Business must create a new narrative that builds trust and bridges the divide

CEOs need to show they are capable of deeply listening to the viewpoints of other interested parties

Acomment from Albie Sachs’ book, We, the People: Insights of an Activist Judge, gave me pause to reflect on a growing sense that business needs to tread carefully as it emerges from its long public silence to step into the national discourse. Sachs wrote: “In dealing with the serious challenges we now face, we need the same courage and determination we had in the days of the struggle. But the energy has got to be different. We need fewer shrill, self-serving polemics and greater civility towards each other as well as more openness on the side of ourselves, the former freedom fighters, to the many challenging and even disconcerting ideas from others.”

As business began to find its voice on the sociopolitical stage, key questions emerged. Who exactly constitutes business? How does business view its mandate? What type of engagements will be most constructive?

The responses are not that straightforward. Just consider the latest coalition of civil society organisations, Save SA, which comprises influential business leaders such as AngloGold Ashanti’s Sipho Pityana, alongside Kathrada Foundation CEO Shan Bolton, former finance minister Trevor Manuel and anti-apartheid stalwart Cheryl Carolus.

To bill this as a “business coalition” or a “coalition of CEOs” understates the intent and the scope of the initiative, but the inclusion of the voice of business is exactly why EFF leader Julius Malema slammed the movement by declaring: “We will never be friends with [Absa CEO] Maria Ramos, we will never be friends with [Johann] Rupert, we will never be friends with white monopoly capital.”

Clearly building bridges will take even longer if business does not approach this engagement with an empathetic mindfulness of the mistrust built up over decades.

Edgar Schein in his work, Humble Enquiry, talks about the need for humility. And humility comes from deep interest in appreciating that “the other’” has a perspective that is valuable.

The views of Sachs and Schein suggest that business needs to be cautious against becoming yet another condemning voice. The only way to guard against this is for all the actors to know their parts and to understand that discourses such as Save SA, the CEO Initiative and other collectives including Business Unity SA and Business Leadership SA, have to be transparent, inclusive and constructive. More loud voices are not what is needed, rather business needs to show it is capable of deeply understanding the viewpoints of other stakeholders.

The recent student protests serve as a crucial learning opportunity. Strident voices have resulted in stakeholders being pushed into corners, with the students firmly in one and university management in another. The public commentary appears to have lost the voices of other critical stakeholders including faculty members, admin staff and other university employees.

As important as it is for CEOs to stand up to defend the rights of law and those who champion against state capture, there are more actors within business who need to enter the conversation under the mantel of “business”.

Assuming that all the CEOs who signed the Save SA pledge and attended the protests at St Alban’s Cathedral in Cape Town on November 2 2016 did so with the mandate from their boards already broadens the discourse beyond CEOs. Now this base needs to be widened further. SA needs to look within its organisations and encourage internal conversation; real engagement from the bottom up that builds genuine trust. Assuming that the country continues with the academic project, some of the very student activists who have proclaimed against the system over the past few years will enter the business world next year. These youths represent the new struggle and they need to be heard. SA cannot risk dimming their voices through stifling corporate structures or through prescriptive cultures that only give voice to those at the top. The oligopolistic structure of big business in SA also means that it potentially leaves out the thousands of mid-sized and small businesses whose role in driving economic growth is seen as critical. Business needs them in the fold too.

Only if business engages more widely — and more humbly — can it hope to avoid painting itself into that stakeholder corner labelled “white capitalism”. To do this, business must actively break down old stereotypes, and resort to the “listening” rather than “telling” behaviours advocated by Schein.

Because of the value of business to SA’s prospects it is often easy for leaders to forget that business is a critical but reliant part of the greater economy. Neal Froneman, Sibanye Gold CEO and a member of the CEO Initiative, encapsulated this during the Joburg Indaba in October, when he called for business to take ownership of the part it has played in the country’s bitter past. Froneman said: “We should embrace our role in developing the South African economy and society of the future, and commit ourselves to a very different way of doing business.”

Learning sits at the core of this “new way” of doing business, which needs to encourage difficult and challenging dialogue actively. It is only when people are free to engage in a safe environment that encourages active listening that they can begin to hear one another.

In the midst of swirling accusations regarding state capture, the questions it raises about business ethics and the misuse of power in some quarters, encapsulated by the recent high-profile resignation of Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, the country is at a critical juncture where transparency, honesty and openness in business must be embraced. The way South African companies react in the weeks and months ahead will be the stuff of business school case studies, which MBAs will study for years; they must be about honest engagement and robust, inclusive debate.

Those words and actions need to permeate the national psyche; the country cannot afford to rely only on the judiciary to determine appropriate and just conduct.

Former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke, who delivered the Helen Suzman Lecture at GIBS on November 17, stressed the importance of the judiciary using the rule of law to fight for social justice issues such as inequality and poverty, rather than being wrapped up in political intrigue.

“We will overpoliticise the courts and tarnish their effectiveness in the long term,” he said.

SA is abdicating too much to the courts, in large part because people seem incapable of hearing each other. A healthy democracy goes beyond rules and regulations and the enforcement thereof. It starts with citizens taking personal and civic responsibility for the way they live their lives and conduct their business affairs. Issues of corruption and inappropriate and anticompetitive behaviour should not be solely answered in the courts, but rather thanks to society’s collective agreement of what is deemed appropriate and acceptable behaviour. Or as Moseneke puts it: “We have to go on a search for personal agency, and indeed for collective agency as a people of this land.”