Customer Reviews

Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

McEleheney doesn't waste any time getting right into the meat of her business-minded approach to corporate social responsibility and sustainability. Just Good Business is a roadmap for any size organization to shorten the learning curve when engaging in CSR efforts. There are plenty of good-intentioned corporate leaders who fall into the trap of trying to fool customers and stakeholders with distant and unconnected CSR programs like planting trees or mailing out holiday cards linked to a charitable donation program. McElhaney provides a clear, proactive and formulaic approach to avoiding such embarrassing forays. The book is full of real life case examples from top companies that she has advised. The subtitle of the book, The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand, could not be more appropriate. A key theme throughout the book is the need to connect your CSR efforts to your core business, and again there are plenty of examples of both success and suicide by the business elite.

CSR is often viewed with some skepticism in the business world, but there is nothing naïve in her approach or advice. She has been at this game long enough to know what works, and what doesn't, and this book a compilation of her knowledge and experience in both academia and industry. Just Good Business is written in the style of a good management book, and will be easily understood by executives looking for the boiled-down version of her 15 years of pioneering work in this field. The content is filled with first-hand knowledge of how to sell a CSR program internally, as well as a complete formula for development, implementation and measurement. There is nothing in this text that conflicts with making money, shareholder primacy or efficiency. It is all about building trusted brands that build value. `Best of all, the chapters are short and sweet for reading on the train, plane or in the hotel.

Paul A. King, Sustainability Executive
Bovis Lend Lease

Kellie McElhaney has done the world of business a great service by providing leaders with a well-written, actionable guide to branding their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. There have been plenty of books extolling the many benefits to companies of pursuing CSR. Such companies can expect happier, more engaged and productive employees, more loyal customers and clients, and a stronger bottom line. However, no book -- until Just Good Business -- has described how businesses can take the important next step, that is, branding their CSR efforts. This Kellie does in spades, in an easily readable style, full of personal anecdotes and real-world (and recent!) organizational case examples. In addition to teaching CSR at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, Kellie serves as executive director of the school's Center for Responsible Business, and consults for a number of top-rank firms, including McDonald's, HP, Ernst & Young, Gap, eBay, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, Levi, and Dow. Long story short, she knows her stuff. If you're ready to take your corporate social responsibility program to the next level, then this book will take you there.

Kellie McElhaney is a well-regarded pioneer in the emerging field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the founder of the University of California's Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business. She also serves as the University's Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Corporate Responsibility. In "Just Good Business," McElhaney provides a strategic guide to make CSR count in any business.

In "Just Good Business," McElhaney ties corporate acts of social good to good business practice, branding, and financial growth. In the book, she provides her "Seven Rules of the Road," and provides useful anecdotes and case studies from her years of research and consulting about corporate CSR pioneers like Hewlett-Packard, Brown-Forman (Jack Daniels), EBay, Whirlpool, Timberland and Nike among others.

"Just Good Business" serves as a good resource and alignment tool for companies that seek a brand that is kinder and gentler, and a bottom line that is richer.

Corporate social responsibility is also about being authentic. McElhaney picks up on this concept and specifically writes about the connection between CSR measures and branding. She shows that a good brand needs to reflect the core values of a company and its efforts regarding social responsibility measures to make long term profits. Furthermore, she describes that an inside-out perspective with a focus on customer needs enables a company to adjust a brand to the needs of the market and is the beginning of sustainable business practices. Although I think that everyone who read Porter, Miller, Day, and Barney on inside-out and outside-in perspectives will come to the conclusion that in most cases there is no sustainable success without incorporating both perspectives to certain degrees, McElhaney makes a valid point.

I, personally, think that authenticity, honesty, transparency, and (depending on the definition of this term in an economic sense) sometimes even simplicity will become more and more vital in the world of business to be and remain competitive in the long run. Just Good Business is a book that picks up on this and provides a great introduction how to brand products and companies authentically.

- Frank Roettgers, author of Going Green Together - How to Align Employees with Green Strategies

Just Good Business is a must read for any company considering a new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy or a redesign of an existing CSR program. McElhaney offers a world of advice and practical steps to shape how CSR can (and should) fit within the firm's business mission and to guide it through the development process. Especially useful to those new to CSR, McElhaney brings color to each of her points with enough real world examples to help anyone envision how such strategies could be put to work in his or her own company.

It is easy to see how McElhaney's wisdom would be valuable to any large corporation working to make CSR an integral part of an established business. As an entrepreneur with a company still in the early stages of development, I found this book to be just as useful. Although my startup is a social venture and by nature committed to CSR, reading Just Good Business reminded me that we need to take time to effectively communicate that fact, rather than assuming our customers will "just know" without being told. I highly recommend other entrepreneurs read this book, as it will be far easier to launch with a CSR plan that already supports your branding strategy and visa versa, than to redesign down the road.

One last note for non-profit organizations - McElhaney peppers the book with ideas for what corporations ought to look for in non-profit partnerships. Assuming companies heed her advice - and they should - this knowledge gives non-profit organizations a valuable peek inside the minds of the decision makers at companies with whom they may want to collaborate. By understanding McElhaney's advice to companies, non-profits are better equipped to find corporate partners that would benefit from being tied to them and their social mission.

Highly recommended!

McElhaney's key point: It's not enough to have CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives in place; they have to be strategic, thorough, and properly marketed:

Strategic: aligned with-and actually fostering-the company's overall goals. CSR initiatives need to be consistent with other branding, add to the bottom line (or at least not subtract from it), and demonstrate benefit not only to the community but to the company itself (not had to do, as I point out in my own book, Principled Profit)

Thorough: able to withstand accusations/investigations of "greenwashing"

Properly marketed: Once you've got the initiatives in place, tell the story to all your stakeholders: top brass, line employees, customers, suppliers, neighbors, etc. Even better: get your nonprofit partners to tell your story for you, and give them the support they need to develop and disseminate those marketing messages.

The effects can be astonishing. She shares two stories from a cell phone company called Digicell whose success and not only doing but communicating CSR had a clear positive impact on profitability: During the 2008 food riots in Haiti, local residents protected their stores through community policing efforts, even as stores on either side were burned and looted. When the CEO, Denis O'Brien, was one of several cell phone providers chosen to make a 10-minute pitch to the Nicaraguan government, President Daniel Ortega interrupted his presentation and told him, "Listen, I know wheat you have done for the people and the communities of Jamaica and Haiti. We would be honored to have your company serve not only our mobile telecommunications needs but also the needs of our communities." WOW!

She frequently cites Pedigree dog food as a company that understands the power of thoroughly incorporating CSR into its core mission AND its branding. Visit that company's website and you can't miss the attention to adopting homeless dogs: a perfect message for a dog food maker, and a strong creator of consumer loyalty.

Interestingly, she spends a lot of energy discussing companies that have not always been perceived as good corporate citizens, including Wal-Mart and Dow Chemical. Perhaps, she seems to imply, those companies cans how their sincerity and turn public opinion to their favor, much as Nike did.

The book winds up with action steps, a comprehensive (if somewhat repetitive) section on measuring the results of CSR on profitability, and a look at the CSR big picture and future trends.

Highly recommended.

Shel Horowitz is the award-winning author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, which shows how to succeed in business through ethical, Green approaches.

McElhaney does an excellent job of taking what has been a controversial topic and boiling it down into terms that make it impossible to ignore the benefits of looking at CSR as a strategic corporate asset. Her clear writing punctuated with great examples makes the book a simple but powerful read.

I took away two key points. The first is that strategic CSR is about aligning your CSR goals with your corporate goals. Replace "CSR" with "branding", "product development", or any number of other business words in the preceding sentance and the concept will be immediately apparent to anyone in business. The key is that creating an effective CSR strategy is no different than any of the other critical aspects of doing business and the same processes and thinking can (and should) be used.

The second point is that strategic CSR is a conscious effort to do well as a business while also doing good. It's not about picking out a charity and writing a check. It's about leveraging what your business does to have a positive effect on society in a way that helps your business. This isn't as easy as it sounds, but the payback on many levels can be huge.

I'd highly recommend that all business leaders read this book and think about how to implement and leverage strategic CSR their companies.

Not sure the University will let me (I'm in Asia) but I want to have my students read this in addition to their textbook, and use it as the center piece for a project (while they trudge through all the boring minutia of their textbook). This was a really quick read that was easy to understand and remarkably focused in a way that should excite them to action. It's the businesses can do well by doing good model, but goes into the particulars of how it has to be modeled if it's going to work in the long run, where the other books I've read on the same topic do not.

While everyone is discussing global warming and going green, Kellie McElhaney's timely book Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand discusses the ethical business strategy called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Although CSR is known by a dozen different labels, McElhaney defines CSR as "a business strategy that is integrated with core business objectives and core competencies of the firm and from the outset is designed to create business value and positive social change, and is embedded in day-to-day business culture and operations." CSR is useful for attracting certain market segments, building market share, and if done right reducing bad press from watchdog groups and protesters.
Part I of Just Good Business introduces CSR while Part III explains what to do about it. Part II discusses the seven principles for connecting a corporation's CSR strategy to its brand. Each principle has its own chapter offering good corporate examples that flow nicely with the text. Because the author has kept these stories short, at less than a page, they make the point without distracting the reader. This is a medium-sized, 194-page, and very readable book. McElhaney brings more than just the CSR story to the reader; she provides an action plan tied to corporate branding and marketing. I recommend this book to those who want a role in the future of their corporation's CSR strategy.

Kellie A. McElhaney's JUST GOOD BUSINESS: THE STRATEGIC GUIDE TO ALIGNING CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND BRAND uses ten years of the author's consulting experience inside companies to build a basic treatise on CSR practices in a title for managers and leaders alike. From knowing a customer to practicing consistency, JUST GOOD BUSINESS is a top pick.