Posted by: Josep M. Lozano on 14/05/2009 on blog: Individual, Business and Society
Go ahead my conviction that without a multistakeholder approach
can not talk about CSR. Without building relationships with stakeholders are not properly
CSR, among other reasons because, however much that we repeated the litany of social
, the company relates to society in the abstract, but particular groups of people. Now, not for the fact that relations
multistakeholder CSR is given. The finding of the stakeholders (the famous
maps) does not automatically lead CSR, and this is one of the misunderstandings
more evenly spread. Note of the fact that there
stakeholders and taken into account when making decisions is not apparent or clear the capacity
relationship who wants to settle with them.
latter needs to take values \u200b\u200band criteria, which are those that modulate the relationship, not the fact
the relationship itself. In other words, it is possible much multistakeholder analysis and management, and remain at zero degree of CSR.
said, if we look now only in the rhetoric of CSR, we must conclude that this, in relation to multi-stakeholder approach has generated its own mythology.
This mythology is to be assumed, in the abstract and a priori, without the possibility of critical debate and policy with a strong aroma, multistakeholder
every relationship must have the form of dialogue (words multistakeholder dialogue and
today seem united by an indissoluble marriage bond.) And besides, that this dialogue
is well done and has not made perfect until it reaches a consensus or agreement of all participants. Well, I think the time to ask to what extent the multistakeholder approach has not risen to the reference category of myths dialogue and consensus, as absolute values, or more beyond here, "of whom everything is devalued and delegitimized.
I have nothing against dialogue and consensus, rather the opposite. But do not think we should have
toward them an attitude of devout worship,
as outside them there was not CSR or multistakeholder relationships worthy of the name.
Let's go step by step, and let us make some questions.
I said that stakeholders say that there is a question of fact. But the fact
that makes it clear that there is need to dialogue with them by
the simple reason that ... you have to talk (from the assumption that dialogue is always good
), do not look so clear. Dialogue requires prior
clarify who talks with whom, what, what, why and under what conditions. Do not let
of surprise that is sometimes asserted, and is required, the need for dialogue without clarified the answer to any of the above questions. I admit that sometimes hide a sensible way to avoid trouble, but the desire -
implicit or explicit-no problem always seemed a sad way to
prestige dialogue as a regulative idea.
other hand, whenever someone comes to me full of dialogic impulses, I am reminded of Antonio Machado: "To talk, ask first, then listen ...." It sometimes happens that multistakeholder dialogues spoken much, but asks little and heard less. If there is something (one more ...) which I have never had success in my proposal to organize, no multi-stakeholder dialogues, but listen multistakeholder ... Meetings (both business and general level) with the sole purpose of listening, where the activities of each participant responded to the sole purpose of verifying that you have listened well, and each one has felt well heard. That's what I made clear when a manager once told me to meet someone just to hear it seemed a waste of time ... Multistakeholder dialogues
potential are of many kinds: business, to meet the challenges of a particular company, the management, to try
organizational problems, but complex, with incidence of multiple factors, sectoral frameworks to define the performance of companies of specific sectors;
regions, to generate changes in corporate culture in a given territory; públicospolíticos, to discuss, propose or implement public policies, public-global, to establish shared frames of reference on CSR and development.
"In all these cases, it is always necessary and reasonable dialogue? "Dialogue is the condition for
anything even pretend to do in this context?
Do I need to always be multi-stakeholder dialogue? And certainly far
allows multiplying the number of the famous multi dialoguing, and who decides on the limits
?
Here we must add another of the mysteries of multi-stakeholder dialogue:
everyone says we should translate the little word for the expression of interest groups.
Let's do it, well ... and ask why, if it is interest groups in multistakeholder dialogues
never talk about interests. If they are
stakeholders must be because they have interests, no? Well, by golly we never talk about the
interests that each has to want to be present in the dialogue. And even less
one wonders whether all interests are legitimate. Or if everyone is equally legitimate
. Or if they are all level. O if you have to have the same weight in the final outcome of the dialogue
. As the primary objective of the dialogue is ... dialogue, and dialogue presupposes as a condition of legitimacy of any action
want to perform or any conclusion you want to reach, the contents are perpetually subordinate to the procedure. In the same way that it is worth asking whether it is plausible that in the name of CSR Anyone can ask anything to a company, we also have to ask whether it is plausible that multi-stakeholder dialogue on behalf of anyone to disqualify any initiative for the simple fact that have not ignored or not taken into account.
Finally, all leads to a fascination with the consensus. Sometimes it seems that it has imposed
widespread view that if no consensus means that there has been no dialogue
or not there was a dialogue well. "Consensus ... for what? Why
reach consensus? The consensus is not an end in itself, nor, by itself, a test of the quality of dialogue that has taken place. There is consensus facilitators that create change and transformation, and consensus that are not nothing but a pact to serve the consolidation of mediocrity. The consensus does not seem a sufficient condition or legitimacy, or the wisdom of an agreement or a decision, and the lack of consensus seems sufficient grounds to dismiss or delegitimize an agreement or decision. Multistakeholder dialogue should vindication of the importance and value of dissent, to the extent that spurs innovation and intellectual activity, and not immersed in a water bath around the least common. Dialogue can only be fruitful consensus that if simultaneously accept dissent, and not considered a disturbance, an obstacle or a request for exclusion. And in some cases, on the border, the statement of consensus blessed as an absolute value can not be anything but an expression of laziness and / or irresponsibility: when a consensus as a criterion absolutitza decision-making what is doing, after all, is deciding to give up and just putting your signature on the distillate multistakeholder that have brought together.
may not believe me, but again I have nothing against
multistakeholder dialogue and against the consensus. But when they take their own life and spend
part of the mythology of the CSR, then do not go beyond being a variable of the proven and pleasant experience to pass the time until nightfall.
Or until the meeting ends, which for that matter.
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