逐利的企业家能不能做好事？

上世纪70年代，也就是我加入BP石油公司十年之后，BP当时还只有北海和阿拉斯加这两个主要的业务点。等我2007年卸任BP的CEO时，公司的业务已经扩展到了全世界，包括一些制度不健全、政府管理薄弱的地区，以及一些缺乏尊重人权的传统的地区，和一些人们对西方公司怀着深深的不信任感的地区。

举个例子，为了出口印尼的天然气，BP公司曾经想在印尼的巴布亚省建立一个天然气液化厂，但当地却存在着民族冲突和分离主义势力，西方的矿业公司还在当地留下了破坏环境的不光彩记录。在当时看来，BP几乎无法让当地人对它产生足够的信任，让它去开发该项目。

BP的应对之策，是建立了一个专门倾听社会诉求的独立的顾问委员会，对BP在当地的商业活动进行调查，并将调查结果完全公开，并且公司保证不对委员会的工作进行干预。该委员会由备受尊敬的美国前参议员乔治•米歇尔牵头，拥有独立资源来行使职权。这是一个与当地社会互动的创新举措，最终赢得了当地人民的信任，使BP得以成功地建起那座天然气液化厂。

印尼的这个例子听起来似乎有点极端，但是商人如何获得社会的信任，却是两千多年以来全球经商者都无法逃避的一个问题。在重农抑商的古代中国，商人往往被视为危险和不道德的人物。20世纪初期的几任美国总统还在忙着打破掠夺式资本家为了私人利益而设置的重重垄断壁垒。直到今天，全世界也只有一半人相信商人也能做好事。

尽管商业促进了人类发展的进程，为人类的饱暖和启蒙起了突出作用，但它依然不时会引起人们的愤怒和怀疑。如今，当人们被问到他们认为商业领袖的经商动机是什么，他们依然会回答“贪欲”、“个人雄心”和“增长目标”之类的答案，而不认为商人经商是为了改变人们的生活、改善人类的生存条件。

但对于石油和天然气行业来说，这个行业比起其他行业更需要与社会保持融洽的关系，因此这就带来了一个严肃的问题。如果人们认为，这家公司存在的目的就是为了赚钱，那么,这家公司的所作所为就会被视为是一场零和游戏，也就是说，如果公司得利了，人们必然认为社会因此遭受了损失。于是，这家公司就很难取得运营执照。

随着国际油价跌至十年来最低水平，石油天然气行业出现了高达几十万人的裁员大潮，很多油气公司可能暂时顾及不到社会信任的问题了。但麦肯锡的一项调查显示，如果油气公司与社会的关系出了问题，那么，油气公司平均30%的价值都会遭到风险。各大油气公司的CEO也明白这个问题的严重性。该调查显示，这些CEO们将30%的时间都花在了社会公关上。问题是，目前只有不到30%的企业领袖认为他们的社会公关是成功的。另有研究表明，如果油气企业能够保持与社会的良好关系，那么，在十年时间内，他们的收益至少能超过其竞争对手20%以上。

以我的经验来看，很多企业的高管之所以没有与社会建立卓有成效的关系，往往是由于他们采取的互动模式早已过时了。在过去20年间，企业界普遍依靠企业社会责任（CSR）项目作为处理外部关系的主要机制。但这些CSR项目通常都与企业的核心商业行为脱节了。在我们采访英国最大的一家银行的董事会主席霍华德•截维斯时，他向我表示，多数企业只是“在周五的下午花半个小时关注一下CSR。”

作为帮助企业解决社会信任问题的工具，一个与企业核心业务脱节的CSR项目，是完全不适合当今的商业环境的。科技的进步已经使如今的商业活动变得更加透明，迫使企业的一言一行都要讲究诚信。随着行业开始使用大数据来追踪石油的供需，石油市场的透明度也达到了前所未有的水平。互联网和社交媒体的广泛普及，也使得公众能够进一步地仔细审视企业的行事方式。想要获得社会的信任，企业绝不能仅仅把社会关注的问题“外包”给一个部门来解决。

因此，企业需要用一种新的与社会互动的方式来代替CSR。企业从上到下，从董事会到最基层，都需要将社会联系的问题正式纳入运营和战略中。

这意味着企业除了追求财务效益，还要对各种外部关系的价值有清晰的理解，同时需要明确地定义它对社会的贡献。企业需要运用流程和经理人的运营知识，帮助企业解决遇到的各种社会和环境问题。最重要的是，企业需要根据社会的需要，而不是根据他们自己的需要，来积极地进行参与社会事务。

积极参与社会事务，并不意味着错误就可以被完全避免。早在BP发生墨西哥湾原油泄露事故（2010年）之前的几年，由于公司文化的改变，导致BP在美国已经没有多少朋友了。这可能是因为BP的“良心储备”没有那么满了。在墨西哥湾原油泄露事件发生后，BP承担了事故责任，并且为后续的清污工作投入了大量资金。这表明它的“良心储备”毕竟还没有完全干涸。如果BP没有用这种方法与社会互动，它几乎是不可能生存到今天的。

积极参与社会事务的需求也会促使油气公司主动参与解决气候变化威胁。如果他们不能做到这一点，他们的自身业务就将面临现实威胁。而那些成功地为解决气候变化威胁做出贡献的企业则会获得丰厚的回报。

1997年，我在斯坦福大学（Stanford University）做了一次演讲，指出化石燃料排放与气候变化之间的联系不容继续忽视。在接下来的四年里，我带领BP采取了一系列行动，并且成功地联合若干NGO组织共同参与节能减排。由此我们获得了尊重，并且在制定新规则的过程中拥有了一定的发言权。这说明我们的顾客也认同我们正在计划变革，而不是觉得我们只是想保持现状。这也说明我们在争夺面向未来的青年人才上已经赢得了先手。

十多年前，BP与印尼当地社会进行互动的那种方式可能只在极端情况下才需要。而如今的商业环境，以及CSR的失败，都表明这种积极参与社会事务的方式，已经成为全球企业赢得社会信任的唯一途径。（财富中文网）

本文作者约翰•布朗尼是 L1能源公司的执行总裁，曾任BP石油CEO。他曾与罗宾•纳托尔、汤米•斯塔登共同著有《CONNECT: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society》一书。

译者：朴成奎

In the 1970s, a decade after I had joined the company, BP had just two main operations, in the North Sea and in Alaska. By the time I stepped down as CEO in 2007, the company was operating across the globe including in regions that lacked strong institutions and governance, had no tradition of respecting human rights, and in which people strongly distrusted Western companies.

In Papua, Indonesia, for example, where BP was seeking to construct a liquefaction plant to enable gas exports, the company was working against a backdrop of ethnic conflict, secessionist demands and a history of environmental damage caused by Western mining companies. It seemed it would be almost impossible to gain the degree of trust necessary to develop the project.

BP’s response was to establish an independent advisory panel that would hear community concerns, examine BP’s activities and report its findings publicly and fully, and without interference from the company. BP saw the reports at the same time as other stakeholders. The well-respected former U.S. Senator George Mitchell of Maine chaired the panel, which was given its own independent resources. It was an innovative approach to engaging with society that eventually won people’s trust and helped generate the credibility BP needed to construct the plant successfully.

That experience in Indonesia sounds extreme, but the challenge of securing society’s trust is one that business has faced across the world for more than two thousand years. In ancient China, merchants were regarded as dangerous and immoral. At the beginning of the 20th Century, US presidents were busy breaking up the monopolies that the robber barons had constructed for private gain. And today, barely half the world trusts business to do the right thing.

In spite of its centrality to human progress, feeding, enriching warming and delighting us, it seems that business continues to provoke anger and suspicion. When people are asked what they think motivates business leaders today they talk about ‘greed,’ ‘personal ambition’ and ‘growth targets’, rather than the desire to transform people’s lives or improve the human condition.

For oil and gas companies, which rely on positive relationships with society more than in most other industries, this poses a serious problem. When people believe that a company exists only to make itself rich, the company’s actions are viewed as a zero-sum game where a win for the company means a loss for society. It makes it very difficult to secure a license to operate.

As oil prices have fallen to their lowest level for more than a decade, and as the industry cuts hundreds of thousands of jobs, concerns about the lack of trust in business might seem to be of secondary importance. Yet research by McKinsey shows that on average, 30% of a company’s value is at stake when it comes to its relationships with society. CEOs seem to understand this: the same surveys show that they spend 30% of their time addressing this issue. The problem is that less than 30% of these same business leaders feel that they are successfully engaging with society. Other studies have shown that if they could get it right, then their company could generate returns that are at least 20% higher than its competitors over the course of a decade.

In my experience, executives are often failing to build a productive relationship with society because the old models of engagement are dead. Over the past 20 years, companies have relied on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the primary mechanism for handling external relationships, but these CSR programmes are usually detached from a company’s core commercial activity. When we interviewed Howard Davies, Chairman of one of the UK’s largest banks, he told me that CSR is something that companies focus on “for half an hour on a Friday afternoon.”

As a tool for helping business overcome centuries of cyclical distrust, a detached CSR programme is wholly inadequate in today’s business environment. Technology is making business activity more transparent, forcing companies to be authentic in both what they say and do. The use of big data to track supply and demand offers unprecedented visibility of developments in the oil market. Increased Internet access and the growing prevalence of social media are also allowing a far higher degree of public scrutiny of the way in which companies behave. In order to gain society’s trust, companies cannot simply outsource society’s concerns to a department.

In place of CSR, business needs a new approach to the way in which it connects with society. From the boardroom to the shop floor, companies need to incorporate societal connection formally into their operations and strategy.

That will mean having a clear understanding of the value of different external relationships and ensuring the company defines clearly its contribution to society, beyond its financial benefit. Companies need to apply the process and operational expertise of commercial managers to help the company tackle social and environmental issues. And most importantly, companies need to engage radically, on society’s terms rather than their own.

Radical engagement does not mean that mistakes can be completely avoided. In the years before my old company’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, cultural changes had already left the company without many American friends. It is possible that BP’s reservoir of goodwill was not as full as it might have been. BP responded by taking responsibility and committing funds to the clean-up operations. It meant that the reservoir was not completely drained. If they had failed to engage in this way, it would have been almost impossible for the company to survive.

The need for radical engagement should also lead oil and gas companies to address the threat posed by climate change head-on. If they fail to do so, they will face an existential threat to their business. Those which succeed will be rewarded.

In 1997, at Stanford, I made a speech acknowledging that the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change could no longer be ignored. I committed BP to taking action and in the four years that followed we successfully engaged NGOs in our efforts to reduce carbon emissions. We won respect, along with a seat at the negotiating table when new rules were being written. It meant that our customers could see us planning for change, rather than seeking to preserve the status quo. And it meant we had the upper hand in the market for talented young people with a vision for the future.

More than a decade ago, BP’s solution to connecting with local people in Indonesia might have seemed necessary only in extreme situation. Today’s business environment and the failure of CSR suggests this sort of radical approach to engagement is the only way companies around the world can win society’s trust.

Lord John Browne is Executive Chairman of L1 Energy, former CEO of BP and co-author with Robin Nuttall and Tommy Stadlen of CONNECT: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society (PublicAffairs; March 8, 2016).