Social issues are business issues

Because of your customers and your colleagues.

CEOs: Plan on weighing in on abortion, racism, voting rights and more

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had started a new gig as Editor-in-Residence for The Rosie Report, a site focused on discussion the #futureofwork. This week I had my first pieces published, two as editor, and one that I wrote myself, proclaiming “Reproductive healthcare is a business issue.”

I mean, you should go read the article; I make a well-reasoned argument, namely that:

The data indicate that your customers want to know where you stand.
The data indicate that your colleagues (i.e. employees) want to know where their company stands.

And the more time passes, the more your customers and colleagues are predominantly from the millennial and GenZ generations, the more this will hold true.

One might assume from my above-linked article that I was expecting that companies will (and should) take stands only if they come down on one side (oh, fine, let’s say it: My side, the right side)! But that is not the case. Companies should take the stand they decide reflects their core values. Don’t tell me companies aren’t people and can’t have values…we make up mission and vision and core values shit all the time at companies. What’s the point of all that work if you can’t decide what the company stands for during turbulent and contentious times?

Your stand might be that you will not make stands. Certainly that’s been tried (remember Coinbase or the Basecamp saga?) It didn’t go so well for them (probably because it didn’t seem to fit with the core values they had claimed to have).

Your stand might be on one side of the issue or the other. You might be Hobby Lobby or you might be Penzey’s Spices.

We are seeing in real time that people will seek out where companies make donations, where CEOs and board members do, who hosts fundraisers and for what. That’s the game now. And you better believe your customers and colleagues have become savvy enough to figure that stuff out.

I know all the arguments about not alienating potential or existing customers. I’ve heard them since the days in the early 00s when I was both a marketing consultant and the blogger for my local Democratic party county committee’s web site.

It’s really time to stop controlling for that. You cannot prevent it. It’s time to start building more loyalty…customer loyalty and employee loyalty…and taking stands and speaking out, Just walking the real talk of your values statements is an accelerated way to do just that.

Agree? Or think I’m way off base?