Posted on 03/01/2023 6:22:11 AM PST by BurgessKoch
Join an intimate group of leading corporate executives and board members for an off-the record discussion on the role of business in the public square.
A compendium of crises, ranging from climate change to the Covid-19 pandemic, and shifting demands from employees and customers are transforming the business landscape, giving rise to important sustainability initiatives. How are we going to navigate this next horizon?
Together we will explore two themes.
1. Business as unusual. What paradigms are decaying and how can we help them leave well? 2. Emerging future. What initiatives are being born today and how do we help them arrive well?
This is also an opportunity to meet and connect with peers that may not be in your daily orbit, exploring ideas and perspectives beyond your typical purview.
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I’ll join. Shut the eff up. Maximize shareholder wealth by quietly delivering useful products and services. You chase away customers like me every time you spew your leftist BS. I’ve quite fine in doing without. There’s little that I need to buy other than food. I still wear Levi’s that I got 40 years ago. I don’t need new stuff.
Try selling goods, products and services instead of fear and propaganda. I don’t but crap from companies that take up these ridiculous causes, and I don’t care, I don’t need much
The purpose of a not-for-profit business is for a certain cause or concern. If we invert the business model so that the cause or concern is not the primary reason for this corp to exist it will not survive as intended.
Both of these perversions of the respective business model will eventually wind up at the same destination. A corporation that cheats, lies, manipulates, becomes a ward of the state and is a detriment to society.
Top that with companies willingly giving up ownership in any company presence in China, and we've effectively given away everything to get cheap labor. We don't even have to do that with Vietnam production, but, still, have to worry about the quality. Perhaps sourcing and manufacturing in Central and South America would be the better choice, but best, is in the US, where we have the education and legal framework and some semblance of a Judeo-Christian ethic, left.
There are some interesting possibilities with AI coming, but we can't expect much more for a long time ahead from it than what as been proffered, to date. It can get refined, but I don't see waiting around, spending a ton of time and money, to try to dream up something new from it. Invest in what you can know.
Be more worried about viable energy sources (not wind or solar), transportation, and concerns around conflicts that impact trade.
My two cents.
That is, “pieces NOW have divots in them.”
Insightful and helpful. Thank you.
My personal belief is that business should concentrate on business and remain silent on cultural issues.
Some people may choose to support a business because of their stance on “climate change” or gun control, but far more will choose not to support them.
I forget who it is, but we’ve seen an organization that rates business based on their social activism. This organization actually promotes business not being socially active. They rate a business scoring Zero as being completely silent when it comes to that nonsense.
I work for a subsidiary of a Fortune 500 company. I’ve met the CEO of the parent company a few times but won’t claim to know him. He’s very conservative politically and in the way the business is run. They would rate a zero on the scale. If I didn’t know him, I’d have no idea where he or the company stands on any issues except my knowledge that they are run well with a high level of ethics.
They should be the standard all business goes for.
My advice for ALL corporate executives. Make a profit supplying products and services people want. Anything else belongs in the garbage.
My own professional experience is that most people, in general, have a public and private side. They don't let the mask slide unless they're in a "safe space." Thus, in this current environment where people fear that others may have cell phones recording the discussion, or have a P&L to manage or tuitions to pay, discretion is the better part of valor.
In turn, someone parroting MSNBC or FOX News red meat won't get far in terms of building a consensus or building a dialogue. Let those folks run into the line of fire.
What I've seen that HAS worked, is to inject a libertarian thought into the discussion. That usually causes mask slippage. For example, during the pandemic, in the office there were mask Karens and "it's just the flu" types who were loud and proud. In private, you could say "I understand the fears and concerns and I don't want someone feeling like they're dragging something back home and killing Grandma. But there's been a loss of civility." The result was a wave of agreement, and (more often than not) more slippage e.g. "the mask rules are so random that it seems like it has nothing to do about health." BAM!
From that new baseline, you can built toward a more freedom/liberty/capitalism-friendly consensus. Will you get a full-throated Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman consensus? Probably not, but that's not the goal in a 2-hour meeting.
This is meaty food for thought. We have had a long history since WW2, and especially since Clinton, of feeding our enemies. First the muslim world, now China. If we were to develop good supply businesses in South America, perhaps we could suffer less immigration, as well. It would require strong leadership against the drug kings.
If the politics of wokeness comes up, you could attempt to get the panel to consider the pie-chart issue of whether it is advisable to purposefully shut out potentially half the marketplace. Pose it as strictly an economic policy decision.
Due to the internet, consumers are getting wiser to things they might never have had to think about in past decades. When customers see a company crowing about their virtuous contributions to woke causes, especially now when they are faced with inflation, they probably react negatively, as if the corporation is a religion and why should they have to pay more for goods and services so the corporation can tithe?
They know that:
1) corporate “charity” is a write-off;
2) corporate “charity” makes the cost to the consumer go up; and
3) it’s a time drain to have to research a company’s charities as well as its investment bona fides before buying its products or its stock. Even progressives can disagree on what causes should have priority.
People want their investments to produce top dollar so that they can make the most money, take their own write-offs against income, and choose their own form of charitable giving.
There is such a wide variety of regional and cultural differences in the USA, no matter how broad or narrow your distribution range may be. Consumers or investors may have local scholarships in mind, local homeless shelters, even local LGBT organizations when it comes to that—all kinds of ways to make their own communities better or enhance opportunities for poor children to enjoy an activity in which the donor has a lifelong interest.
It is condescending of a corporation to believe that stockholders will only waste their dividends on the white patriarchy.
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