Page 249 - The New Gold Standard

Sustainability and Stewardship
great as its focus. If you focus narrowly on the bottom line, you
leave a legacy only for the investors. Great businesses grow their
people, their communities, their customer base, and their prof-
itability. From the day we opened our doors at Ritz-Carlton, all
we wanted to be was a truly great company.”
In essence, modern assessments of business can be scruti-
11
nized from the context of the Gallup CE survey of customer en-
gagement. As you will recall, Gallup seeks to determine whether
individual customers are emotionally engaged with a company
like Ritz-Carlton by asking if they would endorse the statement
“I can’t imagine a world without Ritz-Carlton.” When it comes
to building a lasting legacy as a member of a community, it would
be hoped that customers, fellow business leaders, and nonprofit
groups might offer their sense of community engagement with a
statement like “This community and the world at large are
strongly benefited because of a company like Ritz-Carlton.”
Leadership at Ritz-Carlton seeks to affect its community at mul-
tiple levels, including efforts to assist others financially, share
leadership ideas, and provide training opportunities.

C Keeping It Real D

Many companies today are embracing the trendy nature of cor-
porate social involvement programs and are examining whether
socially responsible behavior can be monetized.Writing in Board-
room Briefing magazine, Dr. Deborah Talbot, a strategic consult-
ant and former senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, makes the
case for viewing corporate social responsibility (CSR) not as phi-
lanthropy but as a sound long-term financial choice: “CSR re-
flects a concern for . . . profits, people and place. By no means is
profitability of the corporation set aside but rather supple-
mented, by additional considerations that go beyond financial
success. Furthermore, while socially responsible action may ini-
tially reduce profits, many corporations are finding that it may
also create new opportunities for adding to profits and/or reduce

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