CSR management
March 16 2006
by Jerry Marston
There are clearly too many partnerships in the world. A Google search on the word will give you in excess of 720 million entries, and I'm fairly confident they don't include three of the eight I'm personally involved in at the moment… nor am I sure how many would fit this dictionary definition: "A relationship between individuals or groups that is characterised by mutual cooperation and responsibility, for the achievement of a specified goal".
It's an over-used, and therefore inevitably devalued word. Much of the time what's being talked about would be more accurately defined in such ways as "temporary tactical alliance" (the Blair/Brown partnership?) or "loose agreement to work together for a few hours a week" (the current West Bromwich Albion strikers' partnership?)
I've always been surprised and a little disappointed by the apparent low level of meaningful partnerships between companies across the corporate responsibility agenda. Organisations and groups abound (Business in the Community, London Benchmarking Group, Arts & Business, Business for Social Responsibility, and the like), and they're a critically important feature on the CR landscape, but when you drill down to specific activity, companies tend to want the 'association' to be directly and exclusively with 'the partner'.
The upside is that this often creates the kind of focused relationship that can really deliver results for all concerned. Cadbury Schweppes' well construction programme with WaterAid in cocoa farmer communities in Ghana is a great example, and Microsoft's Unlimited Potential scheme, and HSBC's Investing in Nature are global in both reach and impact. Covered elsewhere in this edition are a number of excellent case studies of well thought through and successful individual partnership programmes with these attributes.
The downside for me, though, is that because this approach tends to be viewed as the 'norm', there seems to be less appetite around for the kind of creative thinking that has generated for example the innovative Shell/Marks & Spencer partnership, which aims to support sustainable local enterprise by providing emerging small businesses in developing countries with access to a major UK retailer's supply chain. Hands-on initiatives like this, which retain the beneficiary and geographical focus while pulling in and exploiting resources and expertise from a range of business sectors, in a collaborative and non-competitive way, are a breed apart, and we need more of them.
I would suggest that there are some common 'success factors' for effective partnerships, and for me they would include:
- doing the hard work up front to really test for common purpose and compatibility of objectives
- nailing down roles and responsibilities at the outset
- agreeing specific success criteria, and how they will be monitored and measured
- building in robust review processes, and being grown up and positive about learning from mistakes, dealing with under-achievement, and changing direction when circumstances dictate.
Corporate Citizenship Briefing Issue 86, Feb/Mar 2006
Jerry's career began in the South Pacific in 1973, where he worked for 8 years in overseas administration. Over the last 20 years he has worked for four UK companies in community affairs/corporate social responsibility roles; at Allied Dunbar (Zurich Financial Services) where he developed their award-winning employee volunteering programmes in the UK and in India; with retailers Littlewoods and Kingfisher, and most recently with Whitbread, in every case taking on the challenge of transforming their corporate responsibility programmes in line with new business priorities. In the mid 90's he headed up Comic Relief, the UK's most successful fundraising charity, through two Red Nose Days, and is currently helping to establish Comic Relief Australia.
Jerry was until recently chair of the Corporate Responsibility Group, and on the Board of Business in the Community in the UK. He is a trustee of the charity KidsOut and a director of the Experience Corps. Jerry is a modern languages graduate of Cambridge University, and fluent in French and Spanish.