Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World
Bribe, Swindle or Steal
Alexandra Addison-Wrage of TRACE International
4.9 • 582 Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Author, academic and former compliance professional, Alison Taylor joins the podcast to talk about her compelling book, "Higher Ground". She describes the contradictions inherent in companies that talk about "doing well by doing good" and explains why corporate reputation management can't be an end in itself and how trying to do less can be the best strategy. "You don't have to join every conversation".
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the podcast, bribes, swindle, or steel. I'm Alexandra Ragi, and I am really looking forward to today's conversation. I'm speaking with Alison Taylor about her new book, Higher Ground, How Business Can Do the Right Thing in thing in a turbulent world, which is already getting |
| 0:22.3 | rave reviews. It doesn't surprise me at all given that Allison is one of the most insightful |
| 0:27.1 | and provocative commentators on what I'll call purpose-driven corporations, even though I expect |
| 0:33.7 | that Allison will have something to say about my description. She's also that rare, |
| 0:38.3 | pragmatic, academic hybrid. She teaches at NYU Stern School of Business and has over 20 years |
| 0:44.9 | of experience working with multinationals as a consultant and in civil society roles. |
| 0:50.6 | Alison, your book comes out today. Exciting. Thank you for joining me. |
| 0:55.8 | Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to be here. I have a very croaky voice at the end of a wet Vancouver winters, |
| 1:01.0 | but let me start by asking you to expand on a quote and a theme really from your book. Before promising |
| 1:08.5 | to make the world better, do your best to make your business better. |
| 1:13.2 | I love that you pick that quote first because it sounds sort of obvious. Why wouldn't you do that? |
| 1:21.0 | Why wouldn't you focus on making your business better before you try to make the world better? |
| 1:25.4 | But I think if we look at the last decade in the US in |
| 1:29.9 | particular, there have been many notable trends, but one of them has been how rapidly and |
| 1:38.0 | comprehensively corporations have got drawn into speaking up on controversial, social and political topics. |
| 1:46.2 | Some of us on the line may remember that there was a time it was widely accepted that |
| 1:51.9 | business ought to be politically neutral and not get involved in controversial questions. |
| 1:57.3 | There's a famous Michael Jordan joke from the 1990s, Republicans buy sneakers too. |
| 2:02.8 | And we can all think about this for one second and understand, you know, if Walmart is |
| 2:07.5 | operating in a highly polarized country, why would it want to take divisive stands and why |
| 2:13.6 | would it want to suggest it can solve societal issues? Yet, that is exactly what has |
| 2:19.2 | happened. We have seen over the last decade corporations speaking up on a variety of topics, |
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