"The relationship businesses have with society is undergoing a fundamental, permanent change."
— Bob Lurie
Businesses have a new "social contract" with society that will bring new demands and relationships for leaders to consider around sustainability and environmental resources. The problem? Many companies are unprepared, says Bob Lurie in the Leading Green blog. That’s why business leaders today must realize that being in compliance is not enough.
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We should stop talking about putting a cap on carbon pollution and trading clean-energy credits. It's madness, says HOW contributor Thomas M. Kostigen. Allowing the "free market" to determine the fate of our health and our planet is not the path to correctness. We’re seeing the fallout of the free-market system play out now.
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The global economy has been paralyzed by a lack of certainty. This "Certainty Gap" — the distance between one’s ideal of stability and security, and reality — exerts a profound influence on our ability to pull ourselves out of our slump. By extending trust, leaders can narrow the Certainty Gap. Doing so will get credit, risk-taking and innovation flowing.
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Why do some leaders maintain high standards while others abandon them for short-term gains? The GoodWork Project is searching for the answer, doing interviews to determine how professionals do good work. GoodWork’s Lynn Barendsen talks about what a “good” professional is and why scandals are now cutting across business and government.
More »"Where are the preventative measures and procedures to guard against economic crime? It's one thing to help victims, but what's being done to persecute and prosecute the perpetrators?"
We need to get to the bottom of the crisis and find ways to thwart it from happening again, says HOW Online contributor Thomas M. Kostigen. As it stands, we still haven't heard a sober answer to the question of what brought about the downturn and who is responsible. We need to see examples of accountability. It's time we send a message that crime actually doesn't pay.
More »"Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends are old."
— Thomas White
A major challenge companies face is how to respond to the crisis in a way that meets their financial and legal obligations without compromising their ethical behavior. President Obama had this in mind during his inaugural address, one that focused on the responsibilities of citizenship, says Thomas White of Loyola Marymount University. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility.
More »"In the end, it is all about culture and creating high performance and high integrity. Culture is a foundational challenge for management."
— Ben W. Heineman Jr.
Since U.S. companies operate across vast geography, they encounter local cultural practices — some of which might be antithetical to organizational standards. How should a values-based company respond to local customs? HOW contributor and former GE general counsel Ben W. Heineman Jr. explores how the internal values and integrity of GE guide its global business and responsibilities in foreign cultures.
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GE, where Ben W.Heineman, Jr. served as general counsel, has become known as a sustainability pioneer with its "ecomagination" initiative. His latest book also deals with the idea of companies meeting and solving social and commercial needs, not as a PR effort but because it's good, sustainable business. In Part 2 of our continuing "First Person" series, HOW contributor Heineman discusses the role of the CEO in engaging employees in high performance while adhering to rules and ethical standards, and in creating integrity-based corporate cultures and sustainable practices.
More »When he served as general counsel and senior vice president for law and public affairs at The General Electric Co., Ben W. Heineman Jr. was one of the top officers responsible for ensuring compliance with the law and rules set by the technology and services giant. So why does Heineman’s new book put so much emphasis on why values are vital in today’s marketplace? HOW Online's Dov Seidman asks Heineman whether it is counter-intuitive for a lawyer to advocate for what some consider the “softer” issues of business.
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Many companies struggle with engaging employees to help the organization become more sustainable. That's one of the reasons why Campbell Soup Co. created a new position to integrate a values-based strategy into how it operates. It also hired 20-year CSR veteran David Stangis. HOW Online spoke with Stangis about the challenges companies face in creating long-term sustainability.
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