Episode 03: The Corporate Social Contract

Does your organisation have a right to exist? What is its contract with society, with its community, with its staff? A longer episode than usual, covering the confluence of COVID and the economic and regulatory crisis and how your board could look differently at your value proposition. We look at: - Corporations Law - The purpose of human life and company structures - The corporate ecosystem - CSR and the re-emergence of kindness - Where real value sits in your company Do we need to be more prescriptive of the definition of a Director’s duty to the company? Can we move from not just not doing harm, but into doing good? The ever-increasing divide between commercial activity and humanity makes us question - how do we govern beyond what’s physical, to the emotional, the social? The Board itself can be the guardian of purpose – Directors can be our proxy representatives – but how do they gather the wide-ranging views of their communities, stakeholders and keep their eyes and minds wide open? Is now the time to return to The Forum? Can we trust in the wisdom of crowds and capture a national conversation – indeed are we compelled to have the conversation about our human purpose, to have an existential position on why we exist. CSC is such a big community conversation. We consider how each company could negotiate their social contract with: - Employees - Supply chain - Partners - Investors - Regulators Can you focus on what you promise *not* to do? So you can properly consider what promises you are making. This could hold your performance conversation in a totally different light across the whole corporate ecosystem. Could we start from value? And what structures do we need to support a purposeful intent? What do we as Directors need to be conscious of to achieve this? Is there 1 stakeholder in your ecosystem that you could have a starting conversation with? Join the conversation now