“Be more PC 2.0”
A bold prediction for 2020. One made even now, at a time of focus on the economic and personal ravages of the Coronavirus pandemic.
That hard-nosed businessmen and women, the high profile, the high taxpayers, the pink page warriors and woke alike, will adopt PC 2.0.
This is not a reference to Protective Custody. Nor to the Protective Credits, that you should have given to the person who took that inspiring photo that you so casually adopted as your own on Facebook.
Not even to good, old-fashioned Political Correctness, heralded by many as the saviour of minorities and the undervalued and yet by others as a method of controlling and dictating public speech.
This PC is Philanthrocapitalism, which has suffered 150 years of near extinction through neglect and denial.
UK plc suffered PC amnesia because its leaders forgot the value of society’s most valuable raw material; people. They focused almost exclusively on maximizing profit.
They forgot the symbiotic relationship between business, workers, consumers and society. They forgot their role alongside government, within society. But with Covid 19, they are quickly being reminded.
Thankfully, PC is resilient. PC is, itself, munificent. It forgives us our sins against it. It evolves, adapts and ultimately, in Darwinian fashion, emerges stronger, more relevant to both modern business and digital society.
There is no cure for amnesia. But memory can be regained.
It can be regained in this case through the entering into of a modern Covenant, a Covenant of trust between business and individuals.
Adherence to the Covenant releases energy to the business, in the form of personal data.
Without data the host is blind to the needs of its workforce and its consumers. Without data the business ceases to be energized. Without data the host falls foul of entropy and ceases to evolve.
Data is the nourishment that now sustains every business. It exists naturally, is owned by individuals personally and by society collectively. It can be harvested. The link, the key to unlocking this corporate ambrosia, is Philanthrocapitalism.
If the host does not invest in the wellbeing of its people, continually, authentically and sustainably, the recipients simply withhold the release of their data.
Covenants require mutuality. A PC 2.0 business must invest directly in the mental wellbeing and resilience of its workers, to gain their trust and hence receive data. Especially at times such as this. Times of isolation and anxiety.
Especially given the inevitable rise of a post Covid stress disorder, when individuals make sense of their loss and try to deal with the accumulated anxiety to restore a sense of normality.
Covid makes this investment into mental wellbeing even more vital than ever. Business needs resilient workers to optimize post Covid productivity. Business will need resilient consumers to stimulate demand. Workers and consumers will remember those who have acted responsibly.
Trust takes time to build. Data will initially be dripped out. Its release will accelerate with time. The more the investment, the more the data, the better the insight.
All Covenants are fragile, can be broken in an instant. With any fracture the flow of valuable data will stop. It is not sufficient for business to placate. Employees can spot inauthenticity, especially concerning their personal wellbeing.
Businesses should embrace PC 2.0. Not as a fad, but because it is both good practice and good business. Philanthrocapitalism delivers hard benefits. Hard profit-based returns from doing good.
Businesses that invest in the wellbeing of their people will deliver enhanced returns through optimized productivity, reduced presenteeism, greater employee advocacy, higher staff retention rates and better engagement. Businesses whose employees produce sustainable products will generate consumer advocacy, generating sustainable returns and ultimately enhanced multiples. Healthy societies consume more.
Businesses that invest into the mental, physical and societal needs of their workers will be rewarded with more accurate data insights, more engagement, higher productivity and eventually enhanced returns.
Because ultimately it is people who produce, people who vote, people who decide, people who consume and people who have the data which business so desperately needs to survive.
But those businesses that choose not to invest will suffer.
Productivity will decline alongside shareholder returns if worker anxiety increases presenteeism.
Employees will simply leave a business to go somewhere more enlightened.
Consumers will simply abandon tarnished brands.
Industries that fail to self-regulate may well encourage unwanted scrutiny and centralised intervention.
“Target” companies will simply choose a more wellbeing focused Private Equity fund.
Society will pressure governments to legislate against corrosive products.
Ultimately electorates will simply vote to change a government that does not legislate for the reasonable protection of their liberties and their wellbeing needs.
Ironically, in this case we can only hope that by remembering the past, we may be doomed to repeat it.
19th Century titans such as the Salts, the Cadburys, the Guggenheims, the Seiffs and the Carnegies created sunshine villages, libraries, sanitation, schooling, nutrition, housing, parks, manicures and pedicures for their workers and their families.
They had a fervor for investing directly in the wellbeing of their workers and indirectly into society.
They appreciated innately, possibly due to a religious conviction, that creating an enduring covenant of wellbeing between their workers and their businesses, between society and their brands, would deliver dynastic wealth, brand reverence, loyal consumers and ultimately enduring philanthropic legacies.
In the 19th century such investment delivered productivity and longevity.
Be more PC 2.0 is the modern incarnation. It is an all-inclusive, democratic movement.
It is a cause that can equally be adopted by those who chase profits, those who think profits should be made solely so that good can be done, by those who believe profits must have the words “not for” in front of them and by those who believe that maximizing profit is the best way to maximize social purpose.
Be more PC 2.0 is as democratic as Covid 19. Modern Philanthrocapitalism is all about the release of the very data that has so democratized power, simply because it is free, owned by all, yet easy to turn off through notifications and privacy settings.
Those businesses that enter into the Covenant by willingly investing and engaging with the mental wellbeing of their employees will thrive.
Those businesses that enter into the Covenant by willingly investing and engaging with the wellbeing of their consumers, will thrive.
The most engaged will impose standards that reverberate down their supply chains and will even shun suppliers who do not adhere. They will be proud to Be More PC 2.0 and will derive the enhanced returns, the data, that flows therefrom.
Those that do not will surely slide into entropy.
PC 2.0 will rise, nourished by the release of data from millions of individuals, of workers, of consumers, given willingly but only to those businesses and brands that invest into their wellbeing.
Al Insky
April 2020