So You Want to Be a CSR Director?
This past weekend over 2,400 MBA students, CSR professionals and social entrepreneurs congregated on the campus of Cornell University for the 2009 Net Impact Conference.
For those of you not “in the know,” Net Impact is an international network of people looking to use their business skills to create global social change.
I’ve been a member of Net Impact for a few years now, and I have to say that attending their annual conference is a must (if you’re not a member, I highly encourage you to join).
When I attended last year as a first year MBA, I remember feeling overwhelmed by all of the new ideas, terminology and opinions swirling around in the air. This time though, as a second year student, I felt much more grounded and less inundated, which made it possible to simply enjoy the opportunity to learn, connect with colleagues and friends, and share ideas around CSR and sustainability.
Perhaps because it’s the topic most on my brain these days, but a lot of the panels I attended were somehow related to careers in CSR. I went to a couple of especially terrific sessions that I just know the readers of The Changebase will enjoy, so I thought I’d share what I learned over the course of a couple of blog posts.
This post centers around one panel I attended called “Developing CSR Competencies”. Moderated by Chris Pinney, director of research and policy at Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, this session highlighted recent research that BCCCC had just completed with the Hay Group, a global management consulting firm.
The research they did focused on the specific individual competencies that CSR directors need to have in order to be successful in their jobs. To add value to the report’s findings, the panel included three current CSR directors who were interviewed for the study:
- Dan Bross, Senior Director of Global Corporate Citizenship, Microsoft Corporation
- Valerie Smith, VP of Corporate Responsibility, Citigroup
- Dave Stangis, VP of Corporate Social Responsibility, Campbell Soup Company (follow Dave on Twitter here).
Chris opened up the panel by introducing a few important points which are worth repeating here:
- Each company does CSR differently – so the job functions of a CSR director will vary.
- Most CSR teams are incredibly small – for instance, the group at Campbell Soup is only 1 ½ people!
- Not surprisingly, therefore, these jobs are incredibly hard to come by – especially for folks who aren’t already internal employees at the company.
After this, he went on to outline the research findings. In general, 8 key competencies emerged as the “keys to success” for any CSR director.
Personal Maturity (aka: Humility): this basically comes down to your ability to achieve success through empowering others to be part of the process – and then letting them take the credit. All three panelists agreed letting other people shine (and thus staying out of the spotlight yourself) is an acceptable trade-off for seeing your program reach its milestones.
Optimistic Passion: this competency relates to your ability to get out of bed everyday feeling motivated about your work. It’s about being patient, resilient, and dedicated to making change. Perhaps the best part of the panel was when Dave from Campbell Soup strongly opposed this phrase ‘optimistic passion’ (two words that he did not believe described himself or his work). Yet the more he explained why he opposed the phrase, the more passionate he seemed!
Next up was Peripheral Vision and Systems Perspective: two traits that refer to your ability to understand how your work in CSR relates to various business units within your company as well as to society as a whole. Once you understand this, the next step is being able to translate these ideas to other stakeholders. Essentially, it’s how well you can see the forest through the trees – and then tell others about what that forest looks like.
After that was Visionary Thinking: a skill that forces you to look beyond that pile of “to-do’s” on your desk and think instead about how you can bring innovation and fresh ideas to your work.
Two other competencies that I particularly enjoyed were Collaborative Networking and Strategic Influencing: these attributes relate to how well you engage others in your work, ask for help when you need it, and get buy-in from key decision-makers. Dan from Microsoft brought up a particularly interesting point about the role of trust in strategic influence – without instilling in your colleagues the feeling that they can trust you, you’ll never be able to persuade them to help you.
Finally, and perhaps most important, you need to be a Change Driver: with such small teams and such big jobs, you must be the one leading the charge and taking initiative to get results.
I found all of these traits to be incredibly interesting – and truthfully a little daunting.
To be a really good CSR director, it turns out you have to be a bit of a superhero!
But the more I heard the panelists speak about their experiences, the more excited I felt about the opportunity to one day join their ranks.
At the end of the session there was still one final question that I felt needed to be answered:
With all of this emphasis on individual competencies, I wondered what it was about the panelists’ specific organizations that perhaps nurtured their ability to be successful in their jobs?
Was it simply a case of just having these competencies and jumping in with both feet? Or did their company’s culture, values or even governance structure have something to do with their success?
Interestingly, the panelists seemed to agree that in fact it’s the individual’s ability to bring these skills to the table that sets them apart. While some organizations may have value systems or missions that make it easier to succeed, the panelists believed that true success in these positions is based on your ability to think big yet stay grounded, to include various stakeholders in a collaborative process, and to strategically enlist the help of champions to promote and evangelize your cause.
Overall it was an incredibly valuable afternoon and I learned a lot. Thank you Chris, Dan, Valerie and Dave for sharing your insights with us!
Stay tuned to future posts on The Changebase to hear more about what I learned at Net Impact 2009…
In the meantime, ask yourself: what are you doing right now to develop each of these competencies yourself?
Don’t forget about Persistence! I’m sure it was implied, but CSR Directors encounter “no” more times than they hear “yes.” And it’s often after pitching the same idea or explaining the same business case multiple times that people start (just start) to see value in what you’re proposing!
Hi Marcus, thanks so much for checking out The Changebase. You’re absolutely right about the need for persistance in these jobs – all three panelists often cited how important it is to stay focused on your goals and to keep going, no matter how often you hear ‘no’. FYI, I’m planning a wrap-up post on your session as well, so I’ll be sure that persistance as a strategy is also addressed there. Thanks again!
Ashley, I have been looking forward to the updates on Net Impact. Great job!
I attended the same session, and have since realized one of the major quality of a CSR director is indeed a sustainable CSR ( Competence of Self Refinement ).
Hi Helen, that’s very clever! Thanks for checking out my post – I’m glad you enjoyed Net Impact!
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by AshleyJablow: RT (forgot link!): “So You Want to Be a #CSR Director?” – my blog recap from #NI09, including a shoutout to @dstangis! http://bit.ly/1b565U…
Ashley, did you take the Career Leader test/profiling tool when you started business school? This frames the attributes required in such a similar way!
Hi Jessica – Yes, I did take that test (and a bunch more!). Funny enough I hadn’t thought of going back and reviewing my results – but now I’m going to. Great idea! Thanks for checking out The Changebase.
Thanks so much for posting this — I’m planning on pursuing an MBA next year – and CSR is exactly what I’d like to go into. NetImpact is something I’ve been wanting to join for a while, and this definitely convinced me to do it now.
Hi Angela, I’m so glad to hear that you’re planning to join Net Impact. I think you’re going to enjoy being a member – they provide terrific, relevant resources, have a great job board and obviously put on a fabulous conference. Please keep me posted on your MBA progress – I’d love to hear how you find your way in the CSR world!
Great post! I found this from Twitter as well. CSR is a field I definitely want to pursue but having just finished undergrad, I’m at such a disadvantage compared to the MBA students and professionals. Any advice as to how to break into the field at my level?
Hi Kristina, I’m so glad you enjoyed this post.
In terms of your own career in CSR, I wouldn’t say you’re at a disadvantage. There are many ways to start building expertise in this field without necessarily having the title “CSR director”. Corporate social responsibility, depending on who you ask, can include a number of different “buckets” – from environmental sustainability to corporate philanthropy to cause marketing. My first piece of advice is to think about what you enjoy to do and learn, and then find a job where you can practice and hone your skills doing just that. For example, I’ve always been driven to be involved with an organization whose mission resonates with me. Because of that, landing after college in the nonprofit sector was right where I needed to be. I’ve now used business school as a way to jump from the nonprofit to the for-profit sector, but at every stage along the way I’ve used that “what I enjoy to do and learn” test to make sure I’m choosing well. If your passion is something related to CSR, and you think about what you enjoy doing and learning, you’ll eventually end up doing that kind of work.
Second, a couple of other thoughts from the panelists:
- All of the CSR Directors agreed that they would be more likely to hire someone to join their CSR team if the candidate had a clear understanding of that company’s business – which, they said, can only happen if you’re already working at that company. So, their advice was to get a job at a company you admire and respect, and learn its business through the lens of a business function (like marketing). Then, once you’re internal to the company, you’ll have a better chance of transitioning to the CSR team.
- Also, all of the panelists felt that nonprofit or government experience was an asset for someone wanting to go into CSR. Since a big theme these days is “partnerships,” anyone who understands the motives and needs of groups outside of the company might have an advantage.
Hope this is helpful for you! Please keep me posted on your progress.
- Ashley
Ashley, thank you so much for your response and for taking the time to give such a detailed answer. I value your perspective a lot and am very grateful for your blog and other resources that have been so helpful in my growth and CSR knowledge. You’re right — I’m at a very advantageous time in my life to start understanding and capitalizing on my passions, especially in this broad, encompassing field of CSR that is relatively new yet so important in both the profit/not-for-profit sectors. I’m taking your advice and will pursue what I enjoy doing and learning about, and will definitely keep you posted. I’ll keep reading, too! Thank you again.
Kristina
Oh, and by the way, you answered some other burning questions I had with the second part of your answer. I had always wondered if it would be better to get a foot into a company I admired, even if that meant taking on a non-CSR-related job first, and then making the transition, or if I should do the opposite. Your answer from the panel has given me more direction. And “partnerships” – that’s great! I feel like that is one of my strong points, so it’s good to hear that.
Thanks again!
most of the businesses have a scope to be socially and environmentally sensitive.however these do not seem to be sensitise.one can well imagine the reality.when there is a communication gap between internal customers, where is the patience for csr and external advice?
i feel csr need be mde compulsoy and national and international bodies should be established to monitor and offer scores to CSR sensitivity.