Imagine, if you will, posing a tough question to the CEO of one of the world’s most recognizable and archetypically American brands, with naught a credential but that of “concerned world citizen”. Imagine further specifying that the exec gets only a couple dozen words to reply. Not bloody likely, right?
Yet that’s just the chance afforded me and several others recently by Scott Monty, Ford’s social media coordinator. Scott approached his boss, Ford CEO Alan Mullaly, after a meeting and asked if he would receive questions via Twitter. Unsure of what to expect, I threw this into the mix: “What is Mullaly’s commitment to sustainability, both personal and professional?” Moments later, Scott tweeted Alan’s response.
Let’s pause to consider what the exchange means to the future of corporate transparency. Behind the shield of anonymity, business leaders have certainly committed antisocial acts. But the public is guilty in the other direction, too: have you ever thought that “the company” can spare you a drink or a month’s cable, ignoring that if this behavior is widespread, real people could lose their jobs? Just as firms can think of us as homogeneous consumer segments and not individuals, we tend to think of companies as anonymous corporations rather than collections of people. Historically there has been a missing sense of responsibility in both directions, between corporations and their stakeholders.
And yet, here’s one small but significant data point: a business leader willing to field a question from his stakeholders about his personal and professional responsibility. Is this an exception, or a growing trend?
I think it’s the latter. It’s no coincidence that the hue and cry for corporate social responsibility and ecological stewardship is rising at the same time that corporate communication is being steadily democratized. We’ve seen a move from the patriarchal corporate identity (“what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa”), to flatter communication via the Internet (if still mostly advertising copy), to increased transparency via employee and executive blogs, and finally now a real bidirectional dialogue via social media.
It’s my hope that social media can midwife a new era of corporate transparency, that the unprecedented level of accountability welcomed by Alan Mullaly — echoed in boardrooms the world across — will transform the identity of the corporation into a living entity reflecting the individuals that make it up. In short, it’s my hope that social media gives corporations back their souls. If business leads this revolution — call it the transparency revolution — it won’t stay in just this sphere (to wit, “Congress’s New Love Affair with Twitter“).
Alan’s reply, by the way, was this: “I’ve spent my entire career focused on safe & efficient transport; sustainability is the future. The future is now.” (You can read the full exchange here.) Ford’s actions will of course scream loudly, but these are exciting words for those of us working daily toward industrial sustainability. Scott Monty was deservedly profiled as a Voice of Innovation by BusinessWeek for his efforts — let’s hope his initiative is an augury of things to come.
February 24, 2009 at 8:39 am
Asheen:
Thanks for the post, interesting take on the two-way responsibility in this “system” called “the economy”. I pondered this two-way dynamic this morning, wondering, “are we sold an unsustainable bill of goods or did we knowingly buy an unsustainable bill of goods?” The answer: both. As with most things, there is no binary solution, it is a systems issue.
My main concern about this democratization of communication is that the spinmeisters will dive into whatever new social media outlets pop up and slowly turn them into PR outlets. I suppose the hope lies in new innovations popping up faster than they can be controlled (It’s already happening).
Also, from a systems perspective, as long as corporations focus on maximizing short-term shareholder returns that ignore sustainable measures, there will be no change. Again, is it the investor’s or the corporation’s responsibility? Both.
On that note, where’s my money?
February 24, 2009 at 11:21 am
Ever the cynic, Wayne. The reason I chose to highlight Twitter as a harbinger of doom to spinmeisters everywhere is its one vital, trumping quality: it is an *opt in* system. I’ll follow, let’s say, @WholeFoods while I find their tweets interesting, informative and occasionally entertaining, but if they begin to spin PR my way, I can very easily choose to stop following.
This forced candor is what makes Twitter a social medium writ large when it comes to ushering in a greater corporate transparency.