The President has shone a light on the apparent gap between companies public commitments and behind the scenes actions.
In an interview with The Economist, President Obama has declared:
“There’s a huge gap between the professed values and visions of corporate CEOs and how their lobbyists operate in Washington. And I’ve said this to various CEOs… they’ll say, you know what, we really care about the environment, and we really care about education, and we really care about getting immigration reform done—then my challenge to them consistently is, is your lobbyist working as hard on those issues as he or she is on preserving that tax break that you’ve got? And if the answer is no, then you don’t care about it as much as you say.”
The message is clear to businesses: you can’t claim to be a socially responsible business in public and then do something else the next day. Contradictory messages and actions from within a business will be noticed – by Presidents, no less. The CR agenda needs to be fully aligned with other aspects of business, including your public affairs strategy. In order to avoid further presidential scorn, companies need real commitment to their professed values, not just surface noise.
I’ve written before on the potential for corporates to lobby for good, here’s hoping more businesses get Mr Obama’s wake-up call and do just that.”