Want a CSR Job? Read This First.

With just over two months left until I graduate from business school, I’ve started to reflect on what I’ve accomplished over the last two years. Without a doubt, the most fulfilling experiences of my MBA program have been the chances I’ve had to engage in real-world consulting projects for corporate and nonprofit clients.

In the last four semesters, I’ve worked on some pretty terrific marketing and corporate social responsibility projects - including brand audits, marketing research plans, stakeholder communications strategies, and social media tactics.

But perhaps my most satisfying consulting project was a sustainability reporting and stakeholder engagement plan for Praxair, a $9B Fortune 300 industrial gas manufacturer in Danbury, CT. I’ve talked about this project in past posts, and I was thrilled to see that Boston University recently issued a press release about this engagement (including a quote from yours truly!).

These consulting projects have been the most rewarding part of my MBA, but they’ve also been the most challenging and time-consuming. In the end, though, I’ve signed up for all of them without hesitation – in large part because I (and many of my fellow MBA classmates) believed they’d serve as proof of our experience to potential employers come recruiting season.

Interestingly, last week The Wall Street Journal published an article about companies partnering with business schools to create these sorts of CSR projects for students. The article starts out positively, saying urgent “social concerns” are leading more and more companies to partner with business schools to provide real-world education and training to students (aka: potential employees).

Unfortunately the story takes on a different tone just a few sentences later:

The effort [to create real-world CSR consulting projects] is being met with both gratitude and skepticism from business schools, which say that despite the emphasis on integrating these hot-button topics into the curriculum, it's business as usual at recruiting time. Few hiring managers, they say, ask students about corporate-responsibility training or indicate it's a priority.

That’s right – according to the article, these CSR projects may be happening more frequently on business school campuses, but that doesn’t mean they’re turning into more CSR jobs for MBA graduates after school.

The article drills home the point even further, saying that engaging students in these kinds of projects “doesn't translate into hiring socially responsible M.B.As, an issue that “points to a disconnect on part of the companies: There's enthusiasm in the classroom for imparting corporate responsibility and sustainability concepts, but hiring managers attending campus recruiting sessions say it's rarely something they quiz candidates about.”

In the end it seems that MBA grads looking for CSR jobs can easily find themselves between that proverbial rock and a hard place – on the one hand, they’re receiving extraordinary real-world training for future sustainability positions; yet on the other, there’s often no opportunity to continue this work once they finish business school.

Another related and interesting study that just came out also reinforced this point:

Ellen Weinreb from WeinrebGroup analyzed six years of CSR job postings and drew conclusions about the availability of jobs and overall trends in CSR recruiting. Her findings point to an interesting conclusion for recent MBA grads wanting to get into CSR (which, by the way, is the same conclusion drawn by the Wall Street Journal article):

If you want to work in CSR, get functional experience first.

Ellen’s study shows an increase over time in VP and Director-level CSR jobs – which is great news for people already working in CSR but not so great for MBA grads just trying to jump in.

Since those high-level CSR jobs are most likely out of reach for newly-minted MBAs, Ellen suggests job seekers embed themselves in a corporate function (marketing, finance, strategy etc), learn the business, and then transition internally to a CSR role.

When you think about it, this advice makes sense; after all, to be effective in sustainability, you’ve got to first understand the business you’re in.

For my part, it turns out that I’ve actually heard this advice many, many times – and given the frequency with which it’s said, I’ve taken it seriously to heart.

Still, this puts me – and many other soon-to-be MBA grads – in a bit of an awkward position going forward.

My goal is to work in a CSR role within a big consumer brand, so I’ve stacked my resume with CSR-related projects and classes to show future employers that I know what I’m talking about.

But if in the end it turns out that these kinds of activities don’t necessarily translate into a job-seeker’s “competitive advantage,” did I waste my time on these projects when I should have been doing something else? Obviously that’s being overly dramatic, but the issue certainly gives me pause.

In the end, the best advice I can give to CSR job-seekers is sort of a hybrid model:

Learn the business through functional experience, but bring sustainability to work every day.

Yes, getting that marketing, or finance, or supply chain experience under your belt will be crucially important – not only to build credibility and a reputation for yourself, but also as a way to help you think about sustainability and CSR opportunities from within.

But just because you’re working in a non-CSR function doesn’t mean that you should chuck your CSR know-how and skills out the window. On the contrary, your understanding and flexibility in CSR can only help you do your functional job better.

We can still hope that one day CSR will be such a corporate priority that all companies will recruit for these positions. In the meantime, my advice is to earn your stripes at a company you respect and admire, make your interest and intentions in sustainability clear, and with time transition into the CSR job you want.

As the old saying goes, “Your patience will be rewarded”.

The Role of Social Responsibility in Branding

These days I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about consumers and the brands they love. I’m taking a Branding class this semester, and each week we do a case study of a different company and the branding challenges it faces.

Perhaps the biggest insight I’ve gleaned from the first couple of months is this:

Consumers own brands, not marketers.

That’s right – as much as companies may want to believe they have control over their brand and its meanings, in the end consumers are the ones who instill a brand with its true essence.

That’s because, at its core, the value of a brand comes from fulfilling some inherent consumer need, want or desire. While companies can (and obviously should) manage their brand, in the end consumers are the meaning makers of what the brand stands for.

As part of this course, I’m working on a consulting project for a regional consumer goods company that wants to go national. For confidentiality’s sake, let’s pretend this company makes cleaning products (it doesn’t).

Over the last few weeks my team and I have spent a lot of time doing a deep dive into the company and what its brand means for consumers. How do consumers use these cleaning products? What do the products allow consumers to accomplish? What emotional or social benefits come from using them?

What we’ve found so far is that the people who love this brand really love this brand.

In fact, they’re pretty fanatical. The products they use, and more importantly the brand overall, serves to truly define part of their identity.

In essence, it’s not just a product they use. It’s a lifestyle.

For the most part it’s been fascinating and even fun to see how these loyal consumers use, evangelize, and embody this brand.

Yet, during my research I stumbled upon some concerning evidence to suggest that some consumers had taken this fanaticism too far – namely, multiple YouTube videos of consumers using the product inappropriately. To follow the example of our phony product, let’s say consumers were uploading videos of themselves sniffing the fumes from the cleaning products and getting violently ill.

Of course, with my interest in corporate social responsibility, warning bells immediately went off in my head:

• Assuming the company knows about these videos, how should it respond?
• What is the company doing to prevent this dangerous activity?
• What legal implications exist if someone is seriously hurt engaging in this behavior?

And the list goes on.

But beyond the obvious CSR questions, I also thought of my key branding takeaway thus far:

If consumers make the meaning for a brand, what happens if they turn the meaning into something the company doesn’t want (in this case, a vehicle for irresponsible and unhealthy behavior)?

What is a company’s obligation, if any, for social responsibility in branding?

Some brands – alcohol-producers, cigarette companies, gun manufacturers – know that responsibility comes with the territory (although it’s certainly debatable whether they themselves always promote responsibility among consumers).

But what about brands that take on meanings that companies didn’t intend? If consumers own the brand, what opportunities do brand managers have to reclaim negative meanings and even to combat abuse of the product?

People often talk about corporate social responsibility as a brand builder – do it right and your brand will be strengthened and given more value.

But in this case, can CSR actually be a brand definer? Can social responsibility help brand managers looking to refine the (presumably unwanted) meanings that consumers have instilled in their brand?

This is the question I’ll be trying to answer over the next few months, and I’ll be sure to let you know what I find out. Since I’m still a student of branding, though, and certainly no expert, I’d love to hear your thoughts:

What role do you think CSR can play in helping to manage brands? What companies or case studies do you know of that exemplify this issue of unintended, negative and/or dangerous brand meanings?

One example we’ve looked at in class is Harley Davidson and the Hell’s Angels – talk about a brand meaning (aka: organized crime) that a company might want to refine!

Thanks for weighing in…

The Value of Listening

I wrote a post last week on The Changebase that seems to have hit home for some readers.

It was about the value of storytelling in CSR reports  as a way for companies to not only connect with various audiences but also to bring their sustainability stories to life.

Obviously, I’m a big believer in storytelling – otherwise I wouldn’t have written that post! Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had missed one crucial element: Listening.

Sure, storytelling is a valuable way for a company to get its CSR message across. But even this is still a very one-sided way of communicating.

With the increase in consumers wanting and expecting to have a more immediate and impactful voice on business today (especially via social media channels), it seems that the true CSR winners are those companies that not only tell stories, but that allow their stakeholders to shape the story that gets told.

Stakeholder engagement is an incredibly complex topic, and to be honest, I’m still learning about best practices in this area. If you can imagine that each business faces unique industry- and firm-level opportunities and threats, then it follows that each business must also consider and engage with a unique set of supporters, critics and third-party groups. Not only are there a lot of different voices to consider, but there's no one-size-fits-all model to follow.

Some companies (often the ones that have been burned by crisis or stakeholder anger in the past) have invested a lot of money in better managing these external and internal audiences. Nike and Gap, for example, are two companies I’ve heard (at least anecdotally) that have full departments dedicated to stakeholder engagement. Which makes sense since, in my opinion, it certainly sounds like a full-time job.

Timberland is another company that’s chosen to listen, not just talk. In its Voices of Challenge project, Timberland has created a platform for stakeholders to share ideas, discuss concerns, and create collaborative opportunities for the company.

We’ll be incorporating your feedback as we develop Timberland’s CSR strategy. We hope you’ll join the conversation by posing questions and comments and providing suggestions for how to approach opportunities and challenges. Let your voice be heard – join the conversation by clicking on the buttons below.

And here's an example of the type of contributions Timberland is getting:

By creating a two-way dialogue in which the company has the opportunity to hear directly from its stakeholders, Timberland wins a couple of big ways:

• It earns additional credibility and loyalty from consumers, suppliers, NGOs and others who appreciate corporate transparency and authenticity, and who want to have a voice in Timberland’s business decisions
• It solidifies the brand as forward-thinking, inclusive and progressive – all adjectives, by the way, that differentiate Timberland from its competitors and inevitably will help drive sales
• It provides Timberland with additional raw data to understand who its stakeholder audiences are, what matters to them, and by extension, what should matter to Timberland.

Ultimately, when companies listen, they learn.

It’s the kind of no-brainer statement that any market researcher would agree with, yet when it comes to CSR, it’s not always so easy to do.

Companies often worry that by opening themselves up to a conversation with stakeholders, all they may get in return is criticism, anger and frustration. And sometimes, that’s exactly what happens.

Yet this fear of being criticized should actually be outweighed by the possibility that true idea sharing can lead to innovations and developments that the company could not have conceived of on its own.

Funny enough, one of my research projects for this semester is to work with a marketing and communications firm to dive deeper into the opportunities that exist for companies to drive innovation, improvement and ultimately revenue by engaging their stakeholders. When you distill it down to our most basic research question, it’s this:

Can listening be a company’s competitive advantage?

Time will tell, but my initial hunch is that it can.

In the meantime, what’s your company doing to listen – I mean, really listen – to what your consumers, customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and community members have to say? What ideas and insights could you gain from them that will make your business more effective, strategic and successful going forward?

The Value of Storytelling

Picture this:

Four MBA classmates and I are sitting in a large, somewhat imposing corporate conference room at one of the world’s largest chemical and gas manufacturers.

In front of us sit 12 Director and C-level executives from our client company, and they’ve come here specifically to hear what we think – as MBA students, as potential employees and investors, and as concerned citizens – about their current sustainability reporting materials.

After four months of intensive learning about best practices in CSR reporting – as well as doing a deep dive into this company’s business and industry – we developed a set of recommendations that really centered around the following:

A successful CSR report doesn’t just tell impact – it tells stories.

Granted this is an oversimplification, but not by much! From what we could gather, it’s clear that this company is committed to not only reducing its own carbon footprint but also that of its customers. When it comes to being an environmental steward and good corporate citizen, this company is doing lots of things right.

Yet, all of this great work had been lost on us initially as readers; in fact, it wasn’t until just days before our presentation that we realized how stellar this company really was.

How could this have happened? How, after hours and days spent poring over their sustainability documents, could we have possibly missed the point?

It comes down to communication. While this company was obviously successful in its sustainability efforts, it had done so little to communicate its story that we’d almost missed it entirely.

With that we presented a number of recommendations on how to present content and provide context in ways that are engaging, interactive and customized for stakeholders.

At the end of the presentation, during the Q&A period, one of the executives asked: “Why does it matter if we don’t tell people about what we do in sustainability. Isn’t it good enough that we do something at all?”

To that our team answered an emphatic “No”. It’s not enough to just do something.

Sure, companies need to be mindful of greenwashing. Consumers can certainly smell insincerity from miles away - and these days they've gotten even better at sniffing out fake green marketing claims.

Nonetheless, it seems to me (and others out there) that this concern about greenwashing has gone too far. In fact in some cases, greenwashing worries are actually holding companies back from saying anything at all about sustainability – mainly for fear that someone, somewhere will find something to criticize.

Ladies and Gentlemen of Corporate America, take note: 

A fear of greenwashing is not an excuse to stop you from telling your sustainability story!

In fact, by effectively communicating a company’s CSR successes – and, crucially, also its shortcomings – in authentic, transparent and collaborative ways, a company can achieve an array of benefits, including (but certainly not limited to):

• Proving to investors that it’s focused on the long-term viability of the business
• Giving consumers a voice and a stake in the company’s efforts to improve communities and the environment
• Demonstrating to its employees that the company’s values and culture are aligned with their own
• Engaging NGOs, the media and potential detractors in conversations around the company’s sustainability process, goals, and strategies.

By not focusing on the manner in which it told its sustainability story, our client company had inadvertently left very real value on the table – value that instead was being captured by competitors who had done a tremendous job on both the reporting and storytelling fronts.

Now, don’t get me wrong – to have a successful CSR program, a company surely needs to know its footprint, set strategic and forward-thinking goals, and report its numbers.

But to be a true leader in sustainability, a company must be able to go beyond its numbers and move towards an inclusive, engaging and heartfelt discussion with its stakeholders about its current sustainability journey.

In my research, I came up with a couple of good examples of companies that tell their sustainability stories in compelling ways (Cadbury, Shell, and Timberland, just to name a few). What companies do you think are doing a good job of communicating the story behind the numbers? I’d love to hear what you’ve found.

CSR from the Inside

Recently I had the opportunity to interview Marcus Chung, director of corporate citizenship at McKesson (To learn more about Marcus, check out his blog and follow him on Twitter).

My purpose for sitting down with Marcus was twofold. First, I wanted to get his take on corporate social responsibility and sustainability efforts at McKesson, as well as ask some questions about the field in general. Second, given that he is a young CSR leader, I wanted to give Marcus a chance to share his own personal story.

Over the course of an hour or so, we talked about:

• Marcus' Professional Background,
• Corporate Citizenship at McKesson,
• Culture and CSR Success
• Reporting on Impact, and
• CSR Going Forward.

It’s a long post, but well worth it! Here's what he had to say:

Marcus' Professional Background

After graduating from Wesleyan University, Marcus worked as a senior research manager at The Corporate Executive Board. While he enjoyed working in the private sector, Marcus felt like he was missing something. It turns out that “something” was a discussion of the social and environmental impacts of business – a realization that led him to enroll in UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

While at Haas, Marcus interned at Net Impact, an experience that was crucial in deepening his understanding of the field of CSR. Throughout his internship Marcus conducted numerous informational interviews with other CSR professionals, who confirmed for him that no two CSR jobs are the same (a key takeaway for anyone looking to find their own CSR job!).

After completing his MBA, Marcus accepted another internship at Gap, Inc. which later turned into a full-time job. His role there focused on strategic planning and communications for the company’s CSR department. In this position he was able to observe how the many different aspects of Gap's CSR program – from ethical sourcing to environmental affairs to the Foundation – all reinforced Gap's key business goals.

In July 2008, Marcus left Gap, Inc. to become director of corporate citizenship for the environment at McKesson. As we’ll hear throughout my conversation with Marcus, this new role challenges him to be entrepreneurial, think strategically, build empowered partnerships, and act as a constant champion for corporate social responsibility.

Corporate Citizenship at McKesson

Headquartered in San Francisco, McKesson is a 176 year-old company that employs 32,000 people and last year had revenues of $106B. As a business-to-business company, McKesson’s two main divisions – distribution services and health care IT solutions – serve business customers like Wal-Mart, Target, and 70% of the nation’s hospitals. While many consumers may not be familiar with the McKesson name, it’s safe to say that we’ve all used or been in contact with McKesson’s products and services at some point in time.

Recently McKesson has experienced very rapid growth, which has mainly been fueled by acquisition; in fact, the company is actually made up of 40+ independent business units, each with its own degree of autonomy. This has interesting implications for McKesson’s corporate citizenship program because, at the corporate level, Marcus and the rest of the team are trying to create company-wide CSR standards. Yet when each business unit operates independently, it can be tough to create a cohesive program.

McKesson's Corporate Citizenship Program takes many different forms. In his role, Marcus reports to the vice president of corporate citizenship, who is also the president of the McKesson Foundation. He splits his time in a few different ways:

• Managing the Environmental Councils: While Marcus directs enterprise-wide environmental strategy for McKesson, he also manages a system to empower different business units and facilities to get involved through the development of environmental councils. Right now there are 17 councils throughout the McKesson network, each staffed by employee volunteers (between 3 and 30 people) who look for location-specific projects to reduce the company’s impact.
• Producing the Corporate Citizenship Report: If you haven’t checked out McKesson’s CSR report, I highly recommend it. While Marcus is the first to admit that McKesson is still wrapping its arms around its environmental impact, I was very impressed by the report and its ability to tell the human side of McKesson’s story.
• Engaging with Internal and External Stakeholders: Whether it’s partnering with vendors, responding to inquiries from the socially responsible investment community, or working with internal groups to champion McKesson’s corporate citizenship program, Marcus spends a lot of time in stakeholder relations. Interestingly, one of the company’s biggest stakeholder communities is real estate – since 50% of McKesson’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from its physical buildings, Marcus sees a huge opportunity to work with McKesson’s real estate constituents to improve the company’s environmental performance.

Culture and CSR Success

One of the questions I often ask CSR professionals is “What is it about your company’s culture that makes your CSR program successful?” There’s clearly a unique recipe for CSR success at each company, and my sense is that culture has a lot to do with it.

Marcus says McKesson's corporate citizenship is a work in progress, and that the company is still trying to get a full picture of its impact. That said, he believes that the company’s culture and commitment to corporate citizenship enables his team to better visualize what the company’s success will look like down the road.

One of the main examples of McKesson’s culture is what is known as the ICARE Shared Principles. These principles are meant to set the tone for all employee behavior and decisions. Yet according to Marcus, they are not just some funny corporate mantra that no one cares really about; instead these principles are truly internalized by employees as a set of values that everyone should follow.

Take this and combine it with a CEO who believes in the importance of corporate citizenship and environmental sustainability, and you have a company that clearly values the right things.

Still, any CSR director knows that changing mindsets and behavior is a slow process. At McKesson, Marcus spends a lot of time educating employees that corporate citizenship goes beyond employee volunteerism and philanthropy.

“It’s an evolution,” Marcus said, “but at least there’s an appreciation for what we do.”

Reporting on Impact

Having just finished a post on The Basics of CSR Reporting, I was eager to get Marcus’ thoughts on how the Global Reporting Initiative’s guidelines factored into McKesson’s reporting strategy. Given that he had written reports at Gap, Inc. and is now doing the same for McKesson, Marcus had some interesting insights.

In general, he felt that using the GRI was a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the GRI clearly validates any company’s reporting efforts while also pushing it to improve its measurement process every year. Still, Marcus struggled with the idea of trying to fit McKesson’s data collection and reporting process into the rigid GRI categories, stressing that the company does not yet have a lot of the tools in place to measure what the GRI wants (not to mention the fact that some of what the GRI asks for isn't even relevant to McKesson's business).

Beyond the GRI, reporting at McKesson is still a challenge, Marcus said, because as a B2B company it’s not really used to disclosing this kind of information to various audiences (versus a company like Gap where today many end-consumers demand these details).

Not only is it difficult to collect data, then, but the company has to be comfortable with the story that the data tells – a concept that internal groups like marketing and legal might not always applaud. Thus, “reporting is an iterative process” at McKesson – and everywhere else I’m sure!

CSR Going Forward

Our interview concluded with a few final questions about the future of CSR at McKesson and in general. For Marcus, the key to McKesson's success is leveraging the enthusiasm and interest of its employees who clearly want to be involved in these initiatives. He wondered, “How do we connect them, get them educated and involved?”

He also said it’s time for the company to “start putting a stake in the ground” and set goals for measuring and reducing its environmental impacts. That is, rather than always looking backwards to tell stories and report results, Marcus wants the company’s focus to shift toward being pro-active about where McKesson will head in years to come.

As for the field overall, Marcus believes CSR is only going to grow in importance as more companies see the value of getting involved (and feel pressure from their stakeholders).

The big question, however, is how well – and how quickly – companies will realize that CSR goes beyond public relations and becomes instead about a deeper connection with, and impact in, communities worldwide.

Thanks, Marcus, for sharing your thoughts and opinions with The Changebase, and good luck at McKesson!