By Susan Thomas, Assistant Director, Electronic Communications, Boston College Center

With stress on corporate citizenship at an all-time high, will corporate citizenship break, bend or evolve?

That was the question three panelists – Microsoft’s Dan Bross, FedEx’s Rose Jackson Flenorl, and Ahold USA’s Harriet Hentges – were asked to answer.

All three, along with moderator Rick Martella of ARAMARK, are members of the Boston College Center’s Advisory Board. As such, they were asked to share the trends they are seeing, the new opportunities for citizenship to contribute to corporate health and reputation, and some of the tangible actions they’ve been taking to maximize the contribution that CSR can make to business.

Rick Martella started by distinguishing between what he called “baseline stress” and the new stress caused by changes over the last six months, including the global economic crisis, the confidence and trust crisis, the new Administration, and the perceived environmental crisis.

He then outlined some of the major themes he and the other panel members have been hearing over the past six months:

1. The stress is real, almost everyone in every industry is feeling it. Our interpretation, reaction and how we behave are now the questions at hand
2. Citizenship professionals are overwhelmingly creating opportunities out of adversity. In particular, the new Administration’s call to responsibility and civic engagement present a new opportunity to engage millions of our corporate citizens in service, and imminent environmental policy changes may accelerate our opportunity to move programs and commitments forward.
3. It is time to be on the offense, not defense. This is a time of innovation and re-invention, so look forward, not back.
4. Citizenship professionals are shifting how they act and behave. We need to think more like business “operators.” Now is the time to show up differently.
5. It is more important than ever to deeply know and understand our core businesses; only then can we offer citizenship as part of a solution to targeted business challenges.
6. Everyone is looking for best practices and tangible advice; this conference is an opportunity to share and find them.

Dan Bross echoed that the stress is real, but had an important piece of advice: Get over it! All the other parts of the business are being asked how they achieve value, and to prove that they are efficient and focused. Corporate citizenship is under no more pressure than other departments to answer these questions, he said, and it is an exhilarating time to be a corporate citizenship change agent. “We all have more opportunities to embed corporate citizenship in our companies than ever before, and we should take advantage of them.” He advised to do so without being emotion or hysterical, acknowledging that “for many of us, these issues are emotional and personal. But if you personalize the operations side of corporate citizenship, it could be diminished.”

Rose Flenorl agreed that this is a time of opportunity, saying that she has seen much more collaboration between internal departments. She also talked about the importance of story telling, saying that “the better I tell my story, especially to employees, the easier my job is.” FedEx is making the storytelling easier with an enhanced web site and citizenship blog, allowing more and more people in the field to tell the company story as well.

Harriet Hentges said that her greatest stress is trying to move fast enough to harness all of the enthusiasm for corporate citizenship in her company. As a food retailer, she explained, healthy living is a core focus for Ahold. One of her challenges in this down economy is working with food banks to help keep the hungry fed. Another focus is on keeping food healthy and sustainable. In her case, she said, working with employees is the best corporate citizenship opportunity she has. “If we seed the idea with the employees, they will get energized and run with it. We’re missing an opportunity if we don’t do that.”

All of the panelists agreed that one of the greatest stresses is deciding where to put their energies. “Most of us are in the business of connecting dots – and that takes a lot of time,” said Dan Bross. Nobody wants to ask their boss, “What do you want me to stop doing,” so it is critical that you decide where to put your efforts, and what to pull back from. If there are programs that aren’t getting the outcome you want, you may need to pull the plug on them. If you’re spread too thin and asking people in the field to do too much, you may need to pull back.

Here is Rick’s summary of the observations surfaced by audience and panel members:

• This is fertile ground for tough decisions… MAKE THEM!
• Invite (or be invited) to “build a bigger table” for discussions within our organizations.
• Connect priorities across businesses and functions and look for efficiencies.
• Get over the stress shock…you are not the only one and aren’t being discriminated against
• Use emotion wisely and don’t wear it on your sleeve.
• Be a change agent but don’t try and be a “super person”; talk the language of concrete, relevant wins for your audience; be a solutions broker.
• Constantly redefine strategies and programs – it’s a moving and ever-evolving target.
• Define and adapt your strategies so that outside influences don’t!
• Story tell. Build a consistent story to tell internally and externally around strategy and outcomes.
• Adjust your storytelling as needed given current conditions.
• Use vernacular that resonates within your company and specific audiences.
• Engagement and collaboration with your businesses around design and execution is more important now than ever.

Tags: 2009 Conference, stress test
This entry was posted by Susan Thomas, Assistant Director, Electronic Communications, Boston College Center on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 2:01 PM, and is filed under Center News & Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.