Page 173 - Performance Leadership

162 • Part III Principles from the Values and Social Dimensions

services, and other community services. But some people do more.
They are active in society, as part of clubs, church, sports teams, their
children’s school, and other social structures. These people have a
richer network than people that don’t. They are respected and are held
in high esteem by their environment, and somehow, opportunities—
both private and business—come to them, as they are a known entity
and a trusted party.
Like people, organizations do not stand alone. They are not inde-
pendent, as big as they are. They have an interdependency with the
communities in which they work, on many levels at the same time. It
starts with common decency and being a good citizen. Many McDon-
ald’s restaurants require their staff—and pay for their time—to walk
around the neighborhood and clean up litter, whether it has the
McDonald’s logo or not.
No organization operates in a void. Every strategic action of an
organization has a social or environmental impact. Manufacturing
goods or visiting customers produce carbon emissions. Although the
impact of these emissions is debated by scientists, it is undisputed they
do not contribute to a cleaner environment. If an organization needs
to downsize, and close an office or a plant, or move operations to a dif-
ferent country, people lose their jobs, and need to find different jobs or
rely on the social services. If a pharmaceutical company needs to set a
price for a new type of medication, it implicitly decides who can afford
the medication, and who cannot, affecting people’s health.
Technology innovations have created numerous new companies that
have had a profound social impact, making the world a smaller place.
Search engines, such as Google, have changed the dynamic between
customers and corporations, creating a new level of globalization and
transparency. Community Web sites, such as MySpace or LinkedIn,
have connected many people that have lost track of one another or peo-
ple that have common interests.
Clearly business and society affect each other, and the impact is only
growing. Various studies have been done, comparing the GDP (gross
domestic product) of all countries with the annual revenues of the
largest corporations. Some even found that more than 50 of the largest
economic entities are corporations, not countries. My analysis shows
29 of the top 100 are corporations, which is still significant. The largest