Richard Telofski

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Archive for category NGOs

NGO & Corporate Collaboration: How Far Does It Go?

Feb 2

Posted by Richard in Activism, NGOs, Trends | No Comments

In the field of issues management, it’s common knowledge that some corporations now “partner” with NGOs on various issues of “social concern.” That term “social concern” is often one that is defined by the NGO, rather than the corporation, by the way. So now, instead of an NGO and a corporation fighting tooth and nail over an environmental issue, for example, they work together toward a “common goal.” Okay. That seems all warm and fuzzy, on the surface. But let’s dig a little deeper into the nature of this “partnership.”

Yellow Pay SignIn a situation like this, what’s that “common goal?” For the NGO, the goal would be the achievement of, perhaps, a social agenda objective that they have pursued for years, often via an adversarial relationship with the corporation. For the corporation, what’s the goal? What motivates the corporation to take on such a “strange bedfellows” relationship? Well, as a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor commented, corporations often approach NGOs to partner on a common project so that those same NGOs don’t turn around in the future and spread bad press about the corporation. A “common goal?” Seems more like a protection racket.

Imagine this scenario. Corporation X is concerned that future bad press could negatively impact their expected future revenues. So, to preclude the threat of negative press, an implicit threat at least, the brass at X dial up their historical foes at NGO Z and play let’s make a deal. The brass over at Z aren’t going to say, “Hey X, thanks for calling, but no thanks.” No. Z’s ship just came in. The pressure that the folks at NGO Z have been applying to Corporation X all of these years has just paid off.

Didn’t I see a scene something like this in at least one episode of The Sopranos?

Now, when the NGOs and the corporations get together like this, at least according to the previously mentioned Christian Science Monitor article, no money changes hands. The article stated that the NGO doesn’t receive any fees from the corporate partner. But isn’t there an exchange of value here? Isn’t this somewhat like a scene from The Sopranos? Let’s look at it this way.

The Sopranos Example – Paulie, grey slicked-back side wings and all, goes into a shop and “tells” the proprietor that the shop could “have some trouble” in the future. This “implicit threat” means that the shopkeeper might lose some of his or her “expected future revenues.” But, Paulie and his problem-resolution specialists can “protect” the shop and make that trouble “disappear,” for some consideration of course. In this Sopranos example, that consideration is money.

Paulie and his problem-resolution specialists get what they were looking for, i.e., they reach their direct objective. The shopkeeper avoids that “implicit threat” and gets to keep his or her future revenue stream.

The NGO Z/Corporation X Collaboration Example – The presence of NGO Z represents an “implicit threat” to Corporation X, the threat of future negative publicity. Corporation Z recognizes that this “trouble” is possible. The presence of this “implicit threat” means that Corporation X might lose some of their “expected future revenues.” But, the problem-resolution specialists of Corporation X realize they can “protect” the corporation and make that problem “disappear,” for some consideration exchanged of course. In this NGO Z/Corporation X example that consideration is collaborating with NGO Z to allow NGO Z to achieve one of their social agenda objectives.

The Corporation Z problem-resolution specialists get what they were looking for, i.e., they get to keep their future revenue stream. NGO Z gets what they were looking for, i.e., they achieve their direct objective of “social concern,” which, of course, is defined by them.

Weird, isn’t it?

And once this “partnership” is established, where is the line drawn? How far does this relationship go?

In The Sopranos Example, Paulie keeps returning to the shopkeeper saying there are always “other” troubles on the horizon and that an increased payment is needed to keep those troubles away.

In The NGO Z/Corporation X Collaboration Example, the management of Corporation X realizes that there is always the possibility that NGO Z could spread bad press, regardless of how much or how well they work together on any selected project. What happens after that project is complete? Corporation X knows that NGO Z will always have “other” future projects of “social concern” on their horizon.

Are these NGO/corporate collaborations a good way to run a company?

How far does it go?

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Will the Baby Boom Create More Activism?

Jan 11

Posted by Richard in Activism, Anti-Corporatism, NGOs, Trends | No Comments

Today I came across an interesting idea in World Out of Balance by Paul Laudicina. Yes, I’ve mentioned this book before. It’s been a while since last mentioned and that’s because I’m reading it slowly. This one I read while I Nordic Track in the morning, so I might do only about ten pages at a time, and some days I listen to the radio while working out. So progress in this book is slower than normal. But my reading strategy on this book is not because it is not interesting. Quite the contrary. Here’s one intriguing thought that came from my reading of this book.

bear with signFrom pages 148 to 149 Paul presents an interesting concept: that there will be an increase in activism because of the Baby Boom. He doesn’t say it in quite this way, but he does say that because of the aging of the U.S. population that there will be a decrease in the number of employees working for the American government. Paul hypothesizes, from the perspective of the publication year of 2005, that these retiring employees would likely not be replaced at a rate that would equal the attrition. The reason he gives is that government employment is not as attractive as that in the private sector, and that because of this handicap the attrition rate may exceed the replacement rate.

Of course, that viewpoint was from 2005, before the stuff hit the fan in Fall 2008. Currently, with government being one of the few employment sectors that is expanding its hiring, Paul’s theory may not be entirely sound. Yet, analyzing from a current perspective, there are valid take-aways that may be had from this line of reasoning. Paul’s theory relates to the quantity of government workers, but he says little to nothing about the quality. Having worked for the federal government at one time, I could say something about the quality of federal workers. But that’s material for a different post. For now, let’s extend Paul’s thinking into present circumstances.

Because the aging U.S. population will cause more and more employees to retire from the ranks of federal employment, there will be progressively fewer experienced workers to carry out the regulatory mandates set down by the feds. Right now, because of government’s mania to hire more workers, the issue isn’t so much about the quantity as it is about the quality, i.e., the experience factor.

So, my point is that due to the Baby Boom the quality of federal regulatory enforcement may likely decrease because less experienced employees would need to takeover for those with decades of experience in regulatory matters. And if there are fewer experienced regulators, then businesses might be less likely to adhere to federal regulations than if the feds were fully staffed with experienced regulators.

How does this problem create more activism? Well, when activists see this situation, and believe me they won’t miss this, there would likely be an increase in their efforts. Activists and NGOs would increase their efforts to regulate business because those activists and NGOs would see that the feds weren’t staffed to do a “quality” job.

Thus, going forward with Baby Boom retirements which are now in progress, businesses should “gird their loins” and ready themselves for increased actions from advocacy groups.

It’s all in the demographics. And those numbers don’t lie.

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Activist or Corporation. Who’s the Hero?

Dec 4

Posted by Richard in Activism, Anti-Corporatism, NGOs, Strategy | No Comments

People who keep all of these things moving are the real heroes.

People who keep all of these things moving are the real heroes.

Archetypes. Webster’s defines them as a “recurrent symbol in literature, art, or mythology.” With reference to psychology Webster’s continues by saying that, in regard to Jungian psychology, archetypes are “a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors,” images which are “supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.”

Ah, the collective unconscious. That’s the key to what makes us as a society tick.

Everything that happens depends on what makes us tick inside. And those who understand what makes us tick inside, get to control the flow of how things go. But what primitive images, exactly, are they that make us tick and contribute to the control of flow.

I’ve been reading about these archetypical images in a book by Paul Laudicina entitled World Out of Balance, Navigating Global Risks to Seize Competitive Advantage. On page 91 of this book, Paul names some of the archetypes:

Hero – implying the spirit of survival.
Outlaw – implying the spirit of rebellion.
Explorer – conveying the idea of the joy of discovery and freedom.

All positive qualities these are. Certainly, spirits with which most of us would want to be associated. Corporations and advertisers recognized these spirits and their power to influence decades ago. In his book, Paul gives several examples of corporate advertising campaigns which have employed, with great success, these and other archetypes. No wonder we sometimes find the appeals of those “Mad Men” so irresistible. They reach into our souls.

And the reaching into souls, i.e., the employment of the archetype, has not been lost on other types of organizations, some of whom operate at cross-purposes to those who have perfected its usage.

Over the past ten years, since The Battle in Seattle, anti-corporate activists have learned to leverage and co-opt well those principles of the archetype which their opponents had been using, with success, for some decades prior.

In promoting their environmental or labor or economic agendas, activists and their NGO cousins first assumed the role of Outlaw, attracting attention through the leveraging of the spirit of rebellion. They stood out from the rest of society and carved themselves a position outside the normal circle. A position envious to some who occupied the circle of the 9 to 5 grind.

But then, before they went too far outside the normal circle, the NGOs and activists pulled themselves back into the normal social circle by adopting another role, the role of Explorer. They told us they had been outside the circle because they were on a mission of discovery for all of us, and that they were not in it just for themselves. Not withstanding the validity of any of their scientific or economic analyses, NGOs and activist organizations by promoting their agendas with “supporting facts” ventured into issues in the “common interest,” making discoveries “affecting everyone” and trumpeting their own freedom to advocate for all.

When they had successfully communicated this message, in doing these things they then almost automatically had the role of Hero cast upon them by the “common interest.” The NGOs and activists were then seen as waging a selfless, non-profit battle moving toward survival for us all, against the “faceless,” “un-Herolike” for-profit corporation who uses archetypes primarily to portray only their products and services, presumably only for profit. The corporations made the mistake of attaching the archetypes to their products and services, to their profits, rather than to themselves and to what they actually do for society, for the actual common interest.

In such a battle for the archetype, who is likely to win? The Hero. The Outlaw. The Explorer. You think the NGO and activist. But yet, we and the corporation miss the point because the corporation is all of these.

Corporations make a lot of boneheaded mistakes, and since they are not perfect I am not blindly advocating them. (NGOs and activists aren’t left out of the boneheaded mistakes category, either.) Yet, who supplies the jobs so that we may feed our children? (Hero.) Who comes up with new products and services that solve our daily problems? (Explorer.) Outlaw? Well, maybe not. But two of three isn’t bad, especially the two that contribute so greatly to daily happiness.

But, perhaps just as their opponents used the principles of archetype to turn against them, corporations need to take a page from a playbook they actually wrote and use it to describe themselves, not their products and services, as the heroes and explorers that they actually are.

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Personal Charity vs. Charity-By-Law

Nov 18

Posted by Richard in Activism, NGOs | No Comments

There are three primary concepts on which society functions: faith, rule of law, and commerce. When these three key functions are allowed to find their optimum, society can really hum along. They act independently, but yet together. There are some overlaps among their functions, naturally. Such as when the ideas of

Each key has a function.

Each key has a function.

faith form the basis of law, or when the principles of law are used to modify commerce, or when the fruits of commerce are used to support faith or government. Venn diagrams are always interesting and revealing.

The dangers to society though, I think, are when the Venn diagrams of the three primary concepts overlap too much or when one circle overshadows the other. Perhaps we have reached that point of overlap and overshadow.

Over the past few decades I’ve seen the influence of faith fade in the daily lives around me, with its replacement coming either in the sphere of government or commerce. Faith serves many a purpose. One of which is to support charity, and the caring of individuals unable to do so for themselves. As the influence of faith has receded, so has its ability to offer care to those who need it. And instead of that faith-based care, that which was originally called “charity,” the need has been replaced by a faceless societal driver. That driver is from the rule of law, or what we call government.

The Venn diagram of the triad has changed, such that the circle representing faith has gotten smaller, while the circle representing rule of law has grown larger, usurping some of the functions of faith.

When charity was faith-based, the charity was provided by individuals. Charity was then personal. Faith called upon us to be charitable, individually, personally, and offer ourselves to the service of others, on a one-to-one basis. Those in need benefitted as did those who helped. Society was enriched, one helping gesture at a time. We felt good about ourselves.

In an article entitled “Government Usurps Charitable Giving and Nature,” author John Atwood explores this idea. He says:

An act of charity ennobles the grateful recipient and burnishes the kinder spirit of the giver.

As the circle of government has grown larger in the Venn diagram of society, as government, aided by NGOs and activists, has increased its influence within society, we are poorer for the lack of good that is created. As John Atwood points out:

Government can’t bring good to its people, it can only bring force and power and results, numbers, outcomes. The good is within the individual and the people. The “good” government does is only defined by the elites who determine those results, outcomes, numbers and forces to exert.

John makes an excellent point. In other words, governments aided through NGOs and activists, have taken the “good” out of charity. They have helped remove the “faith” we used to have in each other. The faith that we would all do right by each other. That faith has been reduced to nothing more than the payment of a tax to a body of law or the payment of a donation to a NGO or activist organization, which is to be distributed by a bureaucrat, and disguised as charity.

And what about that third circle in the Venn diagram of society? That circle representing commerce.

The three concepts of faith, law, and commerce complemented each other. Faith bound us to each other and provided the spiritual needs. Commerce drove the economic engine and provided the earthly needs. And law? Well, law was there to be the arbiter in the inevitable human breakdown of the other two processes.

With the diminution of the faith circle and the enlargement of the law circle, the circle of commerce is left to finance the process of secular charity by law. The circle of commerce becomes the financier of organized, governmental charity. It’s a function that commerce was not created to fulfill. Yet, governments, and their assistants in NGOs and activists, call upon commerce to make those contributions, stressing the economic system and pushing it toward dysfunction.

What happens when the circle of commerce ceases to play its new and imposed role in the Venn diagram of society? What happens when governments, with NGOs and activists, push commerce beyond its capability, or willingness to provide? What happens to charity then?

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Will Too Much Transparency Be Bad for All of Us?

Nov 11

Posted by Richard in Activism, Anti-Corporatism, NGOs, Strategy | No Comments

transparent windowActivist and NGO calls upon companies to act in a more transparent fashion are fine, but only up to a point.

Although I am a business advocate, I’m absolutely not in favor of companies adopting questionable processes, cheating consumers, or raping the land. I am a business advocate to the point of business being necessary and beneficial for the larger society.

So when I hear calls for “transparency,” such as is the mantra of many a social media guru, I think that transparency directed at the interested consumer is good, but we can’t take those calls too far. As the adage goes, “Too much of anything is not a good thing.” Why would I say this? Let’s use the following quote as a point of illustration.

In a June 2008 Fast Company article entitled “Buying Local - Isn’t it really about Social and Environmental Responsibility?“, we see the oft-repeated call-to-action under the topic: Questions Conscious Consumers should ask:

Transparency and Accountability: is it possible for me to learn where the materials to make the good came from and who made, transported, distributed, and retails the good? Can I contact anyone of these organizations if I want to learn more?

Before I moved into the area of macro-marketing consulting and analysis of anti-corporate activism, I was a competitive intelligence (CI) analyst. I made my living by examining the strengths and weaknesses of my clients’ competitors. One thing that would have simplified my job as a CI analyst would have been more “transparency.” When I was a CI analyst, had I known: where my clients’ competitors sourced there materials, who transported them, who distributed them, and exactly who retailed them, my analyses would have been absolutely devastating to the competitors my clients were paying me to examine.

With that intelligence, I would have been able to easily zero in on the competitor’s cost profile and from there I would have easily been able to back into the competitor’s profit margin. Easily. Devastatingly. My clients would have been ecstatic. Good for my clients. Not so good for the competitor. That transparent competitor would have “shot themselves in the foot.”

In capitalist markets, and in America we still are a capitalist society at least for the time being, too much transparent information floating around can be bad for the business that releases that info. Excessive transparency can cause reduced competitiveness and with that reduction in competitiveness can go the company itself. “Self-imposed” transparency can cause a company to leave the marketplace, i.e. go out of business, taking the jobs of hundreds or thousands of individuals with it.

And with that company goes competitiveness across the industry. The companies left to compete in that marketplace, companies that are perhaps not as transparent, read that as “stupid,” become fewer, consolidating market power. With consolidation of power comes higher prices and fewer jobs through which the work force can finance those higher prices.

In other words, based upon my experiences as a CI consultant, what I can see as a product of too much corporate transparency is a dystopia.

Too much of anything is not a good thing.

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Activism: Harm to the Body Politic?

Nov 6

Posted by Richard in Activism, Anti-Corporatism, NGOs, Tactics | No Comments

In their battle against business, one tactic of activists is to challenge the legal parameters within which corporations operate.

In reading about this tactical approach, I came across an article entitled “Paradigm Shift: Challenging Corporate Authority” and written by Paul Cienfuegos. This article appears in a book entitled The Global Activist’s Manual, edited by Mike Prokosch and Laura Raymond. On the first page of the article, author Paul discusses how early Americans, unlike modern Americans, understood that a corporation was an artificial entity, one created by law and people. He states that in 1834 the Pennsylvania legislature declared a corporation as a “creature of the law” and that it should be shaped “for any purpose that the Legislature may deem most conducive to the common good.”

This position encompasses very astute insights by Paul. He makes the distinction between a corporation and a human. The former being manmade, while the latter being a creation of the Almighty. The corporation being manmade should then be responsible to those who created it, which he equates with the people of the state where the corporation was formed. Excellent point.

Paul continues, “People understood that they had a civic responsibility not to create artificial entities that could harm the body politic, interfere with the mechanisms of self-governance, and assault their sovereignty.” Again, all excellent points which I take as Paul saying that the corporation should be responsive to the people who, through their state legislature, created the corporation. Sound reasoning and the basis of a tactic which can be used in the never-ending battle between activists and business corporations.

Activists would adopt this tactic and take it into the legal arena when battling business corporations. The activists’ tactic would be to force the legislatures to make business corporations more responsive to the people, who created the corporation in the first place. Yes, again sound reasoning and brilliant thinking.

But brilliance can cut both ways and payback is always a bitch.

Businesses are not the only organizations that are formed under state corporation law. NGO and activist organizations are also formed under the corporate statutes of a state. Can anyone reasonably, semantically, and validly state that NGO and activist corporations do not “harm the body politic” or “interfere with the mechanisms of self-governance” or assault the sovereignty of the people?

Tactics can be turned around.

Tactics can be turned around.

NGOs and activist corporations benefit from the limited liability protection of state corporation laws. The people of the state have afforded those organizations that privilege. In return the people of a state should expect that their interests should be represented as the “common good.” But no one elects NGOs or activists to act in the peoples’ interest. NGO and activist corporations decide on their own what the “common good” should be. Through the non-democratic processes under which NGO and activist corporations operate, these organizations by definition “harm the body politic,” and “interfere with the mechanisms of self-governance,” and assault the sovereignty of the people.

When pursuing or recommending a tactic, perhaps its best to assess how it can be used against one’s own position.

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Free Food is Next on the NGO Agenda

Nov 3

Posted by Richard in NGOs, Trends | No Comments

Remember back in the 1990s, when Hillary-Care was being bandied about as a program to provide free medical care for all Americans. During that debate I thought it was only a matter of time until someone went further and started pushing, seriously, for a program advocating free food for all. Perhaps we’ve reached that point.

Natural Light Collection uiPer an article at GlobalGovernanceWatch.org, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations recently produced a five volume guide entitled the Methodological Toolbox on the Right to Food, the contents of which are very interesting. Let’s discuss how the implementation of this publication’s call-to-action could lead to free food and, with it, economic instability in the food industry and perhaps social uncertainty.

The article on the Global Governance Watch site states that, since the United Nation’s founding in 1948, it has been a goal of the UN that individuals worldwide have the right to an adequate standard of living. In the United States, we call this the “pursuit of happiness.” Global Governance Watch (GGW) also says that in 1999, the United Nations clarified this position with General Comment 12 of the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:

. . . the right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.

As I interpret this quote, its key idea is that governments create an environment where individuals have economic access to food or access to its means of procurement. Very reasonable. In simplified terms, we can call that access a politically-supported environment where those who want a job can have a job so that they can economically access and procure, i.e., buy, food. Again, you have the right to the pursuit of happiness. I support that wholeheartedly.

But GGW reports that in 2005, the game began to change at the United Nations because in that year the General Assembly passed a resolution calling:

upon States to implement legal and political strategies to ensure that the right to food was not compromised.

Hmm.  That’s a bit of a shift in thinking, isn’t it?

GGW says that for the UN to give “traction” to General Comment 12 and the 2005 resolution, the UN produced the aforementioned Methodological Toolbox on the Right to Food. The Toolbox was recently published (October 23, 2009) and in its website article about the Toolbox, GGW calls specific attention to the first of the five Toolbox volumes. The first volume is entitled “A Guide on Legislating for the Right to Food. In its synopsis of the Guide, GGW interprets the Guide as saying that:

. . . States must incorporate the right to food into national constitutions . . . (and) they must establish a “framework” law on the right to food, which sets out obligations for state authorities and private actors and establishes “necessary” institutional mechanisms to enforce right to food legislation and policies.

(The mention of States here is taken to be member states of the United Nations.)

Right now, I’ll make a very astute comment, one I’m sure is very often used within academic circles and by political consultants, as well.

“Are you kidding me?”

The United Nations wants to butt into our, the American, constitution to guarantee a right to food? And the UN wants to force the participation of “private actors,” let’s read that as companies, to participate in that right to food?

What appears to be happening here is that the United Nations wants us to recast that phrase, “the pursuit of happiness,” one so engrained in our national consciousness, into a new phrase, something like “the guarantee of happiness.”

Let’s put the national sovereignty issues aside. I’ll leave those to the political scientists to hash out. Right here in this blog, I deal with business issues and how they are affected by social trends and particularly by activists and NGOs. NGOs like the UN. And one of those business issues is that it should be clear to anyone with at least a basic understanding of economics, capitalist economics that is, that a free food policy could be disastrous.

If food companies are forced to participate in a “right to food” rather than a “right to economic access,” serious repercussions will be felt within that industry, compromising the food supply for all. Such actions, although very charitable and humanitarian in their intent, would actually be counterproductive. Here’s the scenario.

Let’s say there is a legal demand on food companies to make a portion of their production available at no charge. If food companies must provide a significant portion of their output for free, doing so will force prices to rise on the food for which the companies will be remunerated. The result of this scenario would be that there would be less food consumed.

The decrease in food consumption would begin with paying customers on the lower end of the income scale. As food prices rise, to cover production and distribution of the food for which the company receives no compensation, lower income consumers would not be able to absorb the increases. They would buy less food, and indeed most likely join the ranks of individuals receiving the free food, thereby increasing the proportion of the market which receives the free food. This increase in free food recipients would raise food prices further.

Spiraling increases of food prices would occur, with the paying market segment becoming smaller and smaller and, accordingly, profits becoming smaller and smaller or non-existent. At some point the food company would decide to exit the progressively unprofitable market or go bankrupt. The exit of the food company would necessitate other food companies to feed the defunct company’s non-paying consumers, for free of course, and the cycle would repeat. Food companies would fall progressively, like dominos.

And as the food companies fall, unless supported by government subsidies which presents different economic problems, “food fights” may begin. Not fights with food. Fights for food.

No. Although this idea the UN has might seem like an altruistically good idea, in practicality the concept of free food, like free health care, only brings negative results and exacerbates the problem it was intended to solve in the first place.

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