Really Strategic CSR Part II

What is Really Strategic CSR?

So what does Really Strategic CSR look like? First let’s look at what it is not:

• Governed by linear thinking and analysis
• Reductionist in scope
• Short-term in it’s orientation
• For the benefit of the corporation and the cause only
• Undisciplined support of multiple causes unrelated to the corporation’s strategic interests
• Reactionary

Really Strategic CSR is:

• Governed by systemic thinking & understanding of non-linear dynamics
• Informed by eco-systemic realities & relationships
• Taking a holistic and collaborative approach to being socially responsible
• Understanding the part from the whole and acting accordingly
• Treating CSR as a targeted intervention into complex open systems
• Visionary 

Really Strategic CSR emerges from the understanding that corporations need to intervene cooperatively and collaboratively to create sustainable global market stability and growth. The major problems facing (or soon to be facing) global business are deep fissures in the foundations of global commerce. According to Lester Brown’s Plan B 3.0 these include:

• Deteriorating Oil and Food Security
• Global Warming & Rising Sea Levels
• Emerging Water Shortages
• Deteriorating Eco-systemic Resilience
• Poor Urban Planning & Poverty
• Energy Inefficiency & Waste

Simply, if we do not begin to collaborate on some truly innovative, very disciplined and exceptionally non-partisan interventions to address these issues, the havoc that their convergence will wreak on global business, global security and stability will be overwhelmingly immense. I will leave the gloom and doom predictions to others. Suffice to say that things could get very, very bad.

However, if we can begin to move into a space of open collaboration and a paradigm arising from an understanding of systemic inter-relationship we open our selves (individual and organizational) to a new level of Social Responsibility in which we perceive, think and act “glocally” (simultaneously global and local). 

It’s a big step. It requires the desire to change and evolve our capacity to perceive, think and act. It’s not just going to happen. We have to be change to enact the change. No excuses. No rationalizations. And as a mentor of mine used to say, here’s the trash can: leave your ego there. There’s no room for it here.

 

Tags: corporate social responsibility, csr, sustainability