LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
and Its Risks” (February 2007), that a strong, long-term, positive reputation in the market brings value to the brand and to the company as a whole. But we disagree that an organization must “land and remain on the public’s radar screen.” If a company’s core business is customer facing, it might make sense to stay in front of the consumer with favorable press. However, there are many companies that should pursue a contrasting strategy – remaining out of the press and diminishing the resources allocated toward reputation building. For example, a potential competitor that sees opportunity in uncontested space would probably prefer to remain relatively invisible and not alert any incumbents by announcing its plans in the media. Even negative press can serve a company’s interest. Consider the way Steve Ballmer hedged publicly against analyst forecasts about Windows Vista sales rather than appear overly optimistic. Many times, less-than-favorable news that comes directly from the company helps drive and control its reputation.
time and gradually establish a set of control mechanisms and sanctions for those who violate the code.” Clearly, for Gardner, controls and sanctions are mandates for people to perform ethically. Yet business is a profession. As an academic discipline, it has accrued an extensive body of knowledge that in many instances is now leading change in other professions. Ethics is derived from knowledge, personal values, internal organization, and self-discipline; the greatest obstacle for ethics is ignorance. Ethics is not imposed by external controls, nor can it be “set in the mind,” but it can be learned. That’s why high-quality education and educators are crucial for the formation of ethics in every discipline. Maria-Teresa Lepeley President and CEO Global Institute for Quality Education Orlando, Florida
Gardner responds: I was referring to the distinction between a field of work and an established profession. We know a great deal about sports, the arts, and politics, but none of these fields is considered a profession. A profession is an area of work for which one needs formal training, a license, and adherence to a code; if the code is violated, then one can be expelled. For example, law and medicine are prototypical professions. A person operating as a lawyer or a physician without the required training and certification will run afoul of the law. However, anyone can call herself a businessperson. Of course, the decision to behave ethically, responsibly, and morally is an individual one. There are plenty of unethical lawyers, and many ethical ballplayers, actors, and school board members. But Maria-Teresa Lepeley misses the crucial point: The only obligations a businessperson has are to obey the law and to stay in business. The existence of 1,000 management programs – whether excellent or mediocre in quality – is irrelevant to my argument.
Executive MBA Class of 2007 Hankamer School of Business Baylor University Waco, Texas
The Ethical Mind I am deeply puzzled by Howard Gardner’s pronouncements about ethics in business in “The Ethical Mind” (March 2007). Like many educators around the world, I have followed and benefited from Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences, largely because he made us believe again in the importance and the good nature of human beings. Yet in this interview, oddly enough, Gardner conveys exactly the opposite sentiment – a deep mistrust in human beings in business. He goes so far as to say that “business is not – nor has it ever been – a profession,” because professions “develop over periods of
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Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer retell the story of Nestlé’s “Moga miracle” in “Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility” (December 2006). But the narrative is not complete until one traces the entire chain from producers to consumers. Nestlé’s Moga plant has won global praise for improving the lives of poor Indian farmers. At the same time, the West is leading a major international boycott against the company on the grounds that the plant’s two main products (infant formula and weaning cereal) undermine infant health while stretching the modest incomes of Indian families who can ill afford such Western luxuries. The authors touch on the irony but say little else about the corporate schizophrenia that can result from CSR. As communications manager for Nestlé India in the 1990s, I had to deal with this schizophrenia. Nataranjan Bohidar Consultant ronZcommunications India Gurgaon, India
Porter and Kramer respond: Nestlé India’s experience highlights two important challenges facing CSR. First, exemplary social impact in one business or one part of the value chain does not offset either perceived or actual poor performance in another. For example, BP overlooked serious safety issues that resulted in a fatal explosion in Texas and the temporary shutdown of the Alaska pipeline, both of which significantly damaged BP’s credibility and reputation, despite its global leadership on climate change for more than a decade. The lesson: What’s needed is systematic attention to the social impact across the value chain – not reliance on a few signature programs. Nestlé’s infant formula problem also raises a second, more troubling, con-
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cern. The controversy dates back more than 30 years, when mothers mixed formula with contaminated water, leading to serious illness in babies. During the past couple of decades, Nestlé has gone to great lengths to abide by the World Health Organization’s International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes, and the calls for boycotts have long since ended. Nevertheless, Nestlé continues to be dogged by the matter. Without a public education campaign to communicate its actions, Nestlé has left itself open to criticism from misinformed (as well as opportunistic) activists. Companies like Nestlé should surely be held accountable, but NGOs and other social commentators shortchange society when they pursue winlose attacks on the private sector rather than find and pursuing the shared value of social issues that we describe.
Understanding Customer Experience
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casts, represent fantastic combinations of structured and unstructured data. Speech analytics software is becoming a commercially viable tool for businesses that want to raise the bar in customer service and customer experience. While often allied with call recording or other customer touch points such as the Web or e-mail, speech analytics is particularly prevalent in contact centers. Customer interactions are recorded and then analyzed in tandem by specialized software that “listens” and categorizes any of an infinite range of criteria or circumstances that the user specifies. Used effectively, it can help organizations identify shortfalls in customer service representative training, operational and product-related issues, reasons for callbacks and product returns, and frequently asked questions. Listening takes many forms, but if organizations are to realize the maximum benefit from any strategy for monitoring and tracking customer experience, listening has to be at the hub.
Put Your People First
“A remarkably useful business book.”
John A. Thain, CEO, New York Stock Exchange
David Parcell
In “Understanding Customer Experience” (February 2007), Christopher Meyer and Andre Schwager demonstrate very clearly the importance of monitoring customer experience in order to improve it. The authors make some excellent points about strategies to achieve that goal. However, they omit a vital point in their summary of how to obtain the right information from customers: You can gain immense value by listening to how your customers interact with you. That is when customers’ sentiments and feelings are at their most raw and real and, therefore, will offer the greatest potential benefit to an organization – though only when acted upon appropriately. Listening is one of the most underrated tools for obtaining information and, ultimately, assessing customer experience. The challenge is often bringing data together in a cohesive, sensible, and practical repository. Telephone, e-mail, and Web contact, as well as socalled new media like blogs and pod-
Managing Director of Europe, Middle East, and Africa Verint Systems Weybridge, Surrey, England
Meyer and Schwager respond: We completely agree with David Parcell that empathetic and active listening are essential to truly understand your customers’ experience. New technologies like speech analytics software are constantly evolving and should be employed whenever and wherever they are useful. Our experience, however, is that technology vendor claims often surpass customers’ reported benefits. Few firms fail to improve customer experience because they lack technology or data; they are too often drowning in both. Perhaps there should be a rule that for every new collection, analysis, and distribution technology adopted, leaders must ensure there is equal investment in transforming what’s learned into an improved customer experience.
“A must-read for all CEOs and chief HR officers.”
John S. Bronson, Senior Vice President HR, Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
“A breakthrough book on team effectiveness and performance.”
David A. Nadler PhD., Senior Partner, Mercer Delta Consulting Available wherever books are sold
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