Fishburn Hedges

09.06.2010

Brave new world? Well, perhaps not yet, but this post-crisis, not-quite-recovery, no man's land certainly feels different. You can't move for talk of responsibility and shared values, for one thing. But a few other things haven’t changed.

The FT supplement this week announcing the latest Business in the Community excellence awards rightly points out how the financial meltdown and more recent events in the Gulf of Mexico have shaken trust in the ability of companies to behave responsibly.

In the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis there was, of course, real anger directed not just towards the City, but at the corporate world as a whole. But you only have to attend events on the subject more recently to appreciate it's still there, either simmering just below the surface or sometimes right out in the open.

Yes, there's plenty of talk about a new style of capitalism and business forging new contracts with society, but little evidence so far of the "how". At some point the blame game will have to stop and some good old-fashioned conversations take its place, even if in a more modern, digital setting.

The corporate world, for its part, genuinely has the opportunity to put a responsible way of doing business right at its heart, something which may involve investment and trade-offs in still economically difficult times.

But a new approach is needed. The new times require a new mindset, certainly from where we've come most recently. Not one which just shows or, worse still, just shows off, but one which genuinely engages customers, partners, the third sector and NGOs in the creation of innovative new ways to help solve some of the big, global challenges still out there.

Then there's the price of failure. In this instant, disorderly, digital world, those who don't engage at all, do it half-heartedly or, worse still, attempt to put a marketing gloss over synthetic programmes will be quickly found out.

If it doesn't sound too grand a statement, it feels as if we are at a genuine moment for business to reconnect with society. Certainly the decisions made coming out of recession will arguably be more important than those going in.

It requires work and commitment on all sides, as well as a real desire to do things differently, but if the results deliver progress on the big issues, genuine social change and, yes, profit, then nobody will care too much who shares the spoils.

Posted by Simon Matthews