00:00:01
vitold hennis professor of management
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here at the wharton school
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with lucy parker and john miller it's a
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real pleasure to have this opportunity
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to talk with both of you
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i really enjoyed reading your book
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recently on the topic
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the unlikely story about how big
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business can fix the world
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um can you speak a bit about the origins
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of the book uh i mean in this time of
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skepticism
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hostility towards big business uh where
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the profession of management has fallen
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even below lawyers
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in terms of its reputation according to
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a long-standing pube
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research poll what inspired you both
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individually and together to come
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together and write this book
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well i think the clues in the subtitle
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in a way the unlikely story
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of how big business can fix the world
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because you talk about big business to
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most people out there in the world and
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you get kind of a
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quite instant sort of allergic reaction
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often there's a very very deep-seated
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sort of suspicion and hostility towards
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big business and it's kind of easy to
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understand why i mean
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these big companies have a long history
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of crimes and misdemeanors which are
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well documented and everybody knows and
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it's great that people are holding them
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to account
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but i think for both of us in in
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different ways we had seen in our
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in our histories it's not the only story
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actually
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that big businesses can also be really
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powerful positive engines for social
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change and
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and it's a kind of missed opportunity
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for the world actually if the only story
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around is that big businesses are the
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bad guys
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and we missed the opportunity to harness
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that power and and direct it at some
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some positive change so the book is
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really targeted at the skeptics the the
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the activists the those who are critical
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uh or is it the sympathetic managers who
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are trying to affect this change
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who are you trying to reach both i think
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that um
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again going back to the title of the
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book everybody is the short answer but
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actually uh i think that the fact is
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that there's a
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world outside business that doesn't
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understand it that doesn't get it
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and as john was saying it felt to us as
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though there are
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a lot of things to describe a lot of
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things to see
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that businesses do that a lot of people
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never get to see and our working lives
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had given us the opportunity to see them
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so it felt as though we needed to tell
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those stories so that people who are not
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familiar with business could see them
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but there was also running in our heads
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i think the feeling that if you are in a
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big business
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and either doing this stuff or asking
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yourself the question how
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how does our business relate to this
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skepticism on the outside
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that it would be good if those people
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found themselves nodding for once and
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going yes that that is how we
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look at it that is how we act and that
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you wanted
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to show people on the inside of business
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how much they could do
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well the book follows the structure of
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bringing the reader along on a journey
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a personal journey a corporate journey
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in which executives from a number of
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leading multinationals coca-cola pepsi
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sab miller ibm unilever
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mahindra mtn so many companies um even
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mining companies which which people may
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be surprised at such as bhp and
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anglo-american
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um go on a journey of trying to affect
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social change in a profitable manner
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you referenced your own personal
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backgrounds and how did you meet these
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individuals how did you choose
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the protagonists for the chapters and
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where did you first learn about their
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journeys
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well i think that both of us have worked
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for a long time in the corporate
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universe
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and so we've for a long time known of
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some of these companies
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and i think that um there's also a
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leading pack of corporates
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really showing the way on this and
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we were turning to them and wanting to
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say
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when they're doing it well what does it
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look like
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when in no way arguing that all
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businesses act like this in fact part of
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the reason for writing it is to say if
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we could see more clearly
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what the ones who are doing it
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effectively are doing would it help make
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more of it happen
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so we were definitely turning to the
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leading corporates and then we were also
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asking can we be sure we've gone
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really across the sectors to show that
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this isn't something unique to any
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sector you mentioned mining
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a lot of people even said to us how can
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you have mining in a book about how
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business does good
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on the other hand virtually everything
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you know the equipment around us
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counts on mining so the question isn't
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do we need the industry or not the
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question is
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how can the industry act in a way that's
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positive for the world around it
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so that was the question we were asking
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of every single sector really
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but you're absolutely right to say it's
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uh it's a journey and i think we were
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very keen
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from the outset to to make sure that the
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the heroes of this book are the people
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in the companies
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actually because that's where the the
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real energy is
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and so often it's really easy to think
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of these big companies as these
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faceless monolithic kind of entities
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whereas they are just collections of of
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people and organizational structures and
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you know
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relationships and and that's that's
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where the change happens
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actually so we wanted to go and see what
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does it look like at the front line when
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these big companies are interacting with
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the communities around them when they're
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really tangling with the issues that are
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confronting them
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what is that actually like and what are
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those people going through what's their
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experiences and
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to bring that to life is what we've
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tried to do were you drawing on prior
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experience in the field with these
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companies or did you actually embark on
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your own journey around the world to
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some of these sites and communities to
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draw very much both uh i mean lucy and i
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both have seen this kind of
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independently in in our in our own
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histories
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i spent a lot of time out i was working
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for brands like coca-cola
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and spent a lot of time out in africa
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where i would almost expect to you know
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people would see coke as the
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as the bad guys actually you know these
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big
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massive global multinational um whereas
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actually you see i remember meeting a
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whole bunch of people at one point in
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ethiopia
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who were absolutely clear that you take
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a company like coca-cola that at that
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point had been in africa for about 80
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years
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very few institutions have invested over
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such a long time frame in africa
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have done more in terms of creating
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wealth through the supply chains through
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the
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working with the farmers through the
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distribution networks through training
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people in their
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their operations and i remember having
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some of these guys who worked for like
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the unicefs and save the childrens of
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this world saying
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these big companies can achieve more in
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a place like africa than many of the
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ngos actually
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and that was a shock to me at the time
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to to hear that and
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and that creating that loop in a way is
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partly why we've
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written the book to close that and
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interestingly one of the things that
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really comes across and i
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hope it comes across in the stories is
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that one of the startling things when
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you see it from inside a company
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is how detailed the work is this isn't
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conceptual theoretical work at the
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senior levels it needs senior
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endorsement
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but what actually happens is very
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detailed very on the ground
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very skilled and it takes people a long
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time and they're learning lessons as
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they go all the time
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so when you meet the people who are
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doing this you find yourself sort of
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just warming warming to the fact that
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they're working so hard at this
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and they're really trying to make change
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happen and
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you don't often hear that story told and
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you don't even hear it in books about
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social change which are very often
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conceptual so that's why we wanted to
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draw on the people i think
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i think that's a really interesting
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point i think it's amazing to think how
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few employees of the companies you're
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studying
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and how few customers actually know
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about the stories you're telling
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exactly why do you think the story
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hasn't been effectively told
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either by the protagonists you've
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interviewed and featured
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or more broadly by the external affairs
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the media affairs companies
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of the companies you're working with
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it's it's very powerful again both to
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customers and to employees
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and yet it's a largely untold story to
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some extent
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it's a news story i mean there's no
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doubt that you know
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business has got a long history of
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interacting with communities and there
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are lots of examples of
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you know self enlightened self-interest
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stretching back decades but
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actually what we're looking at with this
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book are very much a leading bunch of
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companies
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on a new edge of figuring out how do we
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really deal with society deal with
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all our relationships in the world to
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create the broadest possible set of
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positive outcomes
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and and that is is really a new story
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and i think the the headlines have been
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dominated by
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you know leaks and spills and uh you
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know tax avoidance and there's absolute
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litany
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of corporate you know wrongdoing
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and that's the story that people have
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that's what's in the public imagination
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this is an antidote to that but it's
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nascent um and i think
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the you know the reason for writing the
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book really is to try and and give that
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energy to try and put you know wind in
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the sails of that
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of that nascent movement and
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interestingly when we began to write it
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and you talk to people we're talking to
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loads of people because as you say
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we're working across sectors and right
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from the boardroom right out to the
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front line
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so we're talking about it all the time
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and one of the questions that would come
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from the skeptics as to use your
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language would be oh yes i know
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businesses do some
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good things but usually they're just on
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the side aren't they they're just
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peripheral
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and so the thing that's particularly new
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i think
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is the dialogue about how does a
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business take this way of interacting
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with the world into its core
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how do we reconnect the core of business
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to wider society
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and when john refers to them as leaders
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what makes them leaders is those are the
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companies experimenting with that
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so um then actually it's hardly a story
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to be told
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and a lot of companies who don't get
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this theme at all
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they may be in the headlines for the
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very drastic
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breaking of some kind of social contract
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and the historical methodology would
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have been to say but we are doing some
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good things over here almost like
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they're a trade-off
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and one of the things we're trying to
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write about is suppose we didn't buy
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that trade-off anymore suppose you
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actually asked yourself
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as a company why would we all of us look
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at you and
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go well broadly speaking that's that's a
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good thing that company is
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working in a positive way so we're
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trying to get beyond a sort of narrative
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that goes
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they're good they're evil they're good
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they're evil and go what direction of
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travel are they that's
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another of the images about journey
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really it doesn't happen all at once
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you have to start and then you have to
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keep moving so that this is a journey
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for the companies as well
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and we're trying to show that i think
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one of the constraints that many
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companies face is
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time horizons the different time
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horizons of investors
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of analysts and even of managers who are
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looking for their next promotion
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or their next lateral move and the
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payoffs
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from the strategies you're describing by
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bringing society into the core
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are often 5 10 maybe 20 years out
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creating an african middle class
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india rising new customers new products
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new services
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new technologies what what tools what
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processes have you seen in place to
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to focus attention on the longer term
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and avoid the short-term pressures at
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the individual
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or at the corporate level i think it's
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another reason that it's a new story
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because i think one of the reasons it's
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shaping up in the way it is is that the
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crash and all the fallout from that
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is actually opening a new conversation
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about long-term
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capitalism long-term shareholder value
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and it's not an
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accident that some of the industries
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that are leading in this are some of the
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most problematical industries
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that have had to forge an answer and
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also if you are a mining company or a
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big engineering company or a
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pharmaceutical company
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your horizon is longer so actually for
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the leading ceos there's quite
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um an opportunity in being able to talk
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to your shareholders about the long term
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again
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and about saying that some of these
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issues are about delivering strategic
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long-term value not short-term quarterly
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value you could think of it as
00:11:23
think about license to operate and you
00:11:25
look at an issue like water for example
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and you see the long term and the kind
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of immediate term collide completely so
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okay water's clearly a very long-term
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issue and managing water stewardship is
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a long-term
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question however then you get
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likes of coca-cola and pepsico almost
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kicked out of
00:11:42
india overnight for their you know
00:11:45
behaviour around
00:11:46
water and the issues surrounded
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surrounding that so it wasn't a question
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of short-term
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long-term is this is a big issue that we
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need to address now
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and shareholders often understand it as
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risk management so in a mining company
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it'll be
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actually the non-technical risk social
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and political risk
00:12:02
is maybe what's stopping your project so
00:12:04
there is a marriage of these two themes
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but
00:12:06
it will take a while well i noted that
00:12:08
many of the stories many of the journeys
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begin
00:12:10
with a crisis or a billion dollar loss
00:12:14
uh do you think the companies who want
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to follow in the footsteps of these
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leaders
00:12:18
who want to start their own journeys
00:12:19
need a jolt that big
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do we really need a crisis a billion
00:12:23
dollar loss deaths to to focus attention
00:12:26
on
00:12:26
broader societal issues if not what else
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separates the companies uh that are
00:12:31
engaged in more superficial philanthropy
00:12:33
on the side
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from those that are bringing it into the
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core it seems like crises and shocks are
00:12:38
a big motivator yeah i mean there's no
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no doubt that
00:12:41
a lot of the companies that we talk
00:12:43
about who really are breaking new
00:12:44
grounds in terms of the way they deal
00:12:45
with environmental issues or in
00:12:47
social relationships have been through i
00:12:50
really think it's like a dark night of
00:12:51
the soul they've had some terrible times
00:12:53
and they've had to dig really deep and
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figure out
00:12:55
who are we actually and how actually do
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we do do we do business
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um but i you know if if other companies
00:13:01
want to wait
00:13:02
until they have that moment fine i mean
00:13:05
in the way we think of it in a way is
00:13:07
what business is good at is changing
00:13:09
actually and adapting
00:13:11
and you know businesses that don't do
00:13:12
that go extinct that's the nature of
00:13:15
business actually and you know those
00:13:17
companies are the leaders now are
00:13:18
leaders because they had to adapt to
00:13:20
some extreme situations that they found
00:13:22
themselves in
00:13:23
other businesses may learn from that and
00:13:26
may get ahead of the game
00:13:27
or they may wait until their own dark
00:13:29
knight comes and visits them
00:13:31
they'd be smarter to get ahead of it i
00:13:33
think there's a new paradigm emerging
00:13:34
though because
00:13:35
short-term shareholder value is being so
00:13:37
heavily questioned
00:13:38
so if you what you're saying is does it
00:13:41
need a jolt
00:13:42
but like people sometimes a jolt is what
00:13:44
it takes
00:13:45
but actually there is a new paradigm
00:13:47
emerging it
00:13:48
when i started to advise corporates long
00:13:51
time ago
00:13:52
it was quite natural for a ceo to say
00:13:55
the purpose of this company is to
00:13:56
deliver shareholder value
00:13:57
there are not many ceos that say that
00:14:00
now
00:14:00
and it's because actually people are
00:14:02
beginning to realize that it does have
00:14:04
to work for
00:14:04
everybody shorthand for all stakeholders
00:14:07
and so
00:14:08
there is a new norm being created which
00:14:10
is that you're really derelict in your
00:14:12
duty unless you're understanding
00:14:13
the long term and unless you're
00:14:15
understanding the breadth of shareholder
00:14:16
value
00:14:17
uh stakeholder value so i think that
00:14:19
there is a new norm arriving that may
00:14:21
mean that not everybody has to go
00:14:22
through that jolt to get that
00:14:24
thought in their heads well so to give
00:14:27
people a flavor of these kind of
00:14:29
journeys but without diminishing the
00:14:30
incentives to buy the book and read them
00:14:32
in their full depth
00:14:33
uh could you tell us about one journey
00:14:35
and company that you contemplated
00:14:36
including but maybe
00:14:38
got left out that that had to be cut uh
00:14:41
before the final version of the book
00:14:43
wow what a good question
00:14:48
gosh how can that stop us in our tracks
00:14:50
because there's so much to say
00:14:52
um there are lots of companies i think
00:14:55
that
00:14:57
we did wonder about walmart
00:15:01
um because um that's
00:15:04
an amazing company in sense of its
00:15:07
sheer scale and that for so many people
00:15:11
it's the villain of the piece and a
00:15:13
picture of the problem and for many
00:15:15
people who begin to understand how
00:15:17
companies change
00:15:18
a lot of people step back quite
00:15:20
surprised at the degree to which they've
00:15:22
taken this
00:15:23
whole approach on and so they're right
00:15:26
at the center of the debate about
00:15:28
how much can this be at the heart of
00:15:31
uh modern capitalism and i think one of
00:15:33
the other reasons they're so interesting
00:15:35
is they're so big and a lot of the
00:15:38
argument we're making
00:15:39
is the reason big business is such a
00:15:41
powerful act of a change
00:15:43
is that they have the scale to make
00:15:45
change
00:15:46
so we would have been interested to
00:15:47
continue the story with walmart i think
00:15:51
so if individual managers or students
00:15:53
want to get their companies to embrace
00:15:55
this sort of change
00:15:56
what should they do for students what
00:15:58
skills are important for them to acquire
00:16:00
or build
00:16:01
within a company how do you press an
00:16:03
influence strategy to embrace
00:16:04
these kind of initiatives or if
00:16:06
contemplating a career shift uh what
00:16:08
sort of companies should people be
00:16:09
choosing to work for
00:16:12
i think um i mean we we have a uh a
00:16:14
couple of
00:16:15
sort of frames of reference if you like
00:16:18
that for people starting to think about
00:16:19
this area
00:16:20
um i think provide a really useful way
00:16:22
of thinking what are we actually talking
00:16:24
about when we're talking about
00:16:25
the role of a business in society and
00:16:28
in the book we uh we have this model we
00:16:30
call the prism uh
00:16:31
which essentially is when you're talking
00:16:34
about a business in the world and the
00:16:35
effects it can have
00:16:36
what you're talking about generally is
00:16:37
one of five things so you're talking
00:16:39
about
00:16:39
the purpose that a company has the sense
00:16:42
of purposefulness that it
00:16:43
acts with you're talking about the
00:16:45
products you know what does it actually
00:16:46
sell and you're talking about the
00:16:49
practices
00:16:50
that it has to that it uses to you know
00:16:52
take those products to market to
00:16:54
manufacture them to distribute them
00:16:56
and any philanthropy that a company
00:16:58
chooses to undertake
00:17:00
and and then we've got um the point of
00:17:02
view of a company so what does it
00:17:04
actually
00:17:05
think about the big issues that are that
00:17:07
are really relevant
00:17:08
to it and and we've suggested that
00:17:11
really because
00:17:12
it can be a kind of daunting and kind of
00:17:14
complex and
00:17:15
slightly vague area with all of these
00:17:17
terms kind of you know
00:17:19
hitting into each other and this model
00:17:22
via the prism we think is just a quite
00:17:23
simple way of looking at what are we
00:17:26
actually
00:17:26
talking about when we're talking about
00:17:28
the role of a business in society
00:17:30
there is a um there is a allegedness
00:17:33
actually still in the language around
00:17:36
this so
00:17:37
a lot of the time for the mainstream
00:17:39
sort of world of business you talk about
00:17:42
the words like sustainability and
00:17:44
responsibility and citizenship and
00:17:46
and you know important great these these
00:17:49
all come from very good places
00:17:50
but there's a large amount of the
00:17:52
business world that just switches off
00:17:53
when they hear those words and what they
00:17:54
hear is
00:17:55
this is about trade-off this is about
00:17:57
this a cost center basically
00:17:59
um and what we're trying to say really
00:18:01
is that this is an opportunity
00:18:03
actually for business um and for the
00:18:06
world
00:18:06
and that's a different way of looking at
00:18:07
it so to get out of that mentality
00:18:09
and so to think of the role a business
00:18:12
plays in society
00:18:13
is is really the the key i think to
00:18:15
getting started
00:18:16
and if you're saying what should you do
00:18:18
either as a manager or
00:18:19
somebody wondering whether to join a
00:18:21
business
00:18:23
one of the other things we talk a lot
00:18:24
about is get outside the business
00:18:27
you know this is about reconnecting
00:18:29
business to society against that
00:18:31
prejudice against that stereotype that
00:18:34
business is the problem
00:18:35
not the solution so actually for a lot
00:18:38
of people trying to make change in their
00:18:39
businesses
00:18:40
almost the simplest thing is get some of
00:18:42
your people outside the business
00:18:44
and one of the really common themes of
00:18:46
the great stories is that somebody in
00:18:48
there has had the imagination
00:18:50
to take people at all levels of the
00:18:51
business right outside it
00:18:53
and look at the way it acts in the world
00:18:56
and look at the big challenges that
00:18:57
bother everybody in the world
00:18:58
and ask themselves what is our business
00:19:00
to that
00:19:02
can we help and if you put together the
00:19:05
prison with the question
00:19:07
can we help you get pretty close to
00:19:10
a way of acting so another component of
00:19:12
the book is these 11 conversations
00:19:14
um that you you draw upon a number of
00:19:16
different reports from the united
00:19:17
nations the world economic forum
00:19:19
and look at 11 areas of sort of issued
00:19:21
areas
00:19:22
in which companies can contribute almost
00:19:25
every company
00:19:26
you examine though touches on multiple
00:19:29
areas if not
00:19:30
all of them so how do they choose which
00:19:32
one is
00:19:33
core to them which one should they focus
00:19:36
on in their initiatives and embrace
00:19:38
and which stakeholders should they
00:19:40
listen to in making those difficult
00:19:41
choices because at some level there is
00:19:43
still a
00:19:43
trade-off that you can't have dozens of
00:19:46
initiatives
00:19:48
you need to bring this into the core and
00:19:49
focus and
00:19:51
each company seems to have made a choice
00:19:53
on one two or three of the conversations
00:19:56
but if again if i'm a manager how do i
00:19:58
choose which one
00:19:59
the extraordinary thing is that it
00:20:02
almost makes itself
00:20:04
if you're asking where can we be most
00:20:07
helpful
00:20:08
where are we most relevant and
00:20:11
uh certainly the 11 conversations are
00:20:13
for us like a sort of landscape of the
00:20:14
problems
00:20:15
in the world that people really worry
00:20:16
about and if you show that to any
00:20:19
top figure in business they'll look at
00:20:21
it and like you said they'll kind of go
00:20:22
here
00:20:23
here here and if you go but if you
00:20:24
really could make the biggest difference
00:20:26
i've never known anybody not go it's
00:20:28
here and here
00:20:30
and then actually you you aim the
00:20:32
resources the skills
00:20:34
the expertise the imagination of your
00:20:36
business at those areas where you have
00:20:38
greatest relevance and greatest power to
00:20:40
change
00:20:40
and it's a fun conversation to have with
00:20:42
with businesses actually people get
00:20:43
really into oh we're relevant to that
00:20:44
one and to that one answer and before
00:20:46
you know it
00:20:47
as you say they're relevant to all of
00:20:49
them but actually something rises to the
00:20:51
top really that gets the energy
00:20:52
but actually the really important thing
00:20:54
about the 11 conversations
00:20:56
is not playing that game but actually
00:20:58
the attitude shift
00:20:59
that underlies it because really what
00:21:01
we're saying is you know the old model
00:21:03
of
00:21:03
the way a big business interacted with
00:21:05
the world was very much you know
00:21:07
messaging focus it's like what do we
00:21:08
have to say and what are the issues that
00:21:10
we need to manage and
00:21:11
it was a really defensive crouch
00:21:13
basically
00:21:14
and what the 11 conversations is saying
00:21:16
is get outside of it
00:21:18
you know what are the what are the
00:21:19
issues in the world that everybody is
00:21:21
worried about you know
00:21:22
what are the the challenges that we're
00:21:23
all facing and what do we have as a
00:21:26
business that could be relevant to that
00:21:27
that could make us
00:21:28
part of that solution so it's more more
00:21:32
than anything else it's just about
00:21:33
shifting the perspective
00:21:35
well thank you both for for taking the
00:21:36
time and uh i really enjoyed reading the
00:21:38
journeys
00:21:39
i really enjoyed the time to discuss
00:21:41
them and learning more about how the
00:21:43
book came together it's really been a
00:21:44
pleasure
00:21:45
thank you
00:22:09
you
