CONCLUSION

Is education the answer? No, but learning is.

Following our annual event in September, I wrote in my conclusion that one of the most significant threads from each conversation was the necessity for internal education within a business. Before a business can take responsibility for its role in educating society, it must educate its shareholders, executives and employees on how they and their industry serve society – and, in turn, about the role society plays in their business. Any form of regulation, be it through an Environmental Social Governance (ESG) framework or otherwise, will be impossible to adhere to if a board does not understand that economic profitability and social profitability are intrinsically linked. And that process must start with education in our businesses.

Needless to say, my desire to further explore this question through the role of the communications industry in both the American and British markets was based on the obvious assumption that, without communication, we can’t educate at all.

However, I did not anticipate the size of the opportunity that comes with that education.

One could argue that the answer to our 2022 question is a simple yes – that education is the answer, if business is prepared to invest in learning. Learning doesn’t happen in isolation; it occurs when we collaborate inside our businesses and outside in our communities. Learning is not a rote system, based on a hierarchy of knowledge. It is the spirit of innovation and growth. To better understand our businesses and our roles as leaders, we must learn about the culture of our organisations; we must learn about our customers; we must learn about the impact we have on society; we must learn from each other that, in business as in life, we are fallible. And therein lies business’s biggest challenge: to invest in learning.

It is perhaps obvious that, to communicate externally, every business must take a position internally. We have seen far too many times the cost to a business’s reputation when what they preach is not what they practice. In America, a company’s stance on abortion rights, the climate crisis or gun crime is not a knee-jerk position, it comes at a cost – politically, emotionally, and financially. Therefore, the importance of having the right conversations is paramount if we are to continue to close the gap between business and society. Whilst many corporates need a zeitgeist moment to highlight the scale of a particular problem, be it the unnecessary death of George Floyd or the real impact of the mental health crisis, investing in a communication strategy that focuses on learning rather than educating means we improve our knowledge, our understanding and our empathy and move away of a strategy of absolutes. By choosing to invest in learning today, we reap rewards tomorrow.

My assumption before the two-hour private boardroom discussion in Manhattan was that the gap between business and society in America was far smaller than in the UK – that the lack of state support had left the survival of society largely in the hands of business. However, the sheer size of the country has meant that the scale of change is overwhelming and politically polarised in ways that aren’t mirrored in the UK. Yet. The lack of regulation in the US was, as the report concludes, a topic that we didn’t explore – largely because the conversation was stuck in a debate between corporate America and political America on the definition of genuine change. It is however clear that, without addressing that question, US business is in danger of tying itself in knots about who is responsible (or who has the power) to create systemic change.

The UK conversation was different – not just politically, but in its sense of collaboration. Perhaps unsurprisingly, America is now so polarised that any conversation about systemic change comes with a personal agenda, not a collaborative one. In the UK, systemic change is front of mind for many leaders – the more we can learn from each other, the better we can address the overwhelming challenge of building a business that can both effect change and keep the lights on. But again: that doesn’t start with the business, it starts with the individual. It starts with us.

Old models of leadership are playing out across the globe on a daily basis. The expectation of our leaders – and by extension, ourselves – to have all the answers is unrealistic, and the tension between traditional models of what it means to lead is growing. For me, it has never been clearer that we can no longer take a dogmatic approach; rather, we must listen and learn, admit what we don’t know and trust what we do.

This is investment in spite of profit. The choice is no longer between societal impact and economic growth. Whilst evidence of this point might yet to be proven in practice, in theory it is absolutely clear. Although of all our contributors, Pfizer is perhaps uniquely positioned – as a healthcare company with global impact, building their business without a wide lens on society is impossible – theirs is a position we must all take. In 2023, it is no longer enough to make money: how we make money is fundamental too, and it is on every leader to balance both.

I believe that it is only by investing in the right conversations, in our organisations and industries, that we can begin to understand whether our company’s purpose aligns with the people that are in service of it on a daily basis. In the words of long-term member Joe Twyman, “One of the problems that politicians and corporations fall into is trying to educate people by simply explaining things more. I call this the Marillion effect because when I was at university, one of my housemates believed firstly, that the band Marillion were the greatest thing ever to enter the cultural sphere. And secondly, that if you did not agree with him, it was simply because you hadn’t listened to enough Marillion.”

Like politicians, businesses suffer from the Marillion effect. The more we state our purpose publicly, the more we believe it internally. As Dan Wagner said at the close of our conversation in New York, when we focus on a random or unrelatable story, we ignore what’s really important. We must focus more on the stories about why our businesses take a position, and the impact of that position, and less on knee jerk reactions. Perhaps only then will we find a truer purpose, one that speaks to business and society – they are, after all, one and the same.