Jessi Schoner, a researcher at University of Minnesota’s eWorkPlace and a reader, sent me an interesting article about Whole Food’s efforts to nudge customers towards more sustainable choices of seafood.

Whole Foods … is launching the first in-store color-coded sustainable seafood rating program this week. … The system relies on three colors–green (“best choice”), yellow (“good alternative”), and red (“avoid”)–to alert customers about overfished species. … all red-listed seafood will be cut from store shelves by 2012.

Jessi honed right in on two important insights from the short article.

As Jessi explains:

I’m not the biggest Whole Foods fan, but this new color-coding system followed by a product phase-out really impresses me.

If Whole Foods overnight just pulled their red-listed seafood from the shelves, some customers would undoubtedly start shopping elsewhere to continue to buy the products they can no longer get from Whole Foods.

But by socially conditioning their customers with this color-coding system for several months before phasing out the products, Whole Foods is trying to get buy-in from the customer by encouraging them to make more sustainable, alternative choices. Customers may learn to enjoy more sustainable seafood choices before the unsustainable choices go away.

I give Whole Foods lot of credit for trying to promote more sustainable behaviors, but I’m even more impressed with how this decision also seems like the best “business” decision.

Whole Foods is trying to get customers to buy someTHING else instead of someWHERE else.

It’s a win for the customers, who can explore new products with better information during the color-coding phase. It’s a win for sustainability because it can help reduce demand for over-fished, sensitive species.

And, it’s a win for Whole Foods. Whole Foods won’t lose as many customers when it eliminate code red seafood from their product line, since it will have taught customers which more sustainable fish to buy. Whole Foods may even gain customers by demonstrating a concern for sustainability while creating sensible action steps.

Balancing Profit and Purpose

Whole Foods’ effort seems to strike a good balance between a “for purpose” mission to promote sustainable food sources and a “for profit” strategy to be the supermarket fish-seller of choice.

It’s also terrific that Whole Foods’ initiative recognizes how people learn and helps them learn. It may even help Whole Foods and its suppliers build capacity and expertise in “blue fish” as they help to build demand for sustainable seafood.

Looks like a win-win-win.

Thanks for sharing, Jessi.

See also:
Can a for-profit business organization that also pursues a social purpose be authentic?
Honey is really bee vomit: Why we should label “NonProfit” Organizations “For-Purpose” Organizations
Authentic Food Organizations: Why I love my CSA

Organizations are organic things — they are born, they die, they suffer and they thrive. But very few organizations flourish.

Organizations that flourish are rare creatures.

We find them where business goals are tied to larger purpose, where larger purpose is linked to community needs, and where individuals’ authentic selves are nourished by and engaged in the collective enterprise.

The opposite of a flourishing organization is a withering organization.

Many organizations that we assume are doing well are, in fact, withering.

A majority of organizations are just getting by. They hit their profit or service targets, they hire and retire members, they serve customers, and they do this all adequately. But, in the service of short term goals and/or selfish missions, these organizations are sapping themselves and their stakeholders dry.

These organizations are a net energy drain on their stakeholders. They take rather than contribute to the net value of the systems they are part of.

These organizations are withering.

We fight organizational withering, but we don’t promote organizational flourishing.

Organization leaders, advocates and members spend a lot of energy trying to prevent withering. We try to make organizations ‘better’ by addressing specific dimensions of improvement. We advocate and work towards everything from employee engagement to diversity to sustainability to enterprise 2.0.

The problems addressed by each one of these initiatives are root causes of organizational withering. Fixing, improving, changing and even transforming the organization on any one of these dimensions does make an organization genuinely better.

But ‘better’ isn’t the same as flourishing.

These single-issue change initiatives, and those of us who advocate for them, work as though “better” is our goal, and not as though organizational flourishing is our goal. I’m not sure whether this is because flourishing is just something we don’t let ourselves consider, or whether it’s because we’re so focused and so invested in the one particular issue that calls to us and feels like “our” work.

What Flourishing Requires

To be sure, getting an organization to flourish requires that we work on each of these important change dimensions:

Flourishing requires engagement.
Flourishing requires sustainability.
Flourishing requires leadership.
Flourishing requires diversity.
Flourishing requires employees with full, balanced lives.
Flourishing requires connections to causes that matter.
Flourishing requires products and services that meet real community needs.

Flourishing requires coordination and connection.

Most of all, flourishing requires coordinated, other-aware participation, from all of us who are advocates and agents of organizational change.

The success of the initiatives we each care about depends on us recognizing how that one dimension is connected to and depends on all these other initiatives. And, organizational flourishing requires that we deal with each of these initiatives in their relationships with other initiatives.

Each of us who advocates some dimension of organizational change needs to recognize, acknowledge, support and link to the organizational change efforts on other dimensions. We need to be aware of other initiatives, and coordinate our change efforts to include the initiatives important to others.

Flourishing requires a multi-pronged, networked change strategy.

To get to flourishing, we don’t have to abandon our commitment to a particular change initiative– we simply need to adjust how we approach our own initiative.

Oh, and think bigger too.

I realize that this is what some might call a tall order — too complicated, too complex, too ambitious. You’re right, it is complicated, complex and ambitious.

But I don’t really see a sensible alternative. I don’t want to rearrange deckchairs on a sinking ship, or tie up the weakening branches of a withering vine.

More specifically,

• I don’t want to contribute my energy to improving the environmental sustainability of an organization that is exploiting its workforce.
• I don’t want to improve the work-life strategy of any corporation that is taking advantage of the American financial system.
• I don’t want to improve the social learning at an organization that makes fun of LGBTx consumers.
• I don’t want to develop leaders in organizations that are fundamentally selfish.

Do you?

I didn’t think so.

What I do want to do, and what I want you to do with me, is to focus on flourishing.

Our goal should be helping organizations to flourish.

Our strategy should embrace every progressive organizational initiative and work to leverage the connections between them.

Our tactics should center on the initiatives that are dearest to us and where we can make a unique contribution, but always moving to connect with other advocates and ally our initiatives with theirs.

Are we together on this?

Images from Flicker:

Vine on blue from tanakawho
Funny from tanakawho

HT to Akhila Kolisetti (@akhilak, blog: Justice For All) for recommending Paul Rogat Loeb’s book “Soul of a Citizen: Living with conviction in challenging times.” page 283.

See Also:
A Benevolent Perfect Storm for Progressive Organizational Movements
Socialism, Capitalism, 5 Points of Ignorance, and Progressive Organizational Movements

What do birds, beaches, and Chevron have in common? They have been “tarred by the same gush” of “negative spillover” from BP’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

In one of the weirder cases of a collision between literal and figurative language, the “negative spillover” of BPs Deepwater Horizon crisis is soiling not only birds and beaches, but also corporate reputations.

Through “negative spillover” (Tu, Sengul, & Lester, 2008), the reputations of other oil companies, various BP business partners, and even social service organizations working with BP are being damaged.

The reputations of these organizations are being degraded not because we think that they are responsible themselves for the oil spill.

Instead, we believe that their similarity to BP implies that they are complicit.

In this crisis (as in many others), we are uncertain about what combination of factors “caused” the spill. Crises are rarely caused by one person, one action, or one system within organization. Instead, crises are caused by complex interrelationships among people, actions, and systems.

And, while crises may be caused by factors unique to the failed organization, it is also possible that factors beyond the organization are involved. The crisis might be “firm specific”; then again it might just be chance that this particular organization, in this particular industry, caused this crisis.

In light of the difficulty of pinpointing causation (and blame), we consider what other actors might possibly be complicit. Then, we take our negative evaluation of the failed organization and spread it over our evaluations of these other organizations. For an organization’s reputation, negative spillover is the opposite of “basking in reflected glory”.

Similarity => Negative Spillover

Shared genes:   Similarity leads to negative spillover because the rest of us assume that similar organizations share “genes”. Similar organizations–other oil companies–were and still are just as likely as BP to create environmental crises. The structural similarity of these oil companies to BP suggests that their internal norms and systems are quite like BP’s.

It makes sense, then, to expect that if BP had faulty systems and inadequate response plans, so too must Shell and Exxon. Similarity suggests that these organizations could be responsible for future, similar crises. After all, these organizations are “just like” BP.

You look just like the known polluter, ergo you ARE also a polluter.

Shared context:    Similarity leads to negative spillover because we assume that organizations in similar contexts have the same opportunities and constraints. These other oil companies work within the same industrial and regulatory systems as BP, so there can be no expectation that these organizations are subject to significantly different (or more noble) practices.

When the crisis is believed to have been caused by many factors, some of which are not specific to the failed firm, similar organizations are presumed to be just as bad, potentially.

Similarity implies complicity

Another reason why these similar organizations experience negative spillover is that their similarity to the failed firm suggests another kind of complicity: failure to prevent the crisis.

These other oil companies have maintained the status quo, offering little competitive incentive to others within the industry to improve on factors related to the crisis.

if other oil companies had better safety practices, better cleanup practices, better environmental positions, BP might have felt competitive pressure to adopt these ‘better’ practices. While organizations often sink to the “lowest common denominator” they also compete with each other to be perceived as “better” than the rest to extract some kind of competitive advantage.

This is actually what BP was claiming to do (but did not execute) with their “Beyond Petroleum” campaign. BP claimed to be different from other oil companies because they were committed to protecting the environment by pursuing sustainable alternatives. We (their audience) believed their claims to be different and gave BP a more positive reputation than any other oil company.  BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign did put some pressure on other oil companies to get them to present themselves as more green too.

By holding the same destructive potential, and by not having acted themselves to raise the standards, other oil companies are seen as being implicitly complicit in the Gulf Oil Spill.

Can other oil companies avoid negative spillover from BP’s crisis?

Preferential Detachment

To avoid negative spillover, individual oil companies and oil companies as a group could engage in “preferential detachment”, where they try to regain legitimacy and relative good standing by reducing their actual links to the failed organization and by reducing perceptions that they are similar.

BP’s partners and suppliers in Deepwater Horizon, Anandarko and Halliburton, are directly linked to the failed rig. They are fighting to distance themselves from blame by showing that they were, in fact, not involved in any of the decisions or actions that led to the spill. It will be interesting to see if this strategy has any positive effect.

Other oil companies are trying to distance themselves from BP, by claiming that they are different in several important ways. They have argued that they have better response plans, better safety systems, more reliable technology. However, careful investigative journalism has shown that these companies are no different, either in terms of their envirmental protecion procedures or their general rapacity, from BP.

Real change?

Other oil companies are unable to present themselves as different and detached themselves from BP in any material way. Distinguishing themselves as as authentically different will involve fundamental changes in internal organization as well as external business practices. These changes take time, so if they have any intent of being different, it will take time for these differences to be perceived and to influence their company’s reputation.

The most logical strategy for distinguishing themselves against BP with regard to this environmental crisis would be to point out how much better their spill response plans are, how much better their environmental precautions are, and how much better their safety systems are. Ironically, this strategy will make any oil company more vulnerable to reputation damage in the future. Good reputations can become liabilities: Audiences come to expect more of organizations with good reputations (in this case, green reputations), so audiences are are more punitive when the organization fails

Implicit Complicity vs. Actual Responsibility

It makes complete sense that other oil companies ) are being blamed and seeing their reputations tarnished by the BP Oil Spill.

While BP might be slightly more risk-insensitive than other oil companies, it seems as much a matter of luck as intentional bad management that BP was the organization that caused this spill. Exxon had their own spill and could easily have another. Shell is busy poisoning large swathes of Nigeria.

None of these oil companies is different from BP in a significant way.

Negative Spillover isn’t an “accident”

Unlike the Gulf Oil Spill, the reputation damage of negative spillover isn’t an accident. Damage to oil company reputations hasn’t been unfair, or inadvertent. The reputation damage has been earned.

Reputation damage results from our ‘best guess’ for holding organizations accountable.  Negative hits to corporate reputation translate into reduced financial performance. So, although the link is long and indirect, further lowering our opinions of oil companies may have small some punitive impact.

Unlike the birds and the beaches, then, oil companies like Exxon, Shell, Chevron, & others deserve the negative spillover.

Until (perhaps while) real change is attempted, the very least we can do is see all of these similar organizations for what they are — complicit.

See also:

What is Collateral Reputation Damage?
Reputation, Beyond Authenticity, by Mignon van Halderen on February 1, 2009
Yu, T. Y. Sengul, M. and Lester, R. H. 2008. ‘Misery Loves Company: The Spread of Negative Impacts Resulting from an Organizational Crisis’, Academy of Management Review, 33 (2): 452-472.

Image: GreenPeace Behind the Logo contest

If you’ve been paying attention to BP’s “Making it right” newspaper advertising, or if you’ve seen BP’s recent television advertising, you’ve seen BP’s new Brandividual Darryl Willis.

Aside from Tony Hayward, BP’s walking PR disaster CEO, Darryl Willis is the only person with a name shown by BPs own advertisements as being in charge of anything related to the Gulf Oil Spill. And, Darryl Willis is now the point person for a lot of anger, frustration and resentment over BP’s behavior.  Why would anyone put himself in the position of speaking personally for an organization with such an actively damaged reputation?

Darryl Willis, BP Claims Spokesperson

Darryl Willis is featured in this television spot, where he speaks in the first person. Mostly, he speaks of “we”, as he explains BP’s position regarding fulfilling Gulf Residents’ claims against BP. And he closes by taking a person stand, saying :

“I was born and raised in Louisiana. I volunteered for this assignment because this is my home. I’ll be here in the Gulf as long as it takes to make this right.”

In taking on this role as BP’s spokesperson and using his face, name and personal history to represent BP, Willis is BP’s “Brandividual”.

A Brandividual is an employee who draws on her or his personal identity as well as the organization or brand’s identity, to represent the organization or brand to the public.

When brandividuals speak on the organization’s behalf, they intentionally and deliberately express their own personalities, personal attributes and personal attitudes as they represent the organization. This allows the audience to take the brandividual’s characteristics, along the emotions these characteristics trigger, and associate them with the organization.

Brandividuals loan or rent their own personal brands to serve the corporate brand. Thus, when a well-known and well-liked MarComms person like Scott Monty represents Ford, the positive elements of Monty’s personal reputation are transferred to Ford. When we like Scott Monty, we are more included to like Ford.

A brandividual puts his personal reputation on the line… for the business’s benefit.

Most often we see individuals using their personal brands to grow an organization’s business. Someone comes on board with his or her reputation already made and uses that to grow the business of the organization they’ve joined. Less frequently, brandividuals join organizations to buttress the organization’s damage control efforts with the power of their own person reputations. These sorts of brandividual relationships are less common, simply because they are so costly to the individual’s reputation. After all, why would someone become a corporate brandividual when the corporation’s reputation has already tanked?

That’s why the newspaper ad featuring Darryl Willis got me thinking: What’s in it for him?

In the ad, Willis is presented as saying “I volunteered for this position.” But why would anyone put his own personal reputation on the firing line in such an profoundly negative situation?

Surely, being publicly associated with BP right now has to be a losing proposition for anyone’s personal brand.

Why a person would NOT want to be BP’s brandividual

Being personally associated with an organization involved in a scandal, crisis or crime has many negative repercussions for rank and file members.

Just ask the Employees of Satyam, or Goldman Sachs. Or, Exxon.

The negative implications of association are exacerbated for brandividuals, because their roles as spokesperson make them constant representatives of the organization. They have no other work that takes priority over representing the organization, and no other roles in which to invest their self-concepts.

Further, the brandividual role as a constant, public-facing representative puts them in regular contact with stakeholders who now dislike and distrust the organization. The brandividual now has to manage his or her personal response to being the target of angry stakeholders’ criticism.

Being the Brandividual for an organization with an actively damaged reputation can lead to:

• Long term, even permanent stain on personal reputation

The longer and more prominently the individual plays the role of brandividual, the stronger the public’s association of the person with the organization. The negative association will be hard to escape, and hard to change.

• Emotional burnout from wearing a falsely- positive mask

Whether or not the brandividual believes that the organization is responsible, trustworthy or blameless, s/he has to present the organization this way to others. The burden of acting positively while hiding or suppressing even small bits of ones own negative evaluation of the organization takes an emotional toll.

• Psychological exposure and threats to self-esteem

When brandividuals meet stakeholders face to face, they may be treated with scorn and derision as stakeholders make the brandividual the target of their anger. It’s hard for the individual to avoid internalizing the negative reactions they experience from angry stakeholders and start to see themselves in a negative light.

• Threats to personal self-efficacy

Being a brandividual puts you in a place where you can represent the organization, but it doesn’t necessarily put the individual in a place where s/he can resolve the problem. Imagine having to apologize over and over again, and make promises over and over again, when you can’t control whether these promises will be fulfilled?

A damaged personal reputation, emotional burnout, threatened self-esteem, and a diminished sense of personal power don’t seem like much of a reward for taking on the brandividual role for BP.

Why might someone (like Darryl Willis) take on BP’s Brandividual role in spite of these potential costs?

• Strong identification with company?

The brandividual may have so much of himself invested in the organizaiton that he doesn’t distinguish personal harm/benefit from the organization’s harm/benefit. He may think that, by serving as the person who apologizes, he’s actually getting the organization to apologize.

• Self-esteem of steel?

The brandividual may simply be superhuman, able to withstand the emotional and psychological toll of this negative role. Or, through a related psychological mechanism, the brandividual may not care that much about his personal reputation among this particular (in this case, national) audience. He may have compartmentalized his reputations, and may be able to protect the more important personal reputation.

• Career Opportunity?

The brandividual may make a deal with the devil, and take on this role as a way to advance his career.

Nothing says “company man” like taking the flack for the organization’s criminality.

• Chance to make a difference?

The brandividual may sincerely think that taking this role may give him the opportunity to make some kind of personal difference, some personal resolution to the crisis. The brandividuyal may think that s/he can invest the role with something special, something personal, that will shift the situation so that harm is reduced and some good is created.

What’s motivating BP’s Brandividual?

The optimist in me hopes that Willis has taken on this role because he sincerely believes he has a “chance to make a difference”.

Perhaps he thinks that, being on the side of paying out claims, he can be associated with the good feelings of helping Gulf residents in some small way. Maybe he can help with his human touch, with the connections between himself, his family, and the Gulf community.

Then again, maybe he’s just a kinder, gentler face attempting to shield us from the horror of BP’s Gulf Oil Spill.

See Also:

What’s a Brandividual?
What’s your personal ROI as a Brandividual?
Employee Branding in Reverse: Satyam Scandal turns employees into Untouchables?

Jane E. Dutton, Janet M. Dukerich and Celia V. Harquail, 1994. Organizational Images and Member Identification, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 239-263.

Some people actually believe(d) that BP was making an authentic effort to move “Beyond Petroleum”.

I was quite surprised to discover this early in June, in conversation with an organizational change consultant who specializes is sustainability change.

This consultant explained that, in contrast to other energy companies that he had worked with, BP was making progress towards becoming more sustainable in its day to day processes. He also believed that BP was making a significant (enough) financial investment in developing alternative energy sources. He’d actually seen changes in BP’s procedures, and mentioned a few actions that BP had taken over the past 5 years or so that demonstrated to him that their commitment to alternative energy was authentic.

Really?

Even before the current Oil Spill confirmed people’s worst fears about the company’s lack of commitment to sustainability, worker safety and environmental safeguards, BP was a poster child for the concept of greenwashing. Everything from the language in their advertisements to the imagery of their revised logo, put a waxy organic gloss over the corporation’s activities. Some people actually believed the hype.

But they didn’t believe the hype because they were fools, or because BP was inordinately clever with its PR. They believed the hype because they saw actions that, to them, seemed to demonstrate that changes were underway.

The Ambiguities of Change

Many of us have found ourselves mired in similar ambiguity during organizational change processes. We hear the organization’s leaders claiming that ‘change is important’. We see the organization’s leaders putting the change issue on the agenda, budgeting money for it, and sending employees to workshops. We hear individual managers (sometimes our own managers, and sometimes even ourselves) talking up the changes ahead, reiterating that the organization is committed. And, we see others and ourselves taking some basic steps towards the new direction.

We also see managers contradicting themselves. We watch leaders continue ‘business as usual’. We even see demonstration projects go underfunded and under-supported, because other goals get in the way. So at the same time that we see evidence of change, we also see evidence of no change.

It’s enough make you feel betrayed, or simply foolish.

The Gap between Claims and Actions

Often, the biggest indicator of hypocrisy in the organization is the gap between the organization’s claims about who it wants to be, and its actions in the here and now. When the organization does not do what it says it’s going to do, or does not demonstrate what it claims is important, we know that their commitment to change is inauthentic.

Or is it?

The gap between what we say and what we do can demonstrate something other than hypocrisy. The gap can demonstrate learning.

BP: Caught in the act of learning?

In order to change, organizations have to act their way into new identities. We don’t get to show a little corporate advertising and then claim that -poof- the change has occurred. As we’re getting there, we’re taking new actions and also some old actions, demonstrating new ways of thinking while continuing to rely on old ways of thinking. We’re learning how to be the ‘new’ us.

Sometimes organizations don’t get far enough into the new kinds of actions before someone, or some situation, calls into question whether or not their intentions to change are real. If the organization’s intentions were real, wouldn’t the organization have more to show to support these claims?, we ask.

But if the change effort is relatively new, and/or relatively comprehensive, there may not be be enough action to legitimate these claims to change.

Moreover, it’s not that easy to become something new… not only do we have to change by moving away from old systems, behaviors, norms, etc. but also we have to create new ones. We don’t always know the best new systems or how to make them work, and so we have to experiment. We have to learn how to become the organizations that we want to become. And learning takes time.

We want to believe.

Organizational change efforts often ask us to contort our own sense making. We have to believe that these changes matter and that they can come true, in order to act effectively to bring these changes about. And, we have to do this when evidence all around us supports the alternative, that no change at all is changing.

At BP, somebody had to believe that BP could indeed move “Beyond Petroleum”. For any movement towards sustainability to occur, somebody– actually, several somebodies — at BP had to take some action(s) in spite of evidence all around them that BP would continue to extract instead of replenish.

I bet there are employees of BP who honestly believed that BP was changing. Not only the employees in the Alternative Energy Division, or the HR department, or the MarComms area, but regular rank and file employees. Across the 96,000 of them, some portion of them had to have believed.

Now, you’ve got to wonder how these employees feel. Gullible? Maybe. Ashamed? Possibly. Betrayed? You’d think so.

With BP, there is a chance that all of their talk about alternative energy and sustainability is just talk. There’s also the chance that, in some parts of the organization and among some employees, behavior was changing, new systems were being created, and new norms were being established, that would demonstrate real change towards sustainability and ‘beyond petroleum’.

You may say that it’s silly to ask whether whether “Beyond Petroleum” was pure hypocrisy or rather an effort to change that hadn’t gotten very far. What we can say is that BP’s actions over the last 9 weeks have pretty well demonstrated that the organization hasn’t learned much of anything at all about being more sustainable. Even as BP has moved to respond to the Oil Spill, its actions have compounded the harm to the environment.

But I don’t think that this is an either / or situation. BP may have been hypocritical and BP may have been learning how to be more sustainable.

That both/ and conclusion may reflect the reality of organizational change, but it doesn’t clean up the Gulf, restore the wetland habitats, or move us to renewable energy sources.

And, it doesn’t let BP as a corporation off the hook.

What it may do, however, is soften the sense of betrayal and gullibility that many BP employees rightly feel.

Some BP employees wanted to believe, they wanted to make a difference, they weren’t being hypocritical. They just hadn’t learned enough or changed things enough to make BP better.

See Also:

• Chris MacDonald, on The Business Ethics Blog: BP: Not Really “Beyond Petroleum,” Just Greenwash After All
• Rebecca Lefton, on ThinkProgress: BP’s Greenwashing Masked Dangerous ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Reality
• Mockulation ®: Regulating Wall Street Using the Psychology of Public Mockery
• Faking an Identity: How Inauthentic Organizations Dress Up

Images: Quartet of BP Sheilds from Worlds’BestLogos
1922 BP advert, Image by DominusVobiscum on Flickr
Oliver_p10′s entry at LogoMyWay

Procter & Gamble and its Dawn Dishwashing Liquid are the targets of criticism and cynicism for their efforts to help the International Bird Rescue Research Center save birds who have been wounded by BP’s Oil Spill.

While I’m quick to criticize any organization that promotes its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts when all they care about is pumping up their public image and thus their bottom line, the link between Dawn and Bird Rescue deserves a more considered look.

“Businesses should keep quiet about their good works.”

We expect organizations to be relatively modest and self-effacing when they talk about Corporate Social Responsibility efforts. Modesty makes sense because stakeholders often assume that for-profit organizations are “committed” to these causes only because the business can see a link between these commitments and the bottom line. The less a business says, the more it seems like their CSR actions are as important as their claims.

Thus, when businesses themselves publicize their CSR efforts, folks are quick to assume that these CSR efforts “inauthentic”.

Pink ribbons and endorsement badges can sully the perceived authenticity of many CSR efforts. Even worse than ‘everyday’ self-promotions are efforts that literally capitalize on current crises to get  more publicity for their efforts. We resent businesses that try to profit from someone else’s pain.

In this light, Dawn’s current sales campaign, advertisements and other efforts to publicize its link to oiled bird rescue look pretty slimy. Their promotion of Oiled Bird Rescue efforts seems opportunistic, not authentic.

However, before we question the authenticity of Dawn’s efforts, we need to consider the whole range of reasons why Dawn is involved in bird rescue.

Profit, Purpose and Product Motivations for CSR

• Profit Motivations: Many CSR efforts begin when the business wants to improve its public image. The business expects that CSR efforts will be noticed, that being noticed will create good reputation and goodwill, and that good reputation will contribute to the business’s financial success. Many CSR efforts are evaluated specifically for their ROI, as businesses treat these initiatives as just another marketing expense.

• Purpose Motivations: It’s also often true that a business’s social commitments are prompted by someone’s desire to make a difference, or the organization’s collective concern about an issue. Businesses and their members actually do care about social issues. They find meaning and inspiration in their corporate efforts to contribute to social causes beyond their business.

• Product Motivations: Less frequently, but often enough to matter, there can be a direct link between what the organization does or makes, and what a social problem needs. This link invites the organization to get involved and make a commitment, because they uniquely can contribute. They either have the product that’s needed or the process skills that will make a difference.

Profit, Purpose and Product motivations can exist separately, with only one or two active in a business’s commitments. However, in practice, different employees are motivated by different elements of the rationale for the business’s involvement. Some employees of an organization might care more about the purpose while other employees care more about the profit. This mixing of motives makes the question of whether the commitment is authentic (that is, linked to the organization’s purpose and identity) more problematic.

Product Motivation: Authentic link between Dawn Dishwashing Liquid and Bird Rescue

Dawn Dishwashing Liquid, a Procter & Gamble product (see disclaimer), has been connected to wild bird rescue for over 30 years. Their relationship began through a Product Motivation.

It turns out that Dawn Dishwashing Liquid is the mildest and most effective cleanser to use when treating avian victims of oil spills. The International Bird Rescue Research Center discovered Dawn’s effectiveness after several years of trial, error and experimentation with other solvents. Using Dawn is now part of bird rescue ‘best practice’.

Dawn’s Wildlife Rescue Promotion

Because of this long-standing commitment to Oiled Bird Rescue, Dawn launched a special sales promotion to support their CSR efforts. The promotion began in June 2009 (as in, 12 months ago). The promotion included specially labeled Dawn bottles, a website, and some television advertising to promote Dawn’s program for donating $1 for every bottle code activated on line.

If you’ve bought Dawn in the last several months, you may have noticed the labels with picture of some cute, charismatic birds and animals.

[There is a reason that wildlife organizations use pictures of adorable baby seals, penguins and baby cranes on their marketing materials. These charismatic fauna and fowls draw out our emotions -- and help us care about the animals' welfare.]

Dawn’s store based promotion is supported by a television spot showing Dawn being used to clean oiled birds. This campaign was nearing its end when the BP oil well blew.

Here’s the Dawn advert, made in May 2009:

Now, many weeks later, BP’s toxic oil is reaching the shorelines, spoiling habitats. It is also threatening the lives of the same endangered species that are rescued by the IBRRC. While Dawn could not have predicted the surge in attention to soiled animals, nor the spike in their number, nor the ongoing severity of the problem, Dawn was in position to help.

Criticizing Dawn’s Efforts as InAuthentic

Some folks have begun to criticize Dawn for taking advantage of the Oil Spill to promote their commitment to bird rescue and thus to pump up the brand’s public image (overall, to influence the bottom line). These critics are focusing on the Profit Motivation for CSR.

Should Dawn expand its efforts in spite of criticism about its Profit Motivation?

Marketing experts don’t agree whether Dawn should pump up its advertising and expand its promotional campaign. Some suggest that being any more public would be, well, vulgar. Others say that Dawn should be using this situation to promote its CSR involvement more aggressively.

It is an exquisitely fine line between being public and transparent about your contributions to help in a crisis, and tooting your own horn. From what I see online at least, Dawn is still on the appropriate side of this line.

• The IBRRC facebook page isn’t all about Dawn, but instead covers the full range of topics, concerns and news related to the endangered wildlife
• P& G’s website does announce Dawn’s involvement, on a page that is already over a month old (so it’s not like they’re working that angle).
• P&G is not shipping Dawn bottles with last-minute hang tags announcing their role in wildlife rescue.
• Similarly, we haven’t seen full page ads in the New York Times, touting how Dawn is making a difference.

However, evaluating the situation on the bases of Profit Motivation alone is not enough.

Is Dawn’s Authenticity Saved by the Product Motivation?

The Product Motivation for Dawn’s involvement continues. The IBRRC has not found anything more effective and more mild than dawn for removing the oil from birdfeathers. Dawn, used with increasingly sensitive handling strategies, is helping to improve the recovery rates of birds that have been brought to the Rescue Centers.

The product motivation, coupled with the long-standing history of Dawn’s relationship to the IBRRC, ought to be enough to demonstrate Dawn’s authentic commitment to the cause.

Why Dawn should emphasize its Purpose Motivation

If Dawn and P&G could find ways to limit (or ignore) accusations of having only a profit motivation, it might make sense to promote their efforts to help rescue oil soaked birds. Why? Because these promotions will help to fulfill the underlying purpose of Dawn’s commitment– rescuing and protecting wildlife.

Dawn’s Purpose Motivation would suggest that

(1) more advertising,
(2) an extension of the fund raising, and
(3) even additional initiatives

make sense.

Each of these might raise people’s awareness of the effects of the oil spill and the possibilities for some recovery.

Raising the public pr9ofile of their involvement might serve Dawn’s larger purpose more broadly. Being public about Dawn’s involvement might help to draw attention to the plight of the birds, get more people contributing to bird rescue, and encourage citizens to advocate for environmental protections and alternative energy.

Frankly, showing more images of damaged and dead birds, as well as damaged and rescued birds, can bring home the gravity of the spill in a way that aerial photos of the oil plume or piles of sludge on the beaches can’t.

Purpose appeals to us as people, not as “customers”

Something odd and important happens when businesses move past their profit motivation and even past the logical product motivation and instead emphasize the purpose of their CSR commitments.

When businesses emphasize their purpose motivations, and when we also care about the purpose, a different “we” is activated. We think of ourselves not as customers who want clean dishes, but as people who want clean waters. We see Dawn not as a product we might buy, but instead as a partner in getting something better to happen.

Authentic Concern and Authentic Action

The ecological crisis of the Oil Spill is real. The damage to these waterfowl and wildlife is serious and it is extensive. This cause wasn’t invented by a marketing department, and our interest in it is neither borrowed nor manufactured. Our concern is authentic.

Nobody at Dawn or at P&G is glad that this spill has given them an opportunity to shine. Maybe it’s fortuitous that Dawn’s current wildlife marketing campaign has not yet ended. And maybe it’s providential that Dawn has an advertisement already made that is a perfect fit for the new situation. But using their tools and this situation to promote Oiled Bird Rescue and wildlife welfare is not  exploitative, and it is authentic.

Considering the profit, the product and the purpose motivations involved in Dawn’s CSR effort, I think that Dawn should amp up its advertising. Dawn should make these adjustments:

• Keep the product placement discreet. Put the bottle of Dawn more n the background of the bird washing video.
• Publicize ways that people can get involved in oiled bird rescue and habitat rescue.
• Work to educate people about bird rescue efforts in the Gulf using transparent communication tools like their Facebook page.
• Expand your support for Oiled Bird Rescue. Donate more money, not only to cleaning but also to research on what happens to the birds, how to protect the birds, what more we can do.
• Examine your own product production, marketing, distribution, and disposal — and work to make all of these less dependent on petroleum and overall more sustainable.

People are concerned about the birds and other wildlife, yet they are unclear about the actual procedures, outcomes, effectiveness and even the ethics of Bird Rescue. Any additional information that Dawn can offer to help people learn more about what is being done and can be done will get people intellectually and emotionally involved. All of these efforts should focus on the larger purpose behind the International Bird Rescue Research Center: rescuing and also proactively protecting wildlife.

Practical vs. Symbolic Influence

As a practical response to an environmental and social tragedy the size of the BP Oil Spill, efforts to rescue Oiled Birds are a drop in a bucket. They will make only a small reduction in the overall damage.

Symbolically, however, the commitment to retrieve, wash, and try to rehabilitate injured birds is very significant.

Washing these oiled, injured birds is an act of contrition, a demonstration of concern, and an expression of hope.

Given the many layers of motivation and meaning behind Dawn’s involvement in Oiled Bird Rescue, I’m willing to look beyond my own cynicism to view any increase in Dawns’ efforts to promote their cause in a more generous and hopeful way.

Do you think other consumers will cut Dawn some slack? How about you?

See Also:

GrrlScientist, on ScienceBlogs, “Oiled SeaBirds: To Kill Or Not To Kill? What Is Ethical?”
Megan Strand, on InCouraged, “Dawn’s Wildlife Rescue: Totally Slick or Too Slippery?”
Jonathan Salem Baskin’s “Do Everything, Say Nothing”
Jack Neff, in Ad Age, “Dawn’s Wildlife Rescue Efforts Shine in Gulf Coast Oil Spill”

Disclaimer: I worked at Procter & Gamble for 6 years, in the Hard Surface Cleaners and Bar Soap Divisions.

Photos:
Dawn Bottle by JudyHefland on Twitpic
Oiled Pelican by Greg Saulmon, The Republican
Others from Dawn & IBRRC websites

How much has the paucity of women executives at BP and the overall gender imbalance in BP’s managerial ranks contributed to the Gulf Oil Spill?

I’m betting that had there been more women in the executive ranks at British Petroleum, more women (especially from inside the Company) on BP’s Board of Directors, and more women in company overall, the attitudes, behaviors and decisions at BP — the same ones that created the Gulf Oil Spill — might have been avoided.

You might dismiss this as a crude argument, and I’ll admit that the strokes connecting the variables are quite broad, but there is a sensible structure under-girding the suggestion. Let me rig it up for you.

The Situation at British Petroleum

Consider the situation at British Petroleum

– British Petroleum has historically failed to demonstrate a concern for worker safety and for the safety of the environment, despite their public relations campaigns to the contrary.

– The organization has failed to address the most serious potential mechanical risks, even through relatively small investments such as the $500,000 ‘kill switch” that could have stopped the current underwater oil geyser.

– BP has failed to protect workers’ safety through safe equipment and safety procedures.

– And, BP has consistently denied the technological risks and the environmental risks related to deep water drilling.

Overall, BP demonstrates inadequate skill and concern when it comes to safety & risk. It is unwilling or unable authentically to address environmental concerns related to its current and future business.

Women Managers, Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Greener Behaviors

Now, consider what women managers & executives might typically bring to the table.

• Women demonstrate a higher concern about the environment and demonstrate more pro-environmental behaviors (Dietz, et al., 2003)

• Responsible environmental practices are more important for women than for men when considering a potential employer. (Aspen Institute, 2008).

• Women MBA student are more like than men students to indicate that having a positive impact on society is an important criterion for their job choices. (Aspen Institute, 2008)

• Women managers make greener business decisions than male managers. (Hansa*GCR Greentech Report 2008)
  Check out this chart.

If there were more women executives, managers, and employees at BP, there would have been more concern for the environment, more pro-environmental behaviors, and more effort to make BP develop responsible environmental practices that would have a positive impact on society.

Further, more women managers would have meant that across a broad range of business decisions, more of these decisions would have been ‘green’.

Women: More Measured Risk Calculation, and More Risk-Sensitive Behavior

You’ve seen this research before, in the meme about whether more women in finance might have helped to avert or reduce the severity of the Wall Street, etc. financial crisis. So, I’ll only recap two points:

• Women managers make choices that are more sensitive to risk (risk-averse) than men (Charness and Gneezy, 2007).

• Women managers are less likely than men to be overconfident. (Barber and Odean, 2001)

Women managers are less likely than male managers to feel confident that even empirically-calculated, and empirically demonstrated potential risks can be ignored.

Women Executives and BP’s Commitment to Alternative Energy

The current head of BP’s Alternative Energy Division is Katrina Landis; perhaps she is making a difference within BP to make the organization more green and more risk-aware. However, just one year ago (June 2009) the highest-ranking woman executive at BP was Vivienne Cox. Cox ‘retired’ (at age 48?) the day before BPs current CEO Hayward shuttered the division, and slashed BP’s investment in alternative energy in half.

• What might Cox’s departure and the closing of the group suggests about how women executives and alternative energy are valued by BP’s C-suite?

• What might have happened if more women were at Cox’s level, and if more of these women were involved in BP’s core business?

Keep in Mind

What we call “gender differences” among managers are the result of cultural, political and occasionally biological differences between women and men. Women are not inherently or “essentially” more risk-sensitive or environmentally aware, but in our society women behave in ways that are more responsive to risk and more environmentally aware than men. These are not stereotypes, but empirically verified differences in stated preferences, priorities, and actions.

As with the “More Women on Wall Street” argument, many of the same caveats apply:

• Not every woman demonstrates the modal behaviors of women as a group.
• Not every woman in every organizational situation becomes an advocate for her own views when these contrast with those of the dominant view.
• Not every woman is able to influence the dominant values, system dynamics and overall situation in an organization.
• Saying that women will be more risk-aware, more safety conscious, and more environmentally active is not to dismiss the idea that some men will also be this way.
• Remember, too, that expectations about what makes ‘good’ leadership and defines success criteria are also gendered. “A woman who wants to rise to the top must suppress the very things that are supposed to change the existing culture,” writes the OpEd page of The Economist.

Also, while we’re at it:

– I’m not arguing that women should dominate or form the majority of BP executives.

– I am not arguing that ‘women are better than men’ …

Rather, Your Take-away Should Be:

(1) women managers behave differently regarding the environment and regarding risk,

(2) these differences are important, and

(3) increased representation of women / gender balance is a significant, under-appreciated strategy for getting more pro-environment, sustainability-focused, risk-sensitive leadership into organizations like British Petroleum.

It’s important for BP, and all organizations, to build businesses that are sustainable, and profitable, and valuable to society. Increasing the presence of women, throughout the organization and especially in key decision making posts, is a critical way to improve business and move us towards a better future.

There may be a unique opportunity now for the few women executives at BP as well as for women who want to become involved in energy businesses that actually move beyond petroleum and towards sustainability.

Research suggests that turbulent business environments, like the one at BP, may be just the place where women executives can ‘break through” gender-related barriers. Especially attractive women candidates will be those who demonstrate leadership styles and management skills that promote openness and inclusion, and facilitate innovation and large scale organizational change.

If British Petroleum is ever gets serious about developing a more sustainable, environmentally respectful business, one way to start is to hire and promote women — and men — who are committed to sustainability, who will make greener choices and –this is key — who will advocate effectively within BP for these values to guide the organization’s action.

Some posts about BP that you should read:

BP: Why can’t they say they are sorry and trying to make sure it will never happen again? Bob Sutton, Work Matters
Are you up for the challenge? BP’s careers tagline says it all Fran Melmed, Free-Range Communication

Chart of Gender Differences in Greener Corporate Behavior from (Hansa*GCR Greentech Report 2008)

Some References:

Aspen Institute, 2008. Where will they lead? MBA Student attitudes about business and Society. The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education.

Barber, B.M, Odean, T., 2001. “Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, 261-292.

Beck, T., Behr, P.,Güttler, A. 2009. “Gender and Banking: Are Women Better Loan Officers?” CEPR Discussion Paper 7409.

Charness, G., Gneezy, U., 2007. “Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Investment”, Working Paper.

Dietz, Thomas, Linda Kalof & Paul C. Stern.  2oo3. Gender, Values, and Environmentalism, Social Science Quarterly, Volume 83 Issue 1, Pages 353 – 364.

Dwyer, Peggy D., Gilkeson James H., & John A. List 2002. Gender differences in revealed risk taking: evidence from mutual fund investors, Economics Letters, Volume 76, Issue 2, Pages 151-158.

Momsen, Janet Henshall, 2000. Gender Differences in Environmental Concern and Perception. Journal of Geography, v99 n2 p47-56.

Stereotypes about non-profit and for-profit firms explain why organic wine can’t command higher prices.

Today’s Freakonomics column picks up on UCLA research reported earlier this week by Matt McDermot at Treehugger.com.

The researchers, Magali Delmas and Laura E. Grant, demonstrated that organic wine cannot command as high a price as conventional (non-organic) wine. This despite the fact that these organic wines get higher ratings than conventional wines from Wine Spectator magazine.

The researchers suggest, and Freakomics reports, that this lower price is due to lingering memories of “hippie wine”, first generation organic wine made by… hippies.

But it’s not old memories of ‘hippie wine’ that cast doubt on the quality of organic wine. Instead, it is the extra ‘purpose’ of these organic vineyards that leads customers to stereotype the vineyards as well-meaning but less competent, and their organic wine as not quite up to sniff.

The real reason organic wine can’t get a higher price

Here’s my hypothesis:

Customers don’t think that vineyards that produce organic wine are as competent as typical vineyards, because organic vineyards are more like for-purpose businesses than for-profit businesses.

Consider that customers stereotype organizations based on their categorical identities. We expect commercial banks to act one way, investment banks to act another way, and hedge funds to act yet other ways. The type of organization leads us to expect types of behaviors and types of competencies.

That we expect different skill sets from different organizations due to their different types has been demonstrated time and again in corporate reputation research. Recently, marketing scholars have examined what customers expect from for-profit organizations and not-for-profit (aka for-purpose) organizations.

Non-Profits Are Seen as Warm and For-Profits as Competent: Firm Stereotypes Matter

Customers stereotype for-profit organizations as competent, and not-for-profit/ for-purpose organizations as warm. Competent organizations and warm organizations, while not exactly opposites, create two different kinds of products. Competent organizations create products that work, and warm organizations create products that are well-meaning.

Now, consider how organic wine producers and conventional wine producers might differ. Organic wineries have a social & ecological purpose in addition to their wine making & profit making goals. In contrast, for profit vineyards care only to make good wine and good profits.

Organize vineyards are more like for-purpose organizations, and for-profit vineyards are more like, well, for-profit organizations.

Perhaps customers stereotype the organic vineyards as being caring but not quite as competent as for-profit vineyards?

Consumers take product cues from the organization’s type

Since buying an unfamiliar bottle of wine is a crapshoot, unless you are an oneophile or a fan of @GaryVee — you use your cues about the vineyard (and okay, whether there are animals on the label) to make your choice.

If you are concerned about the quality of the wine relative to the price, you choose on perceived vineyard competency. Thus, you are willing to less for the organic wine, since it is probably more well-meaning than well-made.

What if it’s being ‘for purpose’ that gets in the way of selling at full prices?

See these related posts:
Can a for-profit business organization that also pursues a social purpose be authentic?
Honey is really bee vomit: Why we should label “NonProfit” Organizations “For-Purpose” Organizations
B Corporation Identity: An Opportunity for Organizational Authenticity

(Welcome MacLeans Readers… Please join the conversation! )

Just when you think your opinion about Wal-mart might be changing…
Just when you think that maybe, just maybe, Wal-mart was learning to be a better citizen…
Wal-mart turns around and does something really … despicable.

It’s not discriminating against women, strong-arming suppliers, polluting neighborhoods or racing to the bottom of the China Price. No, this time it’s closer to home, and in my case, really close to home. This time…

Wal-Mart is knocking off the Girl Scouts.

Of course, you know the Girl Scouts, those enthusiastic girls organized into local troops, learning about leadership and being resourceful? Those sweet girls raising money selling Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Do-Si-Does and Samoas?

What could Wal-mart possibly do to harm Girl Scouts?

Wal-mart has copied the Girl Scouts’ two best selling cookie types, Thin Mints and Tagalongs.

Wal-mart is selling Fake Girl Scout Cookies.

Wal-mart has fake Girl Scout cookies in ‘beta’ distribution, on their way to a national rollout. Because the cookies are ‘reasonable facsimiles’ of the authentic Girl Scout cookies (I sampled them myself at BlogHer ’09 last week) and are being sold at an everyday low price, these cookies are poised to snatch cookie sales right out of the hands of the Girl Scouts themselves.

Thin Mints Cookies pay for Girl Scouting

Every cookie fan in the US knows that the Girl Scouts in the USA make all of the money to run their organization from their annual cookie sales. You might not know that Thin Mints, the most popular flavor, account for 25% of the Girl Scouts’ sales. Said another way, those Thin Mint cookies account for 25% of the Girl Scouts’ cookie income.

Girl Scout Cookies are a little pricier than your average cookie, but they’re worth it. The Girl Scouts are especially desirable because the cookies are (1) unique and (2) rare.

• Only the Girl Scouts sell those minty-chocolate-discs-from-heaven known as Thin Mints.

• The Girl Scouts sell these cookies only for a short time, once each year.

The cookies are so exclusively available, there’s even a website to help you anticipate when you can buy them in your region.

The exclusivity of Girl Scout cookies is what makes the cookies really sell. But now, Wal-mart is shoving itself in front of these little girls, and knocking on your door to sell you their almost-as-good fake Thin Mints and Fake Tagalongs, whenever you want them.

There goes the Girl Scouts’ exclusivity. There goes the Girl Scout cookies’ special allure, and there go the profits that fund the Girl Scouts’ programs.

I think it’s interesting that, up until now, no national cookie manufacturer/retailer has seen fit to approximate the Thin Mint or the Tagalong. For whatever reason, they’ve steered clear of the Girl Scouts’ special cookies. But not Wal-mart. [note: As mentioned in comments, there are other thin mint-chocolate wafer cookies on the market. However, no imitation Tagalongs have been spotted. 8.4.09 2:00pm]

The fact that Wal-mart has seen fit to knock off the Girl Scouts and threaten the Girl Scouts’ ability to fund their programs makes me wonder just how much- or how little- Wal-mart really cares about the communities where its stores are located. Am I suggesting that Wal-mart’s brand managers set out to steal the market from the Girl Scouts? No. I’m asking why these Wal-mart managers did not think more about the potential civic impact of their choices.

• Did anyone at Wal-mart think twice about knocking off the Girl Scouts’ best sellers?

• Did anyone at Wal-mart think about whether or not it was appropriate to compete against a non-profit, that supports children’s programs?

Personal Disclosure

I take these fake cookies, this threat to the Girl Scouts by Wal-mart, quite personally. For several years, I was the Cookie Mom for my daughters’ troop, teaching the girls how to set goals, budget their time and money, and work together to sell cookies. I’ve seen the girls’ excitement when it’s time to sell, and their pride when they get to deliver the cookies. And, I’ve slept in the damp tent on the camping trips that the cookie proceeds paid for. So yeah, this one really hits home.

Wal-mart can sell all the hunting equipment, cheap plastic gizmos and clothes made in sweatshops that it wants to sell. But why must they encroach upon the market of a non-profit? Why do they have to go after the Girl Scouts?

Authenticity in all directions?

When it comes to assessing whether an organization is authentic, whether it is trying to grow into something more or better, it is important to look at the organization’s actions in that area. We should be looking at Wal-mart’s sustainability efforts and encourage them when these efforts seem to demonstrate that Wal-mart is keeping its promises. But also, we should look at the organization’s behavior around the fringes, because it is this behavior that clues us in to whether Wal-mart’s change effort is real, or whether the change effort is fake.

Funny, the product line of the cookies is called “Great Value.” It begs the question, are Wal-mart’s purportedly improved values any less fake than their pseudoThinMints?

What kind of “Great Value” do these cookies actually represent?

[Follow up: Please note that the Girl Scouts had nothing to do with this post. It is not the Girl Scouts who are "crying wolf" or claiming to be targeted. I, the author, am raising the question of how and to what degree for profit companies like Wal-mart should compete with non-profits in the non-profits' fundraising arena. Please keep this in mind as you comment. Thanks. 8.05.09]

[ I have closed the comments, because they have reached theoretical saturation. Please read the comments here- it's likely you'll find something close to what you'd like to share.]

Comments back open. Please be thoughtful and add to the conversation.

Also see:

• Thin Mint-y Gate: Wal-mart’s Socia Media Opportunity
• Can Walmart Earn the Girl Scouts’ Good Citizenship Award?
• Wal-Mart needs a CCO (cultureby.com)
• ThinMinty Gate pits WalMart against Girl Scouts (J. Logan at the Examiner.com)

I don’t get it.

My “Tree Guy”, the fellow who sprays professionally applies pesticides to my hemlock hedge to prevent wooly adelgids from sucking the life out of them, came by to make sure we were renewing our contract with him. Some of his customers are switching to less expensive, less professional solutions, and others are dropping their tree maintenance services altogether. “Landscaping seems to be the first thing to go,” my Tree Guy said, “when people start cutting back”.

His plan to retain my business, bless him, was to scare me with visions of infested boughs and dead trees lining my side yard.

I understand his logic, but there is a much easier way to get me to buy his services, or to chose his company over the guys who mow our lawn.

That would be: Appeal to my values.

Given the explosion of marketing advice around connecting to customers’ interests in sustainability, you’d think that there would be more than one (nationally franchised) company appealing to my own and my neighbors’ green inclinations. And, you’d think that the enterprising small business, the tree service with 4 trucks and 8 employees, would be able to focus on values as a low cost way of differentiating their services. Why hasn’t my Tree Guy caught on?

It wouldn’t be that hard. All he’d have to do is put the values on his printed materials (like the page where he calculates the estimate and contract), on his yard signs, and on his truck. And of course, he’d have to make sure that his processes and materials complied with his values statement. He would have to be “authentically” green.

I live in a town that is very liberal – it’s so blue you can be sure everyone would also like to be green. So, an appeal to eco-values would be likely to net him some business, and also help him retain customers who might otherwise be thinking of switching to a less expensive (and less expert) option.

I ask this question not just of my Tree Guy landscapers but also of kitchen remodelers, handy-people, housepainters and driveway repavers, most of which are small businesses, independently owned and able to reflect the values of the proprietors:

Where are the signs of everyday service people appealing to consumer values?