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THE ACTIVIST LEADER



ArticlesCorporate Purpose
By Howard Brod Brownstein

September 17, 2024

Boards must decide to what degree they want to focus on objectives beyond profit
maximization.




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Business publications are full of articles about stakeholder interests, ESG and
similar topics that appear to have become the norm. Boards and management teams
seem to take for granted that they are required to consider interests beyond
those of their shareholders. 

Far in the rearview mirror is Milton Friedman's famous statement, wherein he
characterized such views as a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free
society, and that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business —
to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits
so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in
open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

So rather than continuing to debate the propriety of such widely accepted
concepts, boards and management teams must focus instead on the degree to which
they will include objectives beyond profit maximization in their strategy and
policies. To do this effectively, boards must employ executives who are adept at
integrating the ever-changing needs and demands of a company's stakeholders —
its customers, vendors, employees and communities — into the economic goals it
sets for its own long-term success.

Jon Miller and Lucy Parker are senior consultants at Brunswick Group, a
U.K.-based advisory firm that is active worldwide. They have written an
interesting book, The Activist Leader: A New Mindset for Doing Business, which
can be a useful tool for board members who are trying to navigate the competing
considerations of profitability and stakeholder demands. This book focuses on
the selection and support of key executives and provides practical steps for
understanding the type of leader that the authors feel is needed to effectively
address a rapidly changing world. 

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A threshold issue that inevitably comes up when discussing stakeholder interests
is whether there are unavoidable trade-offs required. Won't some amount of
profitability have to be sacrificed to pursue any other goal? If so, are such
trade-offs justified by whatever benefit is perceived as achievable through such
other goals? And ultimately, shouldn't board members be required to affirm that
such pursuits are, in their well-informed opinions, in the long-term interests
of the company? Such questions are, of course, not new. Directors & Boards
featured a book review of ESG in the Boardroom: A Guidebook for Directors in its
first quarter 2023 issue.

Regardless of how one feels about these issues, they are undoubtedly here to
stay. Therefore, books like The Activist Leader are valuable tools in helping
board members navigate what can be unfamiliar and constantly changing territory.

We frequently hear the phrase “think like an activist,” which has historically
referred to predicting the viewpoints and possible actions of shareholder
activists, who acquire a meaningful stake in a company's stock for the purpose
of agitating for one or more changes that they feel will help the share price
rise. The message for board members has been to identify and anticipate such
potential issues and take appropriate steps so as not to be caught off guard or
unprepared. 

However, the authors of The Activist Leader utilize the phrase differently,
calling upon corporate boards and executives to consider their company's role in
society as a key part of their regular duties. In the prologue, they write, “Our
proposition is simple: to be a successful business leader in today's world, you
are expected to deliver societal value alongside financial value. Not one at the
expense of the other.”

The authors identify five types of activist leaders that relate to different
types of activism: Fixer, Mobiliser, Campaigner, Pathfinder and Bridge-builder.
Of course, the skills related to more than one of these types might be found in
the same person, and the discussion is helpful in understanding more about what
an “activist leader” is and the types of actions associated with such activism.

The authors caution against the typical forces of inertia and the tendency to
“stay with the pack.” They provide helpful examples of company decisions that
illustrate pursuit of purposes beyond purely profit, such as the decision of CVS
to stop selling cigarettes, notwithstanding a loss of profit that caused the
stock price to decline temporarily.  Another example cited is Walmart's CO2
initiative, which involved over 6,000 suppliers measuring and collecting data. 

I was fortunate to have a phone interview with author Jon Miller. He told me
that he and his coauthor Lucy Parker had joined Brunswick 14 years earlier to
form a group focused on ESG, having both been active in this area for the
preceding decade. They saw the decision to write The Activist Leader as a timely
opportunity to illustrate the value of being proactive, rather than reactive.
They readily admit that these are difficult and sometimes intractable issues,
which they feel makes it even more important to get out in front of them and to
focus on leadership rather than just management. 

The subtitle of the book, “A New Mindset for Doing Business,” reflects the
paradigmatic change that the authors feel is necessary. Issues other than
company profitability have become mission-critical in their view. Miller feels
awareness of these issues should be a central board responsibility, ensuring
that the company is out in front of them, especially when it comes to selecting
and overseeing company leaders. 

Board members are fortunate to have this valuable book, which provides many
“how-to” ideas when it comes to dealing with the enlarging and ever-changing
understanding of corporate purpose.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Howard Brod Brownstein

Howard Brod Brownstein is president of The Brownstein Corporation, which
provides M&A, turnaround management, litigation support, and fiduciary services.
He regularly serves as an independent corporate board member for publicly held
and privately owned companies, as well as large nonprofits.

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