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If you are a business leader concerned about social responsibility, you have come to the right place.  Let me give you a little background on my philosophy of corporate social responsibility.  You can read the following now if you wish.  Or proceed to other pages of the site for other kinds of information.

Executive Summary

Most people are decent.  They try to make their way in the world successfully while doing as much good and as little harm as possible.  But this is a harsh world in many ways.  In that world, we frequently see people making a fortune who engage in adversarial practices.  And we are told that Adam Smith, a pioneer of economics, was right, business can only be run for self-interest.  What is more, we are told that by competing for money alone, we will end up doing the most good.  That trying to do good will backfire and do more harm than good.  That is, that unintended consequences will ambush us.

I have been thinking about these issues for more than a decade and a half.  What I finally recognized is that Adam Smith had an excellent insight.  It made an important contribution.  According to Smith, an "invisible hand" of the market turns the dross of the business person's self-interest into the gold of social betterment, although that "was no part of his intention".  This mechanism does work as advertised to a considerable degree. 

But as with all advances, there was further advancing left to be done.  What Smith did not quite get to the point of integrating into his thought was the idea of a second invisible hand.  That is the impulse all normal people have to help others.  We are a social species.  It is died in the wool that we want to do useful work for other people.  Research has shown that doing something beneficial for someone else lights up pleasure centers in the brain.  Because of it, most people are busy doing things that help others.  Consequently we see buildings that do not fall down, cars that are exciting and quite safe, teachers who teach worthwhile ideas, and so on.  Everyone ends up with more.

And most business leaders are among those who do try to help others, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.  On the other hand, they generally do less of it than they would prefer.  That is partly in deference to the prohibition by Smith and his contemporary heirs against endeavoring to do good directly.  And it is partly because of the apparent necessity to do certain things to survive, let alone thrive.  Consequently, a great deal of unnecessary harm is added to the mix.  So integrating additional deliberate and conscious efforts to do constructive work would improve the picture very substantially.  Nevertheless, their existing constructive efforts are enough to keep the self-interest of too many from running amok beyond a certain point, and instead to direct a good deal of it in beneficial directions. 

In addition, there is an equilibrium process at work.  If too many people start engaging in irresponsible actions, the low hanging fruit gets eaten, leaving only less profitable temptations.  Responsible work starts to offer more lucrative opportunities.  Then those are seized, restoring the equilibrium.  So, contrary to the prevailing arguments of scholars and consultants, the financial returns of using mutually beneficial approaches or adversarial approaches are equal.   Adversarial actions look easy, but they are actually quite demanding to pull off.  And most people, who like it when people do good, tend to get up in arms and go after the adversarial players sooner or later.  On the other hand, a mutually beneficial strategy takes acumen and toughness to execute successfully as well.  You get benefits from loyal employees, customers, partners, suppliers and so on.  But giving them a good deal also requires significant investments of time, thought, planning, and money.  When all is said and done, then, you can generate equal wealth either way.

At present, it must be conceded, there are limits to how mutually beneficial an approach a company can take in certain areas.  But there is still a considerable range from the least to the most mutually beneficial possible course of action in such matters.  Furthermore, business leaders already work together not just to get legislation and the like that facilitate adversarial practices, but also in some important instances to bring about useful advances.  As more leaders come to appreciate the practicality of a more mutually beneficial strategy, it will become possible to extend such useful alliances.

As for unintended consequences:  Every move we make has them.  By limiting themselves to pursing profits alone, most businesses will provide valuable products.  But there will still be unintended consequences.  What leader in his or her right mind deliberately says, "I think I would like to poison a river today," or "My dream is to cause anguish to twenty thousand decent people by giving them the ax."  These are, in other words, unintended consequences.  The reason they pay executives handsomely is to be good at creating various strategies, then determining what might really happen if they pursued strategy A versus B.  Taking into account possible unintended consequences of each.  If you set out to generate mutual benefits and make an equally great fortune as well, then, you will be no more at risk of unintended consequences than if you tried to make the money by other means.  As a result, holding back from doing anything that might have unintended consequences is a recipe for inaction.

The question to ask yourself, then, is how do I decide to do it?  That is a question of pure, unadulterated free will.  It requires you to confront honestly what kind of person you choose to be.

For more about these insights, see the Articles page.  

If you choose to exercise your freedom by taking the route of even more substantial contribution than at present, while making profits as high you otherwise could, Beacon Management Consulting is here to help.  We can assist you in navigating to a greater realm of success while staying under fair skys as much as you could on the course you were choosing.  For more about what we can do for you, see the Services Overview page.