Tag Archives: Republican Party’

CEOs & Business Leaders Speak Out on Voter Rights – Corporate Citizenship, USA-style On Display

Posted on by
Reply

April 14 2021

By Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute 

Corporate America and “Corporate Citizenship” – Today, that can mean lending the CEO and company voice to address critical societal issues in the United States of America.  Some applaud the move, while others attack the company and its leader for their position on the issues in question.   

In this context, powerful messages were delivered today from the influential leaders of the US corporate community – clearly voicing concern about the American electoral process and the rights of all qualified voters in the midst of mounting challenges to the right-to-vote. 

What the CEOs, joined by other influentials in the American society, had to say to us today:

As Americans we know that in our democracy we should not expect to agree on everything.

However – regardless of our political affiliations, we believe the very foundation of our electoral process rests upon the ability of each of us to cast our ballots for the candidates of our choice.

We should all feel a responsibility to defend the right to vote and oppose any discriminatory legislation or measure that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.

Who is saying this? A list of bold name signatories in an advertisement that appears today in The New York Times and The Washington Post – these messages (these above and more) splashed across two full pages (a “double truck” in newspaper language) with a dramatic roster of prominent names from Corporate America. And prominent accounting and law firms with bold name corporate clients. And not-for-profits. And individuals. Celebrities.  People and organizations that every day in some way touch our lives. 

This advertisement certainly continues to set the foundation in place for pushback by powerful people and organizations as various state legislatures take up electoral voting measures. And pushes back against the “Big Lie” that the November 2020 elections at federal, state and local levels were widely fraudulent.

The names on the two pages jump out to capture our attention: Apple. American Express. Amazon. Dell Technologies. Microsoft. Deloitte and EY and PwC. Estee Lauder. Wells Fargo. BlackRock. American Airlines and JetBlue and United Airlines. Steelcase. Ford Motor and General Motors. Goldman Sachs. MasterCard. Vanguard. Merck. Starbucks. IBM. Johnson & Johnson. PayPal. T. Rowe Price. And many more.

CEOs including Michael R. Bloomberg (naturally!). Warren Buffett. Bob Diamond, Barclay’s. Jane Fraser, Citi. Brian Doubles, Synchrony. Brian Cornwell, Target. Roger Crandall, Mass Mutual.

Luminaries joined in as individual in support of the effort: David Geffen. George Clooney. Naomi Campbell. Larry David. Shonda Rhimes. Larry Fink. Demi Lovato. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Many more; think about the influence of their influencers in our American society in 2021.

And we see the names of these law firms: Akin Gump. Arnold Porter. Milbank. Morgan Lewis & Bockius. Fried Frank. Cleary Gottlieb. Holland and Knight. Ropes & Gray. (If you are not sure of who these firms and many more law firm signatories are, be assured that in the board room and C-suite and corporate legal offices these are very familiar names).

And the “social sector” institutions/organizations signing on include leaders of the Wharton School, Morehouse College, Spelman College, University of Pennsylvania, Penn State, NYU Stern, United Negro College Fund, Hebrew SeniorLife, and Council for Inclusive Capitalism.

The New York Times covered the story of the advertising message in an article in the Business Section – Companies Join Forces to Oppose Voting Curbs (bylined by Andrew Ross Sorkin and David Gelles). Subhead: A statement that defies the GOPs call to stay out of politics.

The effort was organized by prominent Black business leaders including Ken Chennault, until recently the highly-regarded CEO of American Express, and Ken Frazier, the also-widely-admired CEO of Merck.

Recall that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell corporations said that corporations should “stay out of politics”. The recent State of Georgia legislation addressing voting rights was a trigger for prominent corporate leaders (such as heads of Coca Cola, Delta Airlines, both headquartered in Atlanta) to criticize measures that could deter or inhibit minority voter populations from exercising their rights.  Leader McConnell reacted to this. 

The Times quoted Kenneth Chennault: “It should be clear that there is overwhelming support in Corporate America for the principle of voting rights…these are not political issues…these are the issues that we were taught in civics…”

Also made clear: The CEOs, social influential and thought leaders including celebrities involved in the ad message effort were non partisan and not attacking individual states’ legislative efforts.

Remember The Business Roundtable’s recent re-alignment of the groups mission statement to focus on “purpose”? According to the Times report, the subject of the ad effort was raised on an internal call and CEOs were encouraged to sign on to the statement; many CEOs did.

Where does this go from here? Corporate executives are speaking out separately on the legislative measures being discussed in individual states that appear to or outright are clear about restricting rights of minority populations. That happened in Georgia recently. Coca Cola and Delta Airlines were hit with criticism; those companies were not signatories on the ad today. Home Depot (also HQd in Atlanta) waffled; the company is not represented on the signatory line nor was there public criticism of the legislature’s effort.

Perspective: While corporate citizenship has been an area of focus and public reporting for many years at a number of large cap public companies, the glare of publicity centered on the question of “what are you doing to help advance society on critical issues as a corporate citizen” is more recent.

The spotlight is intensifying on voting rights (as we see today) and also on climate change, diversity & inclusion, human capital management (especially in the Covid crisis), investment in local communities, in supporting public education, in hiring training & promotion of women and minorities, doing business with nations with despot leaders (think of Burma/Myanmar), equality of opportunity for all populations…and many other issues.

And so today’s advertising splash with CEOs especially putting their stake and their company’s stake in the ground on these types of issues is something we can expect to see continue and even expand in the coming weeks.

The division lines in the USA are certainly clear, especially in politics and public sector governance, and we are seeing that corporate leaders are responding to their stakeholders’ expectations…of being “a good corporate citizen”.

And it’s interesting to see the perspectives shared that even the meaning and understanding of the responsibilities of the “corporate citizen”) is defined along some of the lines that divide the nation.

Interesting footnote:  Clearly illustrating the political and philosophical divide, the members of the Republican Party who are organized as the opposition to the GOP today — The Lincoln Project — called on followers to sign on to an email that singles out JetBlue (one of the ad signatories) for contributing to political campaigns of what the Lincoln Project calls “seditionists”.  These are elected officials who “support voter suppression”. Says the project: If enough of us make it clear that we won’t stand inequality, voter supression and sedition, we will make a difference.

The battle lines are clearly drawn in voting rights issues. 

The advertisement today:

April 14 2021 – The New York Times and The Washington Post messages:

 

 

 

 

“Trust” — Think About How Important It Is in Our Personal and Business Lives

Posted on by
Reply

by Hank Boerner – G&A Institute

This week I was among the fortunate to be named to the Trust Across America / Trust Around the World organization’s annual recognitions of respected thought leaders who advance arguments about the importance of building / protecting / enhancing / projecting “trust” in our personal, business and organizational lives.

I was named to the thought leader award roster in 2011, 2012, 2013, 20i4, and this year — and so, with 14 other thought leaders, I’ve also been named to the first “Lifetime Achievement Award” by TAA.  This is a great honor for me, and also humbling.

I’m honored to be among such distinguished colleagues, leading thought leaders on trust , including author: Patricia Aburdene (Megatrends); Steven Covey (prominent “trust” author); Medtronic’s former CEO Bill George; Leslie Gaines Ross (Weber Shandwick); trust coach Charles Green; and others of similar stature — the list is at: http://www.trustacrossamerica.com/offerings-thought-leaders-2015.shtml

As a journalist, writer on societal issues, corporate manager, and then consultant to managements and boards, throughout my career I’ve been sharing knowledge of the importance of Trust.

Trust in the leader, trust in the organization, trust in products — these are important resources that can bring the enterprise through a crisis situation.  This applies to both organizations and leaders in the private, public and social sectors — think about the busting-of-trust by brand name leaders who quickly fall from grace; of government officials who in an instant achieved infamy; of not-for-profit or public institutional leadership who squandered trust and good will.  (They, unfortunately, can seem to be legion!)

I’ve had the good fortune to work for and with, outstanding men and women in leadership roles who first built trust as the foundation for the enterprises that they would then build and manage.  I’ve written about them in other places.

“TRUST” in an ancient concept coming down to us through such languages as Old Norse (think: Vikings and the civilizations of Scandinavia); various Old English roots; Dutch; German; and even more ancient languages).  The term conveyed (and I think still conveys) important [modern & ancient] human concepts:  faith/faithful; agreement or covenant; comfort; true/truthful…)

“Trust” if you think about it is at its core a bargain that we make with others, and really with ourselves as well, to keep the faith / to be true (to our words and in our actions) / to keep the agreement with others to live up to theirs and our expectations regarding “trust.”

This Week’s Headlines – and Broken Trust

As I learned of my award, I was humbled, and proud, and reflective.  I thought about my work over the decades in helping others to understand and build trust; of leaders and enterprises who broke the trust with stakeholders; and of leaders who leveraged the valuable treasure (trust they built over time) to gain competitive advantage, to offset the effects of critical issues or crisis events; and I thought about leaders that I admired who conveyed trust as the most important message in their inventory of possible “key messages.”

And then I turned to the morning news and the headlines about trust leaped from the pages – such as those of  The New York Times.

There was one story focused on one of our leading “anchormen” on the NBC News Network, Brian Williams, he is backtracking from and apologizing for telling a story of surviving an attack on the helicopter he was traveling in (in the Iraq war).  The most prominent of our national storytellers (and managing editor of the NBC Nightly News) quickly was engulfed in a crisis — and stepped aside from his duties.

I was impressed by his recognition of what is at stake for him, the network and the news program when he said:  “…I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us…”

Another story was about our healthcare records, entrusted by us to third parties, and what healthcare and other enterprises do ./ don’t do  — and what might happen to our most personal & private information.  The upsetting headline was about Anthem’s databases of patient information being hacked. This company is one of the nation’s leading healthcare organizations and as many at 80 millions of us doing business with Anthem may have had our information stolen.

This is on the heels of retailers’ records being hacked. (reflecting on the “invasion” of our financial and credit privacy through the Target data hacking).

Trust — do we have it today / will we have it tomorrow when we visit a retail store and are invited to swipe our credit card in the counter terminal? That’s an important question for retailers in fixed locations and those merchandising goods & services in the digital space.  Lack of trust (in the protection of our information) could cost retailers billions’ in lost customers and sales.

And then there is personal trust embodied in our own views and bow we might communicate those views and opinions.  Consider this:  If you think it, and don’t say or write or otherwise share it, you can think really terrible things about that bullying boss, irritating co worker, nagging family member, callous or un-trustworthy business colleague.

But if you say it…write it…email it…  in today’s “ultra-communicative” world, what is “out there” can easily come back to haunt. And so another headline was about one of the leaders of Sony’s movie studio (Amy Pascal) stepping down after her emails were hacked and made public. (The Times played this up with a cute headline: “Pascal Lands in Sony’s Outbox.”)

Can we trust our in-house emails to be protected and kept private — or should we expect something we say, or write (even of sort of to ourselves as a joke or “relief valve”) to then have “it” \splashed across media. (This episode was costly: She was co-chair of Sony Picture Entertainment.)

With thoughts of Florida – the Sunshine State – on the minds of some of us northerners during this wintery season, a story out of Tallahassee, the capital, caught national attention.  (Especially since “trust” in Florida’s governmental institutions may again be critical in the Presidential election of 2016.)

Florida Governor Rick Scott fired a law enforcement official. Florida has some unusual methods of governance; one is the “cabinet” approach, with the [separately elected statewide] Attorney General Pam Bondi, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, and Agricultural Commissioner Adam Putnam — who, with the Governor, oversee state agencies. Together they decide on hiring and firing in the state agencies.  (All are Republicans – could their actions or lack of action impact on trust in the party?)

The question of trust comes to mind as the governor apparently sidesteps answering his cabinet colleagues’ questions on about the method of the official’s “leaving” — the governor said he resigned, the official said (no) he was fired.

The high-ranking law enforcement official told reporters that he was forced out because he would not do certain things – like bring charges against political opponents (thereby politicizing the office and the criminal justice system).

Also catching my attention was the sudden “explosion” of news & commentary around something that Americans have long taken for granted”  vaccinating against serious diseases. (There is an epidemic of measles cases in a number of states.)

I remember from my childhood getting measles, mumps, whooping cough, and other vaccinations.  Everyone got the shots. As a young adult I was first on line to get (first) the sugar tablet and then the needle containing polio vaccinations.

Now we have the spectacle of political leaders jumping into an important  public health discussion to crassly try to leverage parental fears and anxiety into personal political advantage as they eye upcoming primary campaigns.

Of course, we have the right to have our own opinions and to express these; for the common good, we also have the responsibility to do our part to protect the public health.  My child should not infect your child if that is possible to avoid (say, through community-wide vaccinations).

But, but – there is always a but.  Some people in this debate ask…what about our trust in the vaccination process…in the methodology behind the vaccination…in the drug manufacturer creating the product that we will accept into our bodies…what about the public sector officials who tell us of the necessity and safety of the vaccine?  Trust — or lack of — that is what is on the table here!

Finally for this round, I see the headline of Standard & Poor’s organization paying US$1.3 billion in penalties for its role in putting favorable ratings on subprime mortgage package offerings to institutional investors — that helped to bring about the 2007-2008 global crisis in the financial markets.  Trust — that is what investors had in mind when they looked at the S&P ratings.  Will they trust S&P ratings again in the future?

Trust, we can conclude, is a concept important to our enjoying an orderly society, to our personal well-being, and to getting to the facts and the truth in matters of importance to us. Trust is worth thinking about — every day, in all of our relationships!

 * * * * * * * * *

For information about my awards and Trust Across America, you can check these links:

http://www.justmeans.com/press-release/top-thought-leaders-in-trust-2015-awards-gai-chairman-hank-boerner-named-lifetime

TAA: http://www.trustacrossamerica.com/