First National Bank’s aborted intervention was ill-thought out and foolish, both politically and in business terms, writes Steven Friedman. “FNB risked sending a signal that it is prepared to pioneer a new form of business social involvement on an issue which worries its senior executives, but not those which concern many of its workers or account-holders.” Also read Ferial Haffajee‘s opinion on the matter.
In a free society everyone, including any bank, is entitled to act foolishly. But we should not turn foolishness into a source of national admiration.
FNB’s proposed anti-crime campaign was bad business strategy and even worse political thinking. The Business Leadership executives who persuaded FNB not to go ahead were, therefore, doing it, and us, a favour.
It was bad business strategy because it risked setting a precedent that would haunt FNB. Once it signalled willingness to mobilise public pressure on government, it would invite comment on why it chose to do this on crime but not, say, HIV/Aids or unemployment.
Business executives answer that crime is a special case because it is our national priority. What they mean is that it is their priority. While most citizens may be worried about crime, not everyone agrees on what our national priority is. Unless it was willing to campaign on all manner of issues, FNB risked sending a signal that it is prepared to pioneer a new form of business social involvement on an issue which worries its senior executives, but not those which concern many of its workers or account-holders.
Not long ago, businesses which announced loudly that they were sponsoring sports or cultural events — that their executives’ social circle valued — triggered demands that they care instead about wages or social causes. The lesson is that, if businesses engage with society, they will, quite properly, subject themselves to scrutiny. If they don’t have credible answers for why they do what they do, they will alienate as many as they impress. A bank willing to campaign publicly on what those at the top care about, but not also on what worries many workers or customers, will lose more than it gains.
One thing it may lose is customers. As an FNB account-holder I am unlikely to take my business elsewhere if I dislike a comment in its annual report or some of its social spending — even if I notice either. But the sight of my bank devoting itself very publicly to a campaign that I believe does more harm than good may well persuade me to move elsewhere. And if an individual can do that, so can large public entities.
The campaign was bad political strategy because it assumed that a million and a half citizens telling the government to make crime a priority would help solve the problem. That would be so only if the government has the power to stop crime but won’t use it. In reality, it wants to do something, but does not know how.
Pressing politicians to do something they do not know how to do will not galvanise them into useful action. It will make them feel besieged — and get them to act in ways which will make the problem worse: getting angry, going into denial or pursuing quick-fix schemes that solve nothing.
Because the government has tried a range of responses to crime that have not worked, our most pressing need is not vague demands for someone in charge to do something — the FNB campaign message — but new ideas that work. If FNB had devoted its campaign money to paying someone to come up with one good new idea, it would have done more to fight crime than its campaign could ever do.
Our corporates have a right and duty to care about where our society is going. But they have a right and duty to think too. We should support them only when they exercise it.