‘personal'. Then again, explicit ethical questions may be troubling because they make the invisible foundations of a corporate culture all too visible. It's sometime surprising to note how many people prefer uncritically to follow patterns laid down in the past. If you ask why something happens the way it does, then the answer comes back, “That's just the way we do things around here”. Responses such as this are understandable. After all, people have enough difficulty coping with the daily demands of life without having to engage in apparently unproductive ‘navel gazing'. However, we want to suggest that thinking about the underlying character of a company is no longer a luxury, but instead, a
matter of necessity. A concern for ethics should be regarded as an essential element in the overall ‘environmental' awareness of the corporation - and especially those that are able to cope with the phenomenon of constant change. Although change has been a constant feature of the human condition, modern societies now experience the phenomenon as a relentless process of such rapidity that even moments of consolidation are washed away by a tide whose volume seems to grow exponentially. At present there seems to be no reason to believe that these circumstances will alter. Indeed, management expert, Peter Drucker, has stressed that an ability to manage change is going to be the defining characteristic of the successful organisation of the future. Even where change is designed to simplify structures and processes, its initial impact is to make lives more complicated. While such comments are widely accepted - even to the extent of being regarded as something of a truism, there is still a tendency to overlook some of the less obvious features of the change process. Amongst those features overlooked is the relationship between patterns of change and the ethical climate of organizations. Role of Management Managements’ ability, generically speaking, to resolve fiscal anomalies whilst balancing commercial and employee welfare is often woefully inadequate. Thankfully, more recent attitudes have changed for the good in that although there are often unpalatable dilemmas facing management the welfare of employees is more prominent in discussions than it used to be. The well-being of employees makes a lot of commercial sense as well as being a humane, decent thing to do. There is also increasing levels of customer and community expectation of management to take responsibility for their actions towards the well-being of
employees. providers or
This
responsibility
covers
direct It is
and
indirect on
employees who are managed through external managed service outsourcing companies. incumbent management to factor-in such ‘soft’ issues that are commercially sound not only because it is socially acceptable, but it does make commercial sense.
At the time of writing this there is a lot of press coverage on climate change, and the impact that globalisation is having on that, and the role of management. The reputation of an organisation is slowly swinging away from focussing on profits and targets, to how they conduct themselves in achieving them. The conduct of business is getting just as much publicity as the figures on the annual accounts.
Social conscience However laudable it may sound does it make commercial sense to have a social conscience? The answer is yes. Those old-school members of management who still practice in key business positions (and there are quite a few) would err on the side of caution believing that to have a social conscience is a luxury. Despite such cynics current sway of opinion is that you cannot afford not to have a social conscience. There is undoubted consumer pressure to become corporately responsible for the effect business has on the environment. This is matched by an increasing awareness from employees who are becoming concerned about the impact their role is having on the environment. Organisations can no longer solely rely on their financial growth to determine share price. However, publicly extolling the virtues of corporate responsibility is one thing, living and breathing it is another. When viewed from both productivity and reputational perspectives there is a lot of sense in ensuring that a social conscience is imbued at all levels of management within an organisation. The symbiotic relationship between commercial and social responsibilities makes for effective management. Embedding that effective mix throughout the managerial infrastructure significantly contributes to the organic growth of a smart, agile and dynamic organisation.
Accepting the premise that a social conscience needs to be embedded throughout all tiers of management, the challenge is making it sufficiently simple and straightforward that it can be applied through normal day-to-day working practices. Trying to devise a complex philosophy would be counterproductive as the intention is to harmonise all tiers of management into an effective unified team. Anything that cannot be easily and simply applied would alienate middle management from executive board level. What would be best is a simple approach applied to existing practices where the inflection raised awareness of the importance of social responsibility, both internally and externally. A question that exemplifies the extent to which management embrace social conscience is do they really care about life-work balance? If so what are the boundaries, and when does it become commercially inconvenient? As the adage goes ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’, or its more modern equivalent ‘do they walk the talk’. Commercial cycle of reincarnation The success of a company is down to the quality of the people who run it. A CEO and colleagues on the executive board are assessed, to a large extent, on their ability to manage a successful organisation in the current business climate. Success is judged, to a large extent, by the commercial markets on profitability and reflected in share price. This in turn is fuelled by the organisation’s efficiency, which manifests in high productivity
through
the
management
of
a
cost
effective
operation.
Maintaining existing profitability in a market that is, say, projected to be quite volatile over the coming year, or increasing profitability on last year’s figures, would be uppermost in a CEO’s mind. In ensuring that the organisation is agile, and can effectively flex to meet the constantly changing demands made by its customers, the CEO would certainly be looking to introduce a number of initiatives aimed at driving efficiency improvements to protect the its market position. Any improvement initiative introduced at the beginning of the year would be monitored regularly, and expected to delivery at year end review. At this point the cycle of productivity review, re-establishing strategic objectives and launching a new wave of improvement initiatives would begin all over again. In effect a cycle of reincarnation.
Trying to do any improvement without looking at the health of the company is foolhardy. Reviewing the health of the company isn’t solely a simple matter of mathematics: i.e. do we have the resources to meet demand? It is about ensuring that the executive management have won the hearts and minds of the employees in a way that will underpin, totally, the proposed strategy and the approach taken to implement the improvement
initiatives. This is particularly relevant if the initiatives embrace change management where the psychology of acceptance plays a big part. If those affected are not bought-in to the programme concept and its aims then it will be that much harder to implement and achieve the desired objectives. It could even fail. There are a number of success factors around maintaining the levels of quality staff within the organisation. Talent management is a constant challenge for many organisations. Labour costs are a major concern in managing an efficient company. Controlling the cost of skilled staff, whether in-house or as provided externally through a third party provider or outsouring company, vexes many good managers. Managing staff retention is part of that as the cost of recruitment is considerable. Clearly anything that minimises the turnover of skilled staff significantly adds to the commercial efficiency of any organisation. This is just a small sample of the personnel challenges regularly facing management. Management, what is this amorphous entity? Management has more tools at its disposal than ever before. Mobile telephony, laptops with wireless, pagers, etc. are all designed to enable disparate working communities to be operationally effective irrespective of geography. Management no longer has to sit alongside those for whom they are responsible. Flexibility offered by new technology enables management and employees to have a mature relationship that offers a degree of agility that has never before been possible. Managerial maturity is
key in harnessing these opportunities to develop a working environment that is highly flexible, productive and cost effective. There is no doubt that management, in its widest context, is often viewed with scorn and dismay by the employees for whom they are responsible. Sometimes it is a fair criticism, sometimes it isn’t. Without doubt management will get blamed for getting it wrong more times than they will be praised for getting it right. But as they say “it’s tough at the top”. A successful organisation cannot afford to have the ‘them and us’ mentality, it undermines any attempt to establish a unified team with a known, and common, purpose. ‘Management’ is the collective noun for those who are responsible for the effective stewardship of the company or organisation. It isn’t just the few elite members of the executive council or board who are ultimately responsible to shareholders, it is about the collective. In order to achieve that synergy there needs to be an effective, integrated relationship between executive and all levels of middle management. Having a truly symbiotic relationship between all managerial layers is critical in nurturing a truly corporate-wide attitude towards the well being of the organisation. If nothing else it helps to eradicate the blame culture that is destructively evident in many organisations. Having a clear definition of what the management fraternity is and its role and responsibilities then we begin to appreciate what their collective objectives and responsibilities are and the
professional relationships required to effect them. collective responsibilities should encompass all management – i.e. commercial and social.
Ideally the aspects of
To many employees a major success criteria for management is respect. If you are respected then you will have the employees behind you through good times and bad times. Effective management needs respect which has to be earned, it cannot be commanded. It is true that respect is earned in different ways in different cultures. Some will respect commercial success at any cost. Others value the manner of the journey rather than the end product itself. Before the onset of globalisation the operating cultures of organisations was very much centred on geographical or national characteristics. Generally speaking the working environment of a British based organisation was much more relaxed (some would say too relaxed), cumbersome and adopted a more measured approach to change. Compared to North American based organisations with their dynamic, hire-and-fire, pressurised environments. Some operational characteristics of an organisation are, however, influenced by national legislation that limits what it can do – e.g. employment law, environmental controls, health and safety, etc. Interestingly, corporate responsibility (or corporate social
responsibility as it is sometimes referred to) has become a popular strategy amongst many large organisations. You have to
ask why? Is it about their relationship with its environment or is it about them ensuring that they appear at an appropriate position in the league of corporate responsibility rankings when compared with their contemporaries. Cynically one could argue that executives are more concerned about their reputation than the environment. In any event a company’s reputation is at risk which could adversely affect its position with business markets and therefore has to be taken seriously. Does one cap fit all? No. Companies differ in their strategies towards fair trade and climate change. As long as the branding and strategy are clear then the consumer knows what to expect. Some retail clothing companies who market themselves on the basis of providing low cost, affordable items produced in countries where there is no minimum wage, thrive on that brand. For which there are no apologies. What you see is what you get, and their success clearly indicates that employees and customers are happy with their strategy. Whereas fashionable clothing retailers whose brand is reportedly high quality, high cost products suffers badly if it is found to be using cheap labour in places like India or China. It is about company branding, its alignment to its declared strategy and customer expectations. Management have to be clear on their brand for both their employees and customers. Understanding the concerns and desires of the employees makes as much commercial sense as determining those of the customer (after all employees are
someone else’s customers). Employees who believe in the social strategy of the firm are more likely to become more loyal than those who don’t and assessing their feelings on these topics is essential. Losing quality staff to competition because the brand was not positioned and marketed properly does not make commercial sense. Either the competitor has got it wrong or you have. Conscience, where’s that in the job description? How do you know if a manager is successful? Did they meet their annual productivity targets? Have they come in below budget? Has the growth of the company exceeded x% since the last publicly declared results? These are the types of issues that one normally associate with traditional management which constitutes their commercial conscience. Senior management discussions are increasingly including factors that are more aligned with the well being of the organisation. The diction of management is becoming ‘softer’ and more focussed on establishing a ‘happy’ workforce that will contribute to its productivity and reputation as a professional, dynamic organisation. This is its social conscience. Social conscience is all about the well-being of the company. Like any living organism a fit, healthy and happy one will always outperform an unhappy one. State of mind is a major factor in maximising performance for both the team and individuals. So it
makes sense for management to ensure that the employees are in the best possible state of health, both physically and mentally. Ensuring that the employees are ‘on-board’ with the stipulated corporate direction and are ‘bought-in’ to the approach over the coming months is key to securing success. In fact their belief in management is crucial to the long-term success of the organisation. Getting an assessment of employees ability to perform well under the current managerial regime is very valuable to an organisation’s future. It is also important to have an understanding of any damaging misconceptions that they may have about management’s stewardship. Determining the health of the most important asset of any organisation just seems common sense to me. Demonstrating that employees are onboard with the executive management is a good indication to the business markets that the company is in good health which will undoubtedly evaluation. be positively reflected in any stock market
doc_475246215.doc
The documentation explain whether the corporates can have a conscience.
Can a Corporate Have A Conscience?
Introduction People are different; therefore we should expect corporations to be different. The naturalist Henry Thoreau summed it up in a 19th Century essay: “It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.” While it should operate honestly and ethically, the corporation is not moralistic by nature; it’s pragmatic. Mostly, it is conservative – dedicated to nurturing and growing shareowner assets. Its first duty, as we see it, is to manage its affairs properly and profitably. When it does that well, it is fulfilling its greatest obligation to society. It has a duty to compensate employees and reward investors fairly. It has a duty to create favorable and safe working conditions for employees and produce goods and services of value. It has a duty to deliver on its promises – to customers, to employees, to investors, to the community, in fact, to all stakeholders. A poorly managed corporation that fails to deliver on basic obligations cannot make up for inadequacies with good deeds that have little or no bearing on daily operations. Management should never forget that the corporation is a social as well as a business entity. No corporation has a monopoly on virtue; no corporation has a monopoly on sin. Some corporations have the capacity for both responsible and responsible acts, and sometimes can and will behave both ways simultaneously -- just like people. We know of companies that set high environmental standards, but pay little attention to promoting females to managerial jobs. We know of companies that are exceptional at hiring minorities, but lax in enforcing safety standards. The real measure for the socially responsible corporation is not organizing itself to lead social
change; the real measure is whether it has organized itself to anticipate and to respond appropriately to social change. When to react to social change is a critical decision in which public relations plays a crucial role. Corporations which react early and voluntarily are, by and large, regarded as socially responsible – or, at the very least, responsive to social change. Those who wait until the deadline are usually stigmatized for being unresponsive to social needs and requirements. Timing is critical. The buying public no longer looks only to governments and wellfinanced foundations to solve major societal problems. Corporations are not only adapting themselves to fill this space but see it as a reputation and market building opportunity. Going “green” is just one manifestation. Example: Coca-Cola has great expertise in processing water. It also has the largest footprint in all of Africa. It was only natural when it decided that its most useful contribution to the people of Africa would be helping bring water to water-deprived villages. Doing so makes sense and is a constructive use of corporate assets. In today’s competitive economy, companies and products – brands – seek differentiation at a time when differentiation is harder and harder to achieve. Competitors nowadays often use the same computer design and manufacturing programs. Stand on any busy big city intersection and see how much the cars look alike. And because of the huge impact of national retailers, price points are getting narrower and narrower. It’s a perfect scenario for a new metric – social responsibility -- which many customers use when making a purchasing decision. What’s better than a reputation for social responsibility? Who keeps the conscience of a corporation? Is it the role of the Board, senior management, the whole company? After all, its identity as a ‘person' is just a legal fiction. Surely, it is only real people that might be said to have the capacity to
respond to the still, quiet voice of conscience. And, even if a corporation could have a conscience, would this be a good thing? Perhaps it would be an unwarranted distraction from the prime task of creating wealth for shareholders? These are but a few of the questions that arise, from time to time, in the field of business ethics. Others are of more immediate concern. For example, many in business ask: 1. Can we afford the cost of making this product safe? 2. Can we afford to admit negligence even though we know that we did the wrong thing? 3. Can we afford to let the company's accounts show the real value of our assets? 4. Can we afford to refuse to carry out a client's instructions even when, in all good conscience, we believe to follow them would harm the community? 5. Can we afford to resist paying bribes in order to secure a contract in a difficult overseas market? 6. Can we afford to resist taking advantage of an unintended loop-hole in the law or a contract? Both types of question are common in the field of business ethics. Some people wish that they would go away. Their reasons vary. It may be that the questions are too difficult to answer. It may be that they trespass on area that people try to reserve as ‘private' or ‘personal'. Then again, explicit ethical questions may be troubling because they make the invisible foundations of a corporate culture all too visible. It's sometime surprising to note how many people prefer uncritically to follow patterns laid down in the past. If you ask why something happens the way it does, then the answer comes back, “That's just the way we do things around here”. Responses such as this are understandable. After all, people have enough difficulty coping with the daily demands of life without having to engage in apparently unproductive ‘navel gazing'. However, we want to suggest that thinking about the underlying character of a company is no longer a luxury, but instead, a
matter of necessity. A concern for ethics should be regarded as an essential element in the overall ‘environmental' awareness of the corporation - and especially those that are able to cope with the phenomenon of constant change. Although change has been a constant feature of the human condition, modern societies now experience the phenomenon as a relentless process of such rapidity that even moments of consolidation are washed away by a tide whose volume seems to grow exponentially. At present there seems to be no reason to believe that these circumstances will alter. Indeed, management expert, Peter Drucker, has stressed that an ability to manage change is going to be the defining characteristic of the successful organisation of the future. Even where change is designed to simplify structures and processes, its initial impact is to make lives more complicated. While such comments are widely accepted - even to the extent of being regarded as something of a truism, there is still a tendency to overlook some of the less obvious features of the change process. Amongst those features overlooked is the relationship between patterns of change and the ethical climate of organizations. Role of Management Managements’ ability, generically speaking, to resolve fiscal anomalies whilst balancing commercial and employee welfare is often woefully inadequate. Thankfully, more recent attitudes have changed for the good in that although there are often unpalatable dilemmas facing management the welfare of employees is more prominent in discussions than it used to be. The well-being of employees makes a lot of commercial sense as well as being a humane, decent thing to do. There is also increasing levels of customer and community expectation of management to take responsibility for their actions towards the well-being of
employees. providers or
This
responsibility
covers
direct It is
and
indirect on
employees who are managed through external managed service outsourcing companies. incumbent management to factor-in such ‘soft’ issues that are commercially sound not only because it is socially acceptable, but it does make commercial sense.
At the time of writing this there is a lot of press coverage on climate change, and the impact that globalisation is having on that, and the role of management. The reputation of an organisation is slowly swinging away from focussing on profits and targets, to how they conduct themselves in achieving them. The conduct of business is getting just as much publicity as the figures on the annual accounts.
Social conscience However laudable it may sound does it make commercial sense to have a social conscience? The answer is yes. Those old-school members of management who still practice in key business positions (and there are quite a few) would err on the side of caution believing that to have a social conscience is a luxury. Despite such cynics current sway of opinion is that you cannot afford not to have a social conscience. There is undoubted consumer pressure to become corporately responsible for the effect business has on the environment. This is matched by an increasing awareness from employees who are becoming concerned about the impact their role is having on the environment. Organisations can no longer solely rely on their financial growth to determine share price. However, publicly extolling the virtues of corporate responsibility is one thing, living and breathing it is another. When viewed from both productivity and reputational perspectives there is a lot of sense in ensuring that a social conscience is imbued at all levels of management within an organisation. The symbiotic relationship between commercial and social responsibilities makes for effective management. Embedding that effective mix throughout the managerial infrastructure significantly contributes to the organic growth of a smart, agile and dynamic organisation.
Accepting the premise that a social conscience needs to be embedded throughout all tiers of management, the challenge is making it sufficiently simple and straightforward that it can be applied through normal day-to-day working practices. Trying to devise a complex philosophy would be counterproductive as the intention is to harmonise all tiers of management into an effective unified team. Anything that cannot be easily and simply applied would alienate middle management from executive board level. What would be best is a simple approach applied to existing practices where the inflection raised awareness of the importance of social responsibility, both internally and externally. A question that exemplifies the extent to which management embrace social conscience is do they really care about life-work balance? If so what are the boundaries, and when does it become commercially inconvenient? As the adage goes ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’, or its more modern equivalent ‘do they walk the talk’. Commercial cycle of reincarnation The success of a company is down to the quality of the people who run it. A CEO and colleagues on the executive board are assessed, to a large extent, on their ability to manage a successful organisation in the current business climate. Success is judged, to a large extent, by the commercial markets on profitability and reflected in share price. This in turn is fuelled by the organisation’s efficiency, which manifests in high productivity
through
the
management
of
a
cost
effective
operation.
Maintaining existing profitability in a market that is, say, projected to be quite volatile over the coming year, or increasing profitability on last year’s figures, would be uppermost in a CEO’s mind. In ensuring that the organisation is agile, and can effectively flex to meet the constantly changing demands made by its customers, the CEO would certainly be looking to introduce a number of initiatives aimed at driving efficiency improvements to protect the its market position. Any improvement initiative introduced at the beginning of the year would be monitored regularly, and expected to delivery at year end review. At this point the cycle of productivity review, re-establishing strategic objectives and launching a new wave of improvement initiatives would begin all over again. In effect a cycle of reincarnation.
Trying to do any improvement without looking at the health of the company is foolhardy. Reviewing the health of the company isn’t solely a simple matter of mathematics: i.e. do we have the resources to meet demand? It is about ensuring that the executive management have won the hearts and minds of the employees in a way that will underpin, totally, the proposed strategy and the approach taken to implement the improvement
initiatives. This is particularly relevant if the initiatives embrace change management where the psychology of acceptance plays a big part. If those affected are not bought-in to the programme concept and its aims then it will be that much harder to implement and achieve the desired objectives. It could even fail. There are a number of success factors around maintaining the levels of quality staff within the organisation. Talent management is a constant challenge for many organisations. Labour costs are a major concern in managing an efficient company. Controlling the cost of skilled staff, whether in-house or as provided externally through a third party provider or outsouring company, vexes many good managers. Managing staff retention is part of that as the cost of recruitment is considerable. Clearly anything that minimises the turnover of skilled staff significantly adds to the commercial efficiency of any organisation. This is just a small sample of the personnel challenges regularly facing management. Management, what is this amorphous entity? Management has more tools at its disposal than ever before. Mobile telephony, laptops with wireless, pagers, etc. are all designed to enable disparate working communities to be operationally effective irrespective of geography. Management no longer has to sit alongside those for whom they are responsible. Flexibility offered by new technology enables management and employees to have a mature relationship that offers a degree of agility that has never before been possible. Managerial maturity is
key in harnessing these opportunities to develop a working environment that is highly flexible, productive and cost effective. There is no doubt that management, in its widest context, is often viewed with scorn and dismay by the employees for whom they are responsible. Sometimes it is a fair criticism, sometimes it isn’t. Without doubt management will get blamed for getting it wrong more times than they will be praised for getting it right. But as they say “it’s tough at the top”. A successful organisation cannot afford to have the ‘them and us’ mentality, it undermines any attempt to establish a unified team with a known, and common, purpose. ‘Management’ is the collective noun for those who are responsible for the effective stewardship of the company or organisation. It isn’t just the few elite members of the executive council or board who are ultimately responsible to shareholders, it is about the collective. In order to achieve that synergy there needs to be an effective, integrated relationship between executive and all levels of middle management. Having a truly symbiotic relationship between all managerial layers is critical in nurturing a truly corporate-wide attitude towards the well being of the organisation. If nothing else it helps to eradicate the blame culture that is destructively evident in many organisations. Having a clear definition of what the management fraternity is and its role and responsibilities then we begin to appreciate what their collective objectives and responsibilities are and the
professional relationships required to effect them. collective responsibilities should encompass all management – i.e. commercial and social.
Ideally the aspects of
To many employees a major success criteria for management is respect. If you are respected then you will have the employees behind you through good times and bad times. Effective management needs respect which has to be earned, it cannot be commanded. It is true that respect is earned in different ways in different cultures. Some will respect commercial success at any cost. Others value the manner of the journey rather than the end product itself. Before the onset of globalisation the operating cultures of organisations was very much centred on geographical or national characteristics. Generally speaking the working environment of a British based organisation was much more relaxed (some would say too relaxed), cumbersome and adopted a more measured approach to change. Compared to North American based organisations with their dynamic, hire-and-fire, pressurised environments. Some operational characteristics of an organisation are, however, influenced by national legislation that limits what it can do – e.g. employment law, environmental controls, health and safety, etc. Interestingly, corporate responsibility (or corporate social
responsibility as it is sometimes referred to) has become a popular strategy amongst many large organisations. You have to
ask why? Is it about their relationship with its environment or is it about them ensuring that they appear at an appropriate position in the league of corporate responsibility rankings when compared with their contemporaries. Cynically one could argue that executives are more concerned about their reputation than the environment. In any event a company’s reputation is at risk which could adversely affect its position with business markets and therefore has to be taken seriously. Does one cap fit all? No. Companies differ in their strategies towards fair trade and climate change. As long as the branding and strategy are clear then the consumer knows what to expect. Some retail clothing companies who market themselves on the basis of providing low cost, affordable items produced in countries where there is no minimum wage, thrive on that brand. For which there are no apologies. What you see is what you get, and their success clearly indicates that employees and customers are happy with their strategy. Whereas fashionable clothing retailers whose brand is reportedly high quality, high cost products suffers badly if it is found to be using cheap labour in places like India or China. It is about company branding, its alignment to its declared strategy and customer expectations. Management have to be clear on their brand for both their employees and customers. Understanding the concerns and desires of the employees makes as much commercial sense as determining those of the customer (after all employees are
someone else’s customers). Employees who believe in the social strategy of the firm are more likely to become more loyal than those who don’t and assessing their feelings on these topics is essential. Losing quality staff to competition because the brand was not positioned and marketed properly does not make commercial sense. Either the competitor has got it wrong or you have. Conscience, where’s that in the job description? How do you know if a manager is successful? Did they meet their annual productivity targets? Have they come in below budget? Has the growth of the company exceeded x% since the last publicly declared results? These are the types of issues that one normally associate with traditional management which constitutes their commercial conscience. Senior management discussions are increasingly including factors that are more aligned with the well being of the organisation. The diction of management is becoming ‘softer’ and more focussed on establishing a ‘happy’ workforce that will contribute to its productivity and reputation as a professional, dynamic organisation. This is its social conscience. Social conscience is all about the well-being of the company. Like any living organism a fit, healthy and happy one will always outperform an unhappy one. State of mind is a major factor in maximising performance for both the team and individuals. So it
makes sense for management to ensure that the employees are in the best possible state of health, both physically and mentally. Ensuring that the employees are ‘on-board’ with the stipulated corporate direction and are ‘bought-in’ to the approach over the coming months is key to securing success. In fact their belief in management is crucial to the long-term success of the organisation. Getting an assessment of employees ability to perform well under the current managerial regime is very valuable to an organisation’s future. It is also important to have an understanding of any damaging misconceptions that they may have about management’s stewardship. Determining the health of the most important asset of any organisation just seems common sense to me. Demonstrating that employees are onboard with the executive management is a good indication to the business markets that the company is in good health which will undoubtedly evaluation. be positively reflected in any stock market
doc_475246215.doc