There But For the Grace of God Go I
From our friend and colleague, Richard Levick, CEO of Levick, a thoughtful piece that we hope you’ll find worthy of a read and a pass-along to friends.
If you don’t stick to your values when they’re
being tested, they’re not values — they’re hobbies.”
– Jon Stewart
The Corporate Social Compact
If we have learned anything over the past six years, and certainly after January 6th and the midterm elections, it is that the Social Compact is real and serves as the bedrock for a civilized society.
The political philosophy which our Founding Fathers universally believed – that “government must be based on an agreement between those who govern and those who consent to be governed,” however, is no longer limited to just government. Commerce – public and private – now have their own social compact with multiple constituencies. Companies that recognize this, such as Apple, Marriott, Nike and Starbucks, have customer relationships which approach tribal and are theological in nature. They are not just a company, they are part of their customers’ identity.
This contractual bond is often taken for granted by many companies who view their customer relationships as merely transactional. But customers, shareholders and increasingly stakeholders – those individuals with influence but no direct financial interest – believe they have a social compact with the companies they choose to follow, whether or not they are buyers or investors. Breach that compact and you have eviscerated trust and will long postpone the time when you become a part of their identity.
Today, we are overwhelmed with commerce and receive between 5,000 and 10,000 advertisements per day, most whispering ‘Unless you buy our product, you are inadequate.’ No wonder so many consumers feel disempowered. We are not individuals, just a fractional part of a demographic.
The Choice
In corporations as in government, executives must make hard choices daily. Unfortunately, other than rising stock prices, the media is almost always only interested in the mistakes and their consequences.
The difference between youth and experience is that when we are young we are convinced we know with certainty exactly what we would do when confronting Faustian choices. For the experienced, we suffer the lure and consequences of temptation. There is something about financial comfort which make us Odysseus-like, listening with longing to the songs of the Sirens.
How is it we make the choices we make, especially when we know there could be risks ahead? The road to perdition is littered with fallen heroes.
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