Hack:
Socially responsible managers

By David Rader - Advisory Services at Grant Thornton LLP

March 14, 2011 at 7:04pm

CSR

ESG

social responsibility

environmental

Governance

ethics

Moonshots

Focus the work of management on a higher purpose

Redefine the work of leadership

Develop holistic performance measures

Summary

Decision makers change organizations from time to time.
Organizations come and go.

Instead of measuring whole organizations, measure the impact of the decision makers.

Problem

Social responsibility assessments are currently focused on the organization as a whole. Yet, organizations are made of individual decision makers at all levels. It is the collective effect of the individual decisions and actions which determine the net social impact of the organization. And, it is often, but too late, that the individuals are called to account in the courts after the negative impact of countless decisions has destroyed customers, employees, communities and shareholders.

Decision makers will change organizations several times in their careers. Linkedin and other social sites provide a reputation feature of recording recommendations for individuals. The recommendations are unstructured and open-ended impeding any comparisons or tracking over time. And the quid pro quo nature of the recommendations (bi-directional compliments) reduces trust in the endorsements.

Organizations come and go. Acquisitions, divestitures, outsourcing and reorganizations of business units and lines of authority limit the effectiveness of rating schemes pointed at organizations.

This hack will outline a social media reporting method for assessing the net social impact of an individual's decisions and actions over a working career.

Solution

A social impact rating site, or application on linkedin or facebook, would be used to document individual decisions and actions.

A profile for an individual would have links to their corresponding public social media identities (for correct identity). A structured form would be available to log a decision or action taken by the individual. The structure would be similar to these hacks: situation, the choice (detailing the options considered), the decision/action taken (with date), and a description of the results and a "would have been better if..." section.

An assessment of the environmental, social and governance impact of the decision would be a simple -1, 0, +1 point scale with a "scope classifier". For example:

Environmental impact: +1 world better off, 0 no/limited effect, -1 world worse off
scope classifiers: over a few square meters/feet; over a few square kilometers/miles; over an area the scale of nations
Social impact: +1 specific people better off, 0 no/limited effect, -1 specific people worse off
scope classifiers: affects this person's direct friends, family, colleagues; affects people this person may not know but within the local neighborhood; etc (scale up the geographic scope)
Governance impact: +1 empowered/engaged others, 0 no/limited participation, -1 excluded some who are directly affected by the decision
scope classifiers: no diverse groups involved; a few targeted diverse groups; all potential stakeholders engaged

The scoring would be a simple sum of the impact ratings. Sums would be kept by the three ESG categories and by the "scope classifier" category (since the weighting algorithm would be very subjective). Scores would accumulate over a career (across organizations and roles). Trends over time could be plotted (showing improvement and greater scope of impact, perhaps).

Posts would not be anonymous. This is not a whistle-blower site (those incidents should go directly to authorities or ombudsmen). The person reviewed could post a "rejoinder" (same structure for the decision) or a "repentance" (concurrence and their own "better if" comment).

Practical Impact

A common mental image for testing the ethics of a decision is "how would you feel if this were in the newspaper?" Transparency and shining a light on individual decisions can have a positive impact on behaviors. Hidden or obscured decisions, "group think" or diffused responsibility leads to corrupt choices.

The expectation that individual decisions and actions can be linked to a public identity can cause reflection and better choices before the fact.

First Steps

As with any online service, the start should be simple and extendable.

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