Executive Summary
Companies are increasingly under pressure to take a stand on high-profile political and social issues. Sometimes there is a clear moral issue at hand and the consequences will be most severe if you don’t say anything. At other times, it may not be so clear. But ultimately if your words don’t match your actions, they will be perceived as inauthentic, hypocritical, or woke-washing. Before deciding which issues to speak out on, companies and leaders should ask three questions: 1) Does the issue align with your corporate mission and values? 2) Can you meaningfully influence the issue? 3) Will your constituents (employees, customers, community) agree with speaking out?
Black Lives Matter. Trade policy. Immigration. Over the last four years, companies have been under pressure from their constituencies — employees, customers, investors, and the communities in which they operate — to take a public stand on high-profile political and social movements. According to research from the Edelman Trust Barometer, 54% of employees globally believe that CEOs should speak publicly on controversial political and social issues they care about. Similarly, 53% of consumers agree that every brand has a responsibility to get involved in at least one social issue that does not directly impact its business.
It is impossible and impractical for companies and executives to speak out on every issue. With some, there will be an obvious moral reason to take a stand. At other times, it may not be so clear. Thus, the question for companies and C-level executives is when should you speak out? If you choose to do so, how should you prepare and position your response? Should your company take the lead in driving the conversation, or is it better to partner with other organizations to have a more meaningful influence on the issue? Or should you instead avoid speaking out at all?
To help companies make this decision, I’ve created the following framework, based on my research and consulting experience over the last five years.
Three Questions to Guide Your Approach
To begin, your company should ask the following questions:
- Does the issue align with your company’s strategy? Your strategy is based in part on the company’s mission and values. If there is a misalignment with the issue you’re speaking out on, your statements will be viewed by your constituents — and the public — as inauthentic.
- Can you meaningfully influence the issue? Does your company have the expertise and resources to make a difference? And are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? If not, but you speak out anyway, you risk being seen as hypocritical or as “woke-washing.”
- Will your constituencies agree with speaking out? Obviously, your company greatly reduces its risk of disrupting future business if key constituencies generally agree with the proposed stance. When these constituencies disagree with each other, however, you must discuss and carefully weigh their relative importance to your business (e.g. a small customer segment with limited power vs. your largest investor).
A Framework to Guide Your Response
The answers to the above questions are certainly not easy to determine and will contain a lot of company-specific nuance. However, executive teams must try to get to a “Yes” or “No” on each one (even if it’s a “mostly yes” or “mostly no.”)
If you answer yes to all three questions, then you have the opportunity to speak out as a leader on the issue at hand. Starbucks did this after a notorious 2018 incident in which a Philadelphia store manager called 911 after two Black men who were refused access to the bathroom refused to leave the store, resulting in their arrest. After protests and online outrage, Starbucks apologized and issued a new bathroom policy. It also shut down 8,000 stores for an afternoon of anti-bias training that was shaped by a number of experts, including the Equal Justice Initiative Founder and Executive Director Bryan Stevenson and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill. Starbucks also offered to share this training with other companies.
Starbucks’ response checked “yes” to all three questions:
- Does the issue align with your company strategy? In its mission, Starbucks describes itself as “a third-place environment, where everyone is welcome, and we can gather, as a community, to share great coffee and deepen human connection.” All customers must feel comfortable in Starbucks stores and this racist act happened in a store – Starbucks had to speak out.
- Can you meaningfully influence the issue? By developing new anti-bias training, instructing 175,000 baristas, and sharing it with their peers, Starbucks had a meaningful opportunity to influence how people of color are treated in retail stores. By shutting down all stores for training, Starbucks demonstrated its commitment.
- Will your constituencies agree with speaking out? Starbucks key constituencies were aligned. Customers and community members were outraged by the incident. And as one employee put it: “It’s a horrible thing that happened to those two men … that we get to be part of a group of people wanting to do something systemically different is awesome.”
Starbucks’ actions in the spring of 2018 were very different from three years earlier, when the company, in partnership with USA Today, launched its widely panned “Race Together” campaign in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. As part of that initiative, baristas were instructed to write “Race Together” on cups and engage customers in conversations about race. This initiative was generally perceived as a marketing stunt. If we apply the framework to this initiative:
- Does the issue align with company strategy? Discussing race in a forced and unmediated setting is not part of the company’s strategy or mission, and it largely made employees and customers feel uncomfortable.
- Can you meaningfully influence the issue? Starbucks could not have hoped to meaningfully influence the issue of racism in America through the “Race Together” campaign, in part because race isn’t an issue (racism is), and largely because the campaign didn’t have concrete aims/pledges to do anything beyond talking.
- Will your constituents agree with speaking out? While many Starbucks constituents are likely supportive of ending racism in America, they were not supportive of discussing race in Starbucks stores. As one post on Twitter stated: “Not sure what @Starbucks was thinking. I don’t have time to explain 400 years of oppression to you & still make my train. #RaceTogether.”
When your answer to each of the questions is no, I recommend not speaking out at all, but not every case is so clear cut. Many times, companies will find themselves with a mix of yes/no answers to the three questions.
If your executive team answers “Yes” to two of the questions, but “No” to a third, then you should consider carefully your next steps before speaking out. You might want to approach the situation as a follower, letting others take the lead. This may include joining a coalition of companies or an industry association that has decided to speak out on the issue. Or perhaps you might have a division or individual product or brand that decides to speak on the issue, rather than the company as a whole.
If your executive team answers “Yes” to only one of the questions, but “No” to the other two, then I suggest you do not speak out, but continue to monitor the situation – things might change that turn a “No” into a “Yes” with time and lead you to speak out.
How Should You Prepare and Position Your Response?
While news events may feel unexpected, the underlying issues — from racism to gun violence to sexism — are often long simmering. Companies can and should discuss in advance which issues they have a view on and create a playbook for their response.
First, assign a forecasting team to monitor and research hot-button issues, homing in on the ones that are most likely to align with or impact your business strategy. The team should include representatives from your marketing, communications, strategy, and legal (usually compliance) departments as well as someone from the C-suite. It should research other organizations or individuals who have spoken out on a given topic and what the outcome has been. The team should also create a competitive map: Who are the most influential players speaking out on the issue? How does your influence compare to theirs? Finally, the team should prepare answers to the following questions:
- What is your company’s mission, vision, value set, and strategy?
- What are the social/political/environmental threats to these elements of strategy?
- Where and how can you meaningfully influence the discussion to neutralize these threats? What will your voice uniquely add to the discussion?
- Which issues do you have constituency alignment on?
Second, create a playbook for speaking out on the issues identified above. Use a communication strategy framework to guide your thinking here: Who are your key constituencies? What do you want them to do/think/understand about the issue? What do they need to know? How can you measure success? Then develop a detailed game plan for when you need to mobilize quickly. Decide in advance who needs to be part of the decision-making process. Executives should be aware of the company’s stance on relevant issues and know where to access talking points. Review the playbook at least annually with your executive team and update as needed. Don’t be afraid to toss or overhaul playbooks that are no longer relevant.
Companies need to understand that expectations of business are changing from society, consumers, employees, and investors. Even if they have not yet been confronted with a decision to speak out on a potentially controversial topic, they will likely find themselves needing to make this decision in the future. This framework offers a business case for how to respond. But companies also need to weigh the morality around a given response, the intensity of emotion associated with a specific constituency, and what the consequences of no response might mean. Using this methodical approach, companies will be able to determine which issues are most relevant to their business to maximize the effectiveness of their actions both to make a positive impact on society and their bottom line.
In the end, however, the philosopher Plato may offer the best advice for companies looking beyond the business case for speaking out: “Wise men [sic] speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
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When Should Your Company Speak Up About a Social Issue? - Harvard Business Review
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