arguments against CSR and some answers
Global Reporting Initiative - commentary
Mallen Baker's Blog
Don't let your CSR commitment become a joyless code for jobsworths
11 Jan 2010
If you want a large organisation to get consistent results, you have to organise for it. Whether its making sure that your people never ever take bribes, or hitting a target for zero accidents. You have to make systems that will deliver. But where do you draw the line?
There's a whole bunch of reasons why you have to be boring about CSR sometimes. For instance, the reasons for accidents at work are usually because people at the front line choose not to follow established procedures. Getting people to take what seem to be insanely over-the-top precautions makes you into one of those people the risk-takers, entrepreneurs and marketers love to hate.
The trick is to find ways to deliver results that don't simply create the compliance boredom mentality - and that's hard.
I thought about this over Christmas when I read the news about a London restaurant that was requiring its customers to sign away their right to sue before they had a helping of Christmas pudding that might contain coins. Other restaurants have done something similar when serving meat cooked rare.
This, of course, is not about protecting customers in any kind of duty of care role. It is about covering one's backside in the face of choices customers make that carry with them a natural risk.
I was charmed by this video on the 'eight principles of fun' by A Box of Crayons. It includes the principle that sometimes you need to break the rules.
"If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun".
As a CSR manager, you probably spend a lot of time making rules and persuading people that they need to be followed.
If you want consistent rules when it counts, then that's pretty much unavoidable.
But there's a danger that you get too used to solving problems by creating rules around them. Sometimes, it's better to engage, educate and inspire people to think about the positive things they can do, not just the things they shouldn't.
How do we make socially responsible business fun? A route to success? Something that makes you feel good about the day's work because you achieved something worthwhile, not just because you successfully navigated a maze of jobsworths from the CSR department telling you that you should be losing weight and getting fit?
When was the last time you brainstormed positive things you should be getting your people to do, rather than ways to strengthen internal controls?
Tags: CSR consistency entrepreneurs trust marketing corporate social responsibility Mallen Baker
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2 comments for this post
Comment by: Grainne Madden on 12 Jan 2010
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Lovely piece Mallen. It's a real connundrum for CSR managers (or whatever they happen to be called in their particular organisation). It can be tempting to keep on adding layers of rules but it's so boring and ultimately potentially confusing. Going back to Linda Trevino's (and colleagues) article of 1999 “Managing Ethics and Legal Compliance: What Works and What Hurts” where she found that employee perceptions of codes of conduct were most favourable towards a mix of rules and values based codes. So the best way seems to be to identify what really needs rules and for the rest identify the important values and help staff understand the behaviour that supports those values. If done well it's more compelling, it's more memorable and it's more likely to result in the right kind of behaviour.
Comment by: Ferdiansyah on 14 Jan 2010
I agree with the notion that too many rules sometimes becomes confusing. I think some of the reason people simply disobey the rules is because there already too many rules for us (or workers in the organization). In my understanding, even though I'm still merely low level staff, system (or rules) should be made as simple as possible. When I conduct chit-chat with some of our employees, they simply not noticing CSR (or whatever benefit is there) due to they already been too much busy with their own job, and at some point I agree to them. Many of us, CSR practicioner wants total compliance, by adding system, new rules, educating them. however, it simply didn't bore into their mind because they already have a full load of jobs to be done. Of course it would be a challenge for us to create a simple rules (or system) that might covering the loopholes, ensuring compliance, and benefiting for them too. Simple has never been too easy before.