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Communicate! Part 1
Talking about corporate responsibility
This chapter outlines specific tips for building your skills in spoken communications about corporate responsibility both internal and external to your company.
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often (Mark Twain).
At the core of the corporate treehugger’s skill set is the ability to communicate well. Whether you are in the environmental department, supplier responsibility, or corporate responsibility, the ability to communicate is the single most important (and perhaps the most overlooked) skill. It comes in several forms: public speaking (conferences and stakeholder events); writing (the corporate responsibility report, blogs, and even tweets); and influencing others within your company (aligning on a common strategy).
The ability to communicate well verbally can be a touchy subject because it is closely integrated with your personality. Some of us are extroverts and thrive by talking (though simply loving to talk does not a good communicator make). Others are introverts and prefer their own company to interacting with others (conversely, introverts can be excellent communicators because they think through what they will say before they say it). Whether you love to talk or are happier with your own “inner voice,” verbal communication skills can be learned, and with practice you can improve your abilities.
Early in my career, I was a basket case in this area. I don’t think I realized how bad I was until I started to work at EPA and lost a whole night’s sleep before I had to give a presentation. During the presentation, which was to a group of senior people, I had all the symptoms: red face, talking fast, forgetting what I wanted to say … most of us know the drill.
All of the people I admired as leaders were also powerful speakers. When you think about it, the word leader means that people follow you. By definition, people who are great leaders create compelling messages that cause others to follow. If I ever hoped to achieve my goals, I knew that I had to overcome my fear and find ways to become an effective communicator.
Beyond my own career ambitions, there was another realization that motivated me to become a better verbal communicator. I have a technical background and, early in my career, I worked mainly with other technical people who had similar expertise. While we could communicate with each other about our work, it was unlikely anyone else would understand what we were even talking about. This deficit was profoundly limiting. Even if I became the best within my technical field, my insights and innovations would be locked within a small circle of collaborators. Like a PC without the Internet, knowledge that is not effectively disseminated is unusable by others and thus limited in its power to change the world. By honing and mastering your communications skills you can turn knowledge into power by creating compelling, understandable, memorable, and even inspiring messages. Becoming an excellent communicator is the single most important accelerant to your career path both within and beyond the field of corporate responsibility.
In the field of corporate responsibility, the ability to communicate well is even more important than in other career pursuits. Unlike other careers that are focused on a particular discipline, corporate responsibility requires that you understand and can easily represent almost all company functions. In this respect, corporate responsibility is similar to a career in press relations or marketing. For example, my training and early career was in environmental management. This is a field based on chemistry, toxicology, exposure modeling, risk assessment, laws, and regulations – all very detailed and technical information that takes years to master. Even though I had made it a personal goal to improve my communications skills, success in this field hinged mainly on my technical ability within a fairly narrow area. As I became more steeped in the jargon of this field, my ability to communicate outside of the field diminished.
Now, as my career has evolved into the field of corporate responsibility, the crucial skills are no longer technical, and my success is directly attributable to honing my communications skills. Corporate responsibility managers must aggregate, and essentially create, the “CR story,” which spans almost all company functions from environment to ethics. AMD refers to corporate responsibility as “the sum total of our behaviors.” What this means for me is that I must understand AMD’s culture, history, and a broad range of corporate functions and be able to speak to the press, social investors, NGO activists, and others in a manner that is at once candid, accurate, and supportive of AMD’s reputation.
This chapter will explore the specific application of verbal communication skills to the field of corporate responsibility within a company and, because you will likely be called on to be a company spokesperson, it will also cover speaking to external audiences. The foundation for mastering verbal communication skills is an entire field in and of itself. The ability to speak in front of large groups of people is the first thing most people think of in this area. While it is not the only facet of verbal communication skill, public speaking gets the most attention because statistically it is one of humankind’s top fears. Jerry Seinfeld got a big laugh when he joked about a survey that found that the fear of public speaking ranks higher in most people’s minds than the fear of death. “In other words,” he deadpanned, “at a funeral, the average person would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.”
In my personal journey to improve this skill, I have greatly benefitted from several company-provided training courses on how best to structure and deliver oral remarks. As I improved, I even became an instructor for the presentation skills course within Intel. I highly recommend this kind of training and, even more importantly, practice! While I practiced in primarily “on-the-job” settings, I would recommend Toastmasters International for both training and practice.62 The first paragraph from the Toastmasters website embodies the importance of mastering verbal communication skills:
Confidence. The ability to communicate, persuade and lead. The skill to tell one’s story, shape better tomorrows and point others in the same direction. These are the attributes of leaders, and not all leaders are born with talent. They learn it, and so can you.
The Toastmasters organization is dedicated to improving presentation skills and has professional chapters throughout the world. Their meetings provide a safe venue to practice and polish your skills with a supportive audience that has no input on your annual performance review!
Corporate responsibility communications inside your company
The first thing to understand is that many, if not most, of the people with whom you will communicate inside of your company have very limited understanding of corporate responsibility. Internal stakeholders are consumed with their own job functions and, unless they are personally interested in the topic, are unlikely to know much about the theory or practice of corporate responsibility. This is natural because, unlike traditional business functions like sales, manufacturing, finance, legal, marketing, etc., corporate responsibility is a relatively new addition to the business scene.
In just about all of my internal communications, I start with a concise “elevator speech” that introduces my function. An elevator speech is a very brief description of your role that takes as much time as a ride on an elevator: no more than 60 seconds. A corporate responsibility elevator speech might go something like this:
Corporate responsibility is defined as balancing the “triple bottom line” which is essentially “people, planet, and profit.” Our team monitors, manages, and communicates with the public about the company’s behaviors in several areas including environment, ethics, labor issues, supply chain responsibility, and others that together make up the reputation of our company. We help attract social investment to the company as well as build and protect the company’s reputation with customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
Write down your elevator speech and practice it out loud a few times until you have it mastered. This does not mean you have to memorize it, but you should be comfortable enough to relay the essence of corporate responsibility to anyone instantly and briefly.
The ROI trap
Notice that the elevator speech concludes with a statement about the value offered by corporate responsibility. As discussed earlier in this book, the corporate responsibility function is frequently challenged regarding the value it returns to the company. I call this the “return on investment (ROI) trap.” Corporate responsibility managers will run into the ROI trap often and you should be prepared to respond to this challenge – it can go something like this:
I don’t get it. Tell me again what you do?
How does that add value to the business?
So, is this really just PR?
Depending on the situation, it can be hard to respond to these challenges in a civil and respectful manner. Loaded within the challenge is the notion that your function is somewhat superfluous or, at a minimum, less important than that of the person who issues the challenge. Before exploring how to respond to the ROI challenge, it is important to understand some background. All business functions must prove their ROI. Like the immune system in your body, a well-run company will tend to reject any new additions that do not demonstrably add value. The more “mainstream” functions do not face as much of this scrutiny because they have been in existence longer and thus their intrinsic value is well accepted. Corporate marketing, for example, is accepted as an essential element for businesses of all types. While the marketing department typically spends a significant amount of company money for somewhat intangible results, such as building the brand, it is accepted as a needed element to drive sales and boost the company’s reputation.
Like marketing, the effectiveness of corporate responsibility is evaluated on less quantifiable measures of value such as brand reputation. The difficult-to-measure benefits, combined with its relative newness, make corporate responsibility a target of the corporate “immune system” and leave its practitioners vulnerable to pointed questions about the ROI of their jobs. I call these questions the ROI trap because, by vigorously defending your function’s right to exist (a natural reaction), you can easily reinforce the view that corporate responsibility is superfluous. Becoming entangled in a dispute over intangible benefits is unlikely to convince your colleague of anything other than that you are overzealous and perhaps a bit defensive.
A better course is to acknowledge that the benefits of corporate responsibility are, like those of marketing, hard to measure. Time to practice your corporate Jujutsu: You should “size up” your questioner to assess whether they are genuinely interested in exploring the qualitative benefits of corporate responsibility or are dug in to their anti-CR stance. If it is the latter, look for a graceful or even self-deprecating way to leave the discussion. It is certain you will encounter many entrenched CR doubters in your corporate career and, in most cases, it is better to avoid any attempt at evangelizing your role to them. Without acknowledging their views, you can avoid “rising to the bait” by turning the conversation back to their role in the company (likely their favorite topic) and seeking areas of mutual interest. In other situations, where your colleagues are truly seeking to understand the value of your function, there are a number of ways to engage in the ROI dialogue:
• Employees. Chapter 11 of this book covers the linkage between employee engagement and corporate responsibility in depth. For your internal discussions on ROI, it can be useful to memorize a few data points on this linkage and its importance to the business. For example, the Gallup organization dubbed employee engagement “a leading indicator of financial performance” and backed it up with research showing that “engaged organizations have 3.9 times the earnings per share (EPS) growth rate compared to organizations with lower engagement in the same industry.”63 The 2010 Hewitt Associates study “Engaging Employees through CSR” showed a strong correlation between engagement and people who believe their organization is socially and environmentally responsible.64 As you will find in Chapter 11, there is an increasing body of evidence that employees are motivated and more productive when they perceive their company as being devoted to responsibility
• Investors. The large and growing assets in socially managed investment funds are an important factor in the ROI calculation for corporate responsibility. Having a strong corporate responsibility program is, of course, essential to attracting socially managed investment dollars. Again, memorizing some statistics is useful. Borrowing from Chapter 10: “The Social Investment Forum estimates that, as of 2010, the total professionally managed assets following socially responsible investment (SRI) strategies amounts to $3.07 trillion and is growing at a faster pace than conventional investment assets.”65 In addition, because many of the large institutional retirement funds are moving into social investing, their buy-and-hold investment strategies can reduce the volatility of a company’s stock
• Brand and reputation. Most business professionals accept that the company’s brand is an important asset and would not question the resources applied to maintain and improve the brand image. In Chapter 13 I make the point that, for many companies, their brand is the largest intangible asset on their balance sheet. Apple led the 2011 valuation (from Millward Brown) with a brand valued at $153 billion.66 Couple these eye-popping brand valuations with the finding from the Reputation Institute that over 40% of a company’s reputation stems from its corporate responsibility programs, and the connection between CR and company value becomes obvious. Even without these statistics, most people intrinsically understand that a company’s reputation is central to its success with customers, suppliers, employees, and stakeholders. You should point out that, at its essence, corporate responsibility is an increasingly important driver of corporate reputation
• Ethics and activists. Today’s business managers are acutely aware of the increased scrutiny on corporate behavior sparked by numerous high-profile business ethics scandals. In describing the value of corporate responsibility, you should make it clear that it is tied to the ethical performance of the company. The CR department works directly with activists to discuss their concerns with the company’s ethical policies and performance. In essence, you are working on the front line to head off PR disasters that, based on history, can take down an entire company
The subject of ROI is at the heart of many internal communications about corporate responsibility. Being well prepared for these discussions, and avoiding the traps and pitfalls of being drawn into dogmatic debates, are important skills for the corporate treehugger. The tips presented here are necessarily generic. It is always best to personalize your communications to your company’s programs. The key points to remember in these discussions are:
• Be prepared with your elevator speech that covers value to the company
• Avoid being drawn into dogmatic debates that serve only to fray relationships
• Memorize a few of the basic facts that demonstrate the value of corporate responsibility: employee engagement, brand reputation, and social investment
The case against CSR
In 2010, University of Michigan business professor, Dr. Aneel Karnani published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility.”67 Dr. Karnani’s article seemed almost deliberately provocative and, since it was published, he has reaped considerable notoriety as he travels to events to defend his views. I observed a debate between Dr. Karnani with Gerald Sullivan (President of the Vice Fund which invests in tobacco, alcohol, and weapons makers) vs. Paul Herman (CEO of the HIP investor) and Dr. Vinay Nair (Adjunct Associate Professor Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School) in 2011. Had this debate been a boxing match, it would have been stopped in the early rounds. Herman and Nair presented reams of compelling data supporting linkage between corporate responsibility and business value. Karnani and Sullivan mostly mewed about their opinions and at one point openly disagreed about the role of government. (Karnani’s view is that government regulation, not corporate responsibility, is a better system. Sullivan, like all good capitalists, is not a big fan of government regulation.)
When Karnani’s article was first in print, I published a counterpoint (along with hundreds of others) in an article titled “The Case Against the Case Against CSR,” which covered three main reasons why corporate responsibility adds value to the business – below is an excerpt:
More companies are winning with CSR
Companies are looking at the megatrends in the world and asking themselves: “how can we apply our core competencies to win in the future?” It so happens that many of today’s trends point to sustainability issues – resource scarcity, poverty, pollution, etc. While a litany of doom for some, these issues can also look like opportunities for a wise business manager. For example, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt has positioned GE for success in a resource-constrained world with the “Ecomagination™” line – topping more than $18 billion in revenues in 2009 and a growing profit center.
Smart companies take the long view
Dr. Karnani warns that CSR may be dangerous because, by doing the right thing voluntarily, companies may obscure the need for government regulation. Also, why would companies take costly actions beyond what is required by regulations? Leaving aside moral issues, the answer lies in taking a longer view. Sure it may require additional investment to responsibly manage a business, but when left unchecked, poor conditions can go awry costing many thousands of times more. For example, following Karnani’s logic, companies operating in countries with poor or nonexistent laws for toxic waste disposal should just dump their toxic waste out the back door or into the local river since it is cheaper and legal to do so. Even if this was a moral choice (it is not), many of these companies have learned what can happen if they wantonly pollute the environment. The US Superfund law made companies responsible for cleaning up their mess regardless of whether dumping was legal at the time and often stuck them with the bill to clean up waste dumped by others as well. Companies learned an expensive lesson: it is cheaper to manage their waste responsibly than get stuck with a huge bill and a bad reputation.
CSR impacts brand value and investment
Often listed as the largest intangible asset on the balance sheet, brand reputation can make or break a business. Rather than struggling with definitions and rationales for CSR, most companies intrinsically understand the business rationale to act responsibly and, if possible, lend a hand to make things better. They know that their reputation and their brand depend on it.
While it may not have been his intent, Dr. Karnani’s provocative opinion may have done more to promote CSR than to slow it. Having stirred up legions of current and future business leaders, he has added momentum to the CSR movement for years to come.
Executive communications: Decision briefings
It is almost certain that your career in corporate responsibility will involve communicating with the leaders of your company. As highlighted above, corporate responsibility is an integral part of the company’s reputation and the company’s leaders will, at a minimum, need to be informed, and likely will want to shape the strategy. Unlike a public speech, executive communications need to be pared down to the basic facts, extremely candid, concise, and focused on whatever decision needs to be made.
This book covers two basic types of executive communication: operations reviews (general update briefings with no decisions needed); and decision meetings (where you are asking for approval of a change that has strategic or resource implications). Operations reviews are covered in Chapter 4 so this section will focus on decision meetings.
Build your support
The first thing to understand about executive decision meetings is that most of the real work happens before the meeting. In my experience, by the time the stakeholders sit down in a conference room to discuss whatever decision is to be made, the key decision-makers are aware of the issue and its implications and are predisposed to approve. This does not mean that debate will not occur in the meeting. In a well-run company, executive meetings are often debates where the full implications of a decision are weighed by viewing it from multiple perspectives.
The advice here is to make the rounds with the major stakeholders before the decision meeting to understand their views on the topic. This means identifying the stakeholders who have the most authority, are most affected, or are most likely to disagree, and discussing the issue with them in advance of the decision meeting. In these meetings, you should avoid “selling” your position but adopt a listening posture. Lay out the issue, the options for decision, your thoughts on the right path and why, and ask open-ended questions about their views. The goal for these meetings is to discover stakeholders’ views on the decision and, to the extent feasible, incorporate their input into the final recommendation. In some cases, if you cannot get time with the executives involved, consider working with their top deputies to gauge their boss’s insights. If you find that your “ask” (the item you are seeking approval for) is unlikely to be approved, it is best to save everyone’s time (and your credibility) and cancel the decision meeting. Cancelling the meeting does not necessarily mean defeat; it can mean that you need to assemble more data to make your case and/or line up additional support.
Know your facts
In Chapter 4 I recounted my preparations for operational reviews with Tim Cook (the current CEO of Apple) as equivalent to studying for a college final exam. Being well prepared is even more important for decision meetings. A good manager will ask you extensive and detailed questions about every aspect and implication of the decision you are bringing forward. Your role is to be the expert – their role is to make the decision. To do your role well, you will need to be well prepared. Start by assembling all of the available facts and data about your topic. Next, look for the obvious gaps in the data and fill them. Finally, work with a colleague or confidant to test your approach by playing devil’s advocate. Your colleague should try to poke holes in your recommendation and the supporting information. This process will not only show you the weak points in your case, but it will give some practice in presenting your case.
An example of this process stems from Intel’s decision to take a more active role in supplier responsibility (see Chapter 6). In preparing for the executive decision meeting, my team assembled benchmarking information on other electronics firms that had been targets of activist PR campaigns, the costs of ramping up this program, the likely benefits, and the implications of not acting. We laid out a detailed action plan covering who would be involved, their roles, and the resources required. This plan had been reviewed with each of the major stakeholders in advance. While there was plenty of debate, the decision meeting affirmed our recommendation because we were well prepared and had briefed all of the major stakeholders in advance.
Begin with the end in mind
This phrase is from Steven Covey’s excellent book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and is absolutely appropriate for executive decision meetings. All executive decision meetings should begin with a statement about the purpose of the meeting. This is often articulated in the first slide titled something like:
Why are we here?
Expected outcome
Purpose of today’s meeting
Clearly and concisely state the reason for the meeting – e.g., decision on whether to adopt the electronic industry code of conduct and require compliance from all tier-one suppliers – at the outset of the meeting. This will set the tone for the discussion and provide unambiguous notice to the participants about the expectations for the meeting.
Present the case
After articulating the purpose for the meeting, present the background for the decision with as little material as possible. Continuing with the supplier responsibility example from above, the background could be a few slides covering:
• The definition of supplier responsibility and the code of conduct
• The growing public scrutiny of conditions in the supply chain
• Data showing the exponential rise in customer inquiries on CR topics
• Benchmarking results from similar companies
After covering the background, lay out a clear “problem statement.” A problem statement is a clear and concise description of the issues(s) that need to be addressed. Our example might take this form:
Our company’s lack of a defined supplier code of conduct and oversight process is annoying our customers and creating risk of brand-damaging activism.
Next, lay out the options to address the problem. It is useful to present a “high, medium, and low” response to solving the problem statement. You should always include a “status quo” option either as your “low response” option or a freestanding fourth approach. In outlining the options, utilize a standard format for each. The format should describe the approach, the resource requirements, the groups affected, and list the pros and cons (or cost/benefits) of the option.
In discussing the supplier responsibility example with my Intel colleague, Brad Bennett, he pointed out a few additional points that made this decision meeting a success. Brad was in my group at Intel and I had assigned him to lead this briefing. One particularly effective tactic was ensuring that a few of the key stakeholders were prepared to speak up at the meeting in favor of the recommended approach. In this case, Brad and I had worked with Intel’s procurement director as well as the director of corporate responsibility. During the meeting, both of these people supported the problem statement as well as the recommended solution. Brad also reminded me that he was nervous in the meeting, which for him meant that he slowed down his presentation. I recall that this was particularly effective because it gave the participants time to think through the content and consider the decision.
As a result of all of our preparation, the decision meeting took less than the allotted time. Intel became a founding partner in the electronic industry code of conduct and created a comprehensive supplier responsibility oversight program.
Backup plan
While the example above went well, I have seen other decision meetings that did not result in a consensus. As mentioned above, it is not unusual for executives to openly debate the pros and cons of decisions; in fact, many would argue that this debate is a necessity for good decision-making. If you find yourself in the middle of such a debate, you should have a backup plan. A few tips:
• Avoid becoming the sole focus of the debate. If there is a genuine disagreement about the merits of the decision, you should neither abandon your proposal nor defend it to the death. The middle ground is to rely on the facts that support your proposal, while acknowledging legitimate weaknesses in the case and agreeing to take actions to follow up with additional research
• Try a pilot program. When there is significant uncertainty or trepidation about the recommended option, you could propose a smaller-scale pilot project to test out the assumptions and validate the cost–benefit model
• Try another approach. In some cases an executive will want to modify one or more of the elements in your proposed approach. This is a good thing because it gives that executive a sense of ownership in the final outcome. To the extent feasible and appropriate, you should be prepared to adapt your approach to accommodate the input received in the decision meeting
• Accept no for an answer. Wouldn’t life be grand if we always got what we asked for? There have been plenty of times when the consensus of the decision meeting is to do nothing new – i.e., the status quo option – or to adopt an approach other than the recommended option. There is nothing wrong with this outcome and it can even become a benefit if you manage it correctly. Remind everyone that it is important for the health of the company and the program to continuously scan the horizon for new issues and that through this analysis and discussion the group has been effective and made a good decision for the company. This way you and your team will get the credit deserved for all the work and preparation even though your ultimate recommendation was not adopted
Like many of the lessons in this book, the tips for executive decision meetings are applicable beyond the practice of corporate responsibility. While this information is consistent for many functions, when working in corporate responsibility, you have to address the added skepticism that creeps into internal discussions about the topic. As discussed earlier in this chapter, you can counter this skepticism with a strong ROI case as well as tying your proposed action to the company’s culture, employee engagement, brand, investors, stakeholders, and overall reputation.
External communications
Transparency is one of the core tenets in the practice of corporate responsibility. In practice, transparency means that companies should publicly disclose reams of information about their environmental, social, and governance practices. As the field has grown and more companies have developed corporate responsibility programs, the transparency imperative has resulted in a tremendous amount of CR information being published by many companies. The result is a very crowded field, with companies of all types competing to be noticed and differentiate their programs from their competition. What this means to the corporate treehugger is that you must become very good at getting your company’s message out in a way that gets noticed. In the next chapter we will cover how to tell your company’s CR story in written form. Below are some tips for speaking in public forums on corporate responsibility.
Develop the message
One of the themes of this book is the enormous breadth of the issues encompassed by corporate responsibility. In Chapter 3, we covered techniques to distinguish the material (priority) CR issues for your company. As you assemble your company’s public CR communications strategy, start by examining your company’s material CR issues. If your company has developed a leadership position on one or more of these material issues, then they are obvious candidates for your external CR communications.
Select one or two topics where your company has a unique or leading position to use as your messaging platform. For example, Campbell Soup Company has adopted the theme of “nourishment” as a differentiator in CR messaging. Its CR website outlines ways that Campbell’s will nourish its customers, its neighbors, its employees, and the planet. The VP of Corporate Responsibility, Dave Stangis, often speaks at corporate responsibility conferences and the themes of his presentations are drawn from Campbell’s nourishment message such as organic food, combating obesity, feeding the needy, sustainable agriculture, etc.
The point is to identify and develop one or two key messages that demonstrate the leadership qualities of your CR program. When you have identified these topics, work with your press relations department to develop a set of talking points and slides that you can adapt to various venues. If your PR department does not provide legal review, it is a wise idea to bring in your legal team to approve any messages that you plan to deliver publicly because any public comments made by a company official could become the basis of litigation over false or misleading statements.
Pick the right venue
As the corporate responsibility field has grown, there has been an explosion of conferences focused on the topic. Some of the larger companies send people and sponsorship money to just about every one of these meetings. If you are not working for one of those companies, you will likely have to carefully choose which meetings are the best showcases for your company’s message.
The first criterion for selecting the right venue is the whether the theme of the meeting matches well with your key messages. While some of the larger corporate responsibility meetings, like the annual Business for Social Responsibility conference, cover enough ground to make them attractive venues for almost any CR topic, others are more narrowly focused. For example, Campbell’s nourishment message would not fit well at a conference focused on corporate ethics.
Next, assess whether the meeting will be attended by influential thought leaders. The definition of who is considered influential varies by the topic(s) in your key message (e.g., there is a different set of people who are focused on corporate ethics than those who cover food and nourishment issues). Some companies assemble a list of the specific individuals that they consider influential. Others look for the broader categories of influential media, NGO groups, investors, academics, etc. Obviously, you want to focus your efforts on the “must-attend” events for your key CR messages. These are the meetings that will attract the largest density of influential people in the field.
The last item in selecting the right meetings for your message can be the most problematic: will your company be able to secure an effective speaking platform? Speaking slots can range from the featured keynote to being included on a large panel of speakers at an unattractive time. The bigger “must-attend” events can be very selective about their speaking slots. Sponsoring the event can sometimes (but not always) buy your company a speaking slot. If sponsorship is not a feasible route to attain a speaking slot, a few tactics that can help include:
• Offer a senior executive as your speaker. Conference organizers are always looking for top-level titles to headline their agenda and add credibility to their event. If feasible, recruit a senior-level executive from your company to speak and negotiate with the conference organizers for a keynote slot
• Speak on a controversial or new topic. New and controversial topics generate interest in meetings. Conference organizers are increasingly turning to techniques such as debates, un-conferences (where the participants select the topics), interactive workshops, etc. to generate interest in their events. By proposing a cutting-edge idea or speaking about a controversial topic, you may be able to secure attractive speaking slots for your company. Obviously this tactic must align with the company’s legally approved CR messages
• Moderate a panel. If an attractive speaking spot is not available in a target meeting, you can still find a decent platform to deliver your message by offering to moderate a featured panel. As a moderator, you will not be able to go into much depth on your company’s message, but you can touch on a few themes as well as establish your leadership by asking probing questions
Be a thought leader
The agendas of most corporate responsibility conferences are packed with speech after speech about company-specific CR programs. After one or two of these presentations, the program can feel overly promotional and can become boring. Conference attendees are interested in cutting-edge issues. They want to learn something new and gain knowledge that they can apply to their own work. If you want your company to stand out from the crowd and secure larger speaking venues, build your presentations around hot topics in the CR field and research the latest facts and examples about the underlying subject.
Creating thought-leadership presentations has to be balanced with getting out your company’s message. For example, when I have presented on the topic of engaging employees in sustainability on behalf of AMD, I started with statistics about the value of engaged employees to the business (see Chapter 11) and then presented data on the linkage between engagement and corporate responsibility. I concluded by weaving the AMD examples in with examples from other companies on how to effectively use corporate responsibility programs to drive engagement. The final product provided the audience with a concise summary of leading research as well as useful models that they can immediately apply to their own companies. More importantly, it established AMD as a thought leader in this subject area and solidified the company’s reputation among influential stakeholders.
Rinse, repeat
When I worked on Capitol Hill one of my mentors at the time used to say: “if you are not sick of your message, than you have not said it enough.” While this axiom is most appropriate for politics, it’s also instructive for getting your CR message out to the public. To attract notice to your company’s message in the crowded CR field you will need to attend many meetings and make numerous presentations focused on the same material. The good news is that recycling your materials from venue to venue is perfectly acceptable. I usually develop between one and three presentations on my company’s key CR messages and adapt them to the conference and audience. While some repetition is unavoidable, you should spend significant effort to update and tailor the content to each audience to make it as relevant and compelling as possible.
Conclusion
As discussed at the beginning of this chapter and throughout this book, communication skill is the single most important capability for the corporate treehugger. Improving my own communication skills has been a career-long personal journey that, like exercise, is hard and frankly easier to avoid, but, as I have improved, has been extremely rewarding.
This chapter focused on applying verbal communication skills to the practice of corporate responsibility, but underlying this advice is the need to perfect your personal capabilities. A monotone, poorly delivered presentation will undercut even the most compelling message. Whether you are an old hand or just starting out, everyone can improve these skills. An objective and sober analysis of what you do well and where you need to improve is the essential foundation for mastering this skill. Like any skill, improvement comes from good instruction and plenty of practice. The payoff for this hard work is compelling: the ability to speak with impact can connect, inspire, and motivate people and is a hallmark of leadership.