Ep. 216: Alison Taylor: On "Higher Ground" - How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World

Today, I welcome back my friend Alison Taylor to the show. Alison is a clinical professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and she is also the Executive Director of Ethical Systems. She spent the last two decades consulting with multinationals on anti-corruption, risk, human rights, stakeholder engagement, and ethics and compliance.

And she is the author of the fabulous new book, Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World. And one of the reasons why I think it’s a fabulous book is because it opens up a long overdue grown-up conversation about business in society. Alison takes on and challenges a number of pithy myths and notions that this stuff is always easy, and that there are always win-wins all over the place. The reality is, it’s quite hard.

And whether we’re talking about employee unrest over racial injustice, justice, supply chains, climate change, or bribery and fraud, some of the things that may seem obvious and easy are actually anything but – doing the right thing can be very confusing, and there are lots of traps associated with it, including balancing interests, what ethics really means, how the concepts of transparency and “zero tolerance” can get in the way, and Alison shares insights on some of these challenges.

We also talk about trust, which stakeholders companies should listen to, how the book has been received (and it’s been received incredibly well, but as you will hear, you’ll be surprised to learn where some of the pushback has come from) and so much more. This is a great conversation!

Show notes:

Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World

Alison’s website

Alison on LinkedIn

Alison’s work with the World Economic Forum on the Rise and Role of the Chief Integrity Officer

Alison’s article “How to build an ethics program for a new era”

BSR

YouTube version of this episode

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