Why CEOs Are Taking a Stand

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2018

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Professors Michael Toffel, of Harvard Business School, and Aaron Chatterji, of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, discuss the emerging phenomenon of CEO activism. They explain how political polarization in the U.S. and employee expectations around company values are pushing corporate leaders to enter into controversial political and social debates. Toffel and Chatterji are the coauthors of the HBR article “Divided We Lead.” We also hear from PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, who talks about standing up for transgender rights and what he tells other CEOs who ask his advice on taking on an activist role.

Transcript

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0:00.0	How do you navigate gender in your workplace?
0:04.0	HBR's fan favorite podcast Women at Work is back with personal stories, the newest research,
0:09.2	and practical advice on navigating disability, career failures, and joining a board.
0:14.0	Listen for free to H.B.
0:15.0	Women at Work, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBRADEA cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish in for Sarah Green Carmichael.
0:37.0	When a CEO talks, people listen, and in the last few years, CEOs have been using their voice for things that they just did not speak up about before.
0:53.0	Take Dan Kathy, head of the US fast food chain, Chick Filet.
0:57.0	In 2012, he said he opposed gay marriage.
1:01.0	Prompting backlash from progressives, and support from conservatives.
1:07.0	And support from conservatives.
1:09.0	Go Chick-Valle!
1:12.0	A few years later, there Starbucks coffee cup campaign about race.
1:16.4	So what if we were what if we were to write race together on every Starbucks cup
1:21.9	and that facilitated a conversation between you and our customers.
1:25.0	After a few days of bad press and mocking on social media, the company dropped it.
1:31.0	But it was that crumpled up act of CEO activism that got our guests on today's show
1:37.1	asking this question, why are business leaders increasingly waiting into controversial issues and how is it working out.
1:46.8	One of the chief executives they studied is Dan Schulman, the head of PayPal.
1:51.6	He took a stand against North Carolina's so-called bathroom bill.
1:55.2	And later in the show we talked to Schwelman about why he did it and what he tells other
1:59.8	CEOs now. I think that businesses have an obligation and their CEOs as a result to be
2:07.4	a force for good. But first, let's hear from the researchers who've been documenting
	...

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