Corporate Leader Daily § Doing Real Good, Man

THURSDAY JANUARY 31
Doing Real Good, Man

By: Jeff Heilman
January 2008

The Economist just ran a worthy special report on corporate social responsibility.

An “embedded” CSR program—not one where the PR department is simply sending its own messages to the outside world—communicates a serious message of value. Talented people will strongly desire to work at such a company; financial analysts will equate quality CSR policy with quality management.

Of note, too, is the entrepreneurial model among high net-worth corporate leaders of tackling social and environmental problems. It’s about doing “real good,” not just “feel good.” Chief example: Bill Gates leaving his full-time gig at Microsoft this summer to focus on his charitable foundation, aiming to give away $3 billion a year by 2009.

McDonald’s CSR blog discusses World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab’s call for Collaborative Innovation. The old intra-organization linear methods just don’t solve today’s complex business problems--active, engaged collaboration and creative thinking do. So, no more lying on the floor “ideating” like those IBM folks on TV, and please, no more committees turning horses into camels or choosing beige carpeting for the office.

Mentioned it yesterday, but the fur is really flying over at IAC and Liberty Media. It’s anything but collaborative between CEOs Barry Diller and John Malone, the former calling the latter “insane” and the latter, via the company lawyers, recalling the 2005 finding that the former is among the “twenty-five most overpaid executives in the United States.”

And here’s some fine White House PR double-talk, direct from Air Force One: “I have not heard at all that we have changed our outlook, and we are not forecasting a recession.”