Making Work Matter (eBook)

Chapter 1

Imagine Possibilities for Your Company to Create Business and Social Value

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

—Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Kevin Thompson was working at IBM in 2006 when he read an article by the company’s CEO that would change his life. The article by Samuel Palmisano, published in Foreign Affairs, argued that multinational corporations were rapidly morphing into globally integrated enterprises, which would transform not only where and by whom goods were produced but also organizational cultures and leadership. Although challenging, Palmisano wrote, this shift “provides an opportunity to advance both business growth and societal progress.”1

Kevin was a program manager in the corporate citizenship unit. His group didn’t have a direct connection to the leadership development programs offered through human resources, but Palmisano’s article prompted Kevin to think about how his department could help ensure that IBM had the talent, cultural intelligence, and market knowledge it needed to drive business success and social benefit amid complex global dynamics.

Previously, companies like IBM had used international postings as the training ground for rising executives. These assignments gave them firsthand knowledge of diverse markets and an opportunity to see the company in a global context.

Kevin knew how eye-opening overseas assignments could be. He had spent two years in Ghana as a Peace Corps volunteer, working as an agroforestry manager in a remote village with no running water or electricity. Although he had been out of the Peace Corps for nearly a decade, the impact was lasting. He had become more resilient, had greater cultural competence, and had a much broader worldview, all qualities that strengthened his ability to lead.

But companies were now sending fewer employees abroad. It was expensive, and companies saw greater advantage in developing local talent within countries. Kevin understood that companies could no longer rely on extended full-time foreign assignments to build the capacity of professionals to manage global enterprises.

So he started to imagine what a shorter-term international placement for IBM employees could look like.

Perhaps, he thought, employees could undertake monthlong assignments in emerging markets with a small team composed of IBM colleagues who came together from different countries. These teams could work closely with organizations in local communities to address high-priority social and environmental challenges in health care, education, sustainability, and economic development. Learning would go both ways. IBM employees would offer their business expertise, and community members would bring their expert knowledge of local issues. Through this engagement, IBMers could gain valuable perspectives on growth markets and have a leadership development experience that would enhance their skills as global citizens and corporate executives.

This idea ultimately became IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC).

The CSC is widely applauded now, but all did not immediately embrace it at IBM. “When I first proposed the idea of a program inspired by the Peace Corps at IBM, I was practically laughed out of the conference room,” Kevin recalls. For one thing, management asserted that there would be a very limited number of applicants for the program, especially because they would consider offering this opportunity only to the 20 percent of employees deemed to be “high potential.” But a question posted on the company intranet about employee interest in new international experiences generated more responses than any CEO post in Samuel Palmisano’s tenure. Managers reluctantly agreed to give the program a try.

To their surprise, when the program was launched in 2008, IBM had 14,000 applications from 52 countries for 100 spots. Clearly, the demand was there for a service and leadership experience of this kind. Only three years later, when the company celebrated its centennial, the Corporate Service Corps was identified as one of IBM’s 100 “Icons of Progress” that have shaped the past 100 years—in a league with such innovations as the Selectric typewriter and the floppy disk.

More than 15 years after its launch, the CSC has now sent thousands of employees on more than 200 teams to 30 countries. The CSC has also delivered tangible technological, social, and business benefits to the communities where IBMers have worked. Moreover, it has served as an exemplar for many companies that also want to offer their employees a chance to get a global perspective on business and societal challenges and opportunities.

Organizational White Space Is Your Innovation Canvas

Before I met Kevin, I had read Robert Kelley’s classic management book, How to Be a Star at Work. One of his insights has stayed with me for years. Exceptional performers, he wrote, are “blazing trails in the organization’s white spaces.”2 It is an apt metaphor for describing what corporate social intrapreneurs like Kevin do.

Exceptional performers at work see possibilities in that white space for creating the next new thing—some product, service, business model, or business practice that allows a company to outpace its competition.

Corporate social intrapreneurs do that and more. In these white spaces, they imagine innovations that will outrun competitors and deliver results that are good for people and the planet. These innovators see beyond short-term financial metrics and believe we need broader measures of business success, ones that integrate social and environmental impacts with financial results.

Peter Drucker, one of the most influential thinkers on business leadership, asserted that every social and global issue of our day is a business opportunity in disguise.3 Corporate social intrapreneurs see through the disguises to the opportunities for their companies. Finding these opportunities requires vision. Turning the vision into reality requires determination because the work is hard, and there can be pushback from colleagues who see things only as they are, rather than how they could be.

But the tide is turning.

Now Is Your Moment

There is good news for visionaries seeking new ways of doing business that convert problems into opportunities. Public sentiment about the role that business must play in society has shifted. As a result, businesses can no longer thrive by focusing singularly on maximizing value for shareholders. Instead, they must be attentive to a broad range of stakeholders on which their success depends, including employees, customers, suppliers, community members, and the planet.

Businesses must transform—to compete for and retain scarce talent, to meet investor expectations that they will mitigate risks and take advantage of opportunities that arise from environmental and social issues, to become more diverse and inclusive in decision-making, and to comply with a rapidly changing regulatory environment that is setting new standards for action.

This shift was well underway before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and extracted such an enormous toll around the globe. It was well on its way before the murder of George Floyd and the racial reckoning that continues to reverberate. But these crises laid bare the need for transformational change and the critical role that business must play in solving our toughest societal challenges.

The headline from the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer report captures the new zeitgeist for companies: “Societal Leadership Is Now a Core Function of Business.”4

Edelman data show that business outpaces NGOs, government, and media as a trusted institution. However, that level of trust is precarious. Although many companies have made bold commitments to address climate change, economic inequality, workforce reskilling, and other urgent issues, Edelman survey respondents say that business is not doing enough. Companies are beginning to step up, but they have a long way to go to realize their full potential for creating positive change.

That leaves the field wide open for corporate social intrapreneurs who have fresh ideas about how their companies can create value for both the business and society.

Identify the Change That Matters

A starting point for anyone wanting to imagine opportunities in this white space is to ask yourself several overlapping questions: What needs to change in my company to achieve greater positive impact? What is possible to change? What change matters most to me? How can I most effectively use my talent to effect this change?

There are multiple ways to respond to these questions, as you will see in the stories in this chapter and throughout the book.

Linking Leadership Development with Social Impact

In 2006, when Kevin Thompson at IBM began to imagine a way for the corporate citizenship group to support IBM’s leadership development efforts, there were few precedents for this kind of collaboration.

Companies offered volunteer opportunities for employees to serve their communities. And companies ran leadership development programs for midlevel and senior executives. But the two existed in parallel universes. Leadership development programs rarely prepared top talent to consider issues beyond the gates of the corporation or to understand the implications of their decisions on society and...