Best Business Books 2011: Ethics and Aspirations

Curiously, there no longer seems to be much discussion about whether or not business should play a social, as well as an economic, role. Indeed, leaders of major global companies today feel compelled to at least lay claim to a “socially conscious” mantle. That’s probably why esteemed Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer (along with no fewer than four coauthors) skips the “why” foreplay and jumps directly into descriptions of the leadership practices of 36 current and past CEOs in Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value.

The authors offer breezy reports of their interviews with this “sample” of executives from a mixed bag of companies, including a few widely recognized for their social contributions (Tata, Cummins, Herman Miller); many better known for their managerial excellence than their social practices (Southwest, Medtronic, Asda); and one or two, like Nestlé, with records of questionable social performance. The book is significant, I suggest, because it accurately reflects the way that many leaders of large multinationals demonstrate their social consciousness: They assert it. Neither the executives interviewed nor Beer and his colleagues make direct reference to specific social programs, practices, or policies at their 36 exemplar companies (with the notable exception of Tata’s well-documented attempts to alleviate poverty in India). (See “ Too Good To Fail,” by Ann Graham, s+b, Spring 2010.) Instead, what they document is that leaders of these companies create great places to work and engage in most of the familiar progressive management practices described in detail elsewhere by the likes of Tom Peters, Jim Collins, and Beer himself....

I doubt none of this, and would have been surprised only had the authors found otherwise. Indeed, it is useful to reinforce the importance of such familiar practices because, as Beer and his colleagues aptly note, these are devilishly hard behaviors to engage in consistently.