Hearts & Minds: Standing by your values in business

A CEO was annoyed. He’d been to a reception the night before and a journalist had come towards him and made to shake his hand. The corporate chief was having none of it and turned away. The following day he asked a comms colleague what he should have done. ‘Greet him and be friendly’ was the advice. ‘But two weeks ago, he wrote a piece attacking me.’ ‘Yes, but it wasn’t personal,’ said the PR head. ‘It was personal, it had his name on it.’ ‘No, it wasn’t, it was a news story, he was reporting what someone else was saying, journalists are rarely personal.’

It's a dilemma that presents itself all the time: how to deal with someone or something you dislike. It also has many guises. Take Donald Trump. Various politicians have said nasty things about him in the past; now, he’s president they must weigh up heaping praise versus the knowledge that people know they don’t really mean it.

The veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward was astonished to receive lengthy, late night, calls and invitations from Trump, even though he’d been heavily critical. Woodward, of course, is famous for exposing with Carl Bernstein, the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Possibly, Trump wanted to ‘turn’ the media legend, regarding Bob as some sort of prize. Maybe he saw the mileage, too, in having closer relations with him.

Trum is made of different stuff, but for others it’s an awkward balancing act: when to cosy up, when to turn the other cheek. For CEOs, the key audience must be the stakeholders. Will they think more or less of you; will they understand and realise you’ve got your eye on a bigger prize for the business, for them, or will you lose their respect, your authority?

Post the US election, several major companies have publicly rowed back on DEI. Not BT. Its CEO, Allison Kirkby, has written to the 117,000 staff, restating the firm’s DEI commitment. To do otherwise, ‘sends the message that these things are optional, temporary or not worth prioritising. I want to be absolutely clear: that’s not what we believe at BT.’ Added Kirkby: ‘We show up for each other every day and remind each other, when you see a difficult headline or a triggering news post: not here, not at BT.’ Allison made it clear where her priorities lay.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.