What Should Your Company Call CSR? 5 Principles to Help Your Communication

When implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) (or whatever you want to call it) you will have to call it something. The name you use may seem like a subtle and insignificant issue, but this is not the case. You will find yourself talking about CSR far too often for comfort, and more often than not, people will not understand what you mean. Using a CSR name successfully is key to effectively communicating your CSR efforts. It could mean the difference between enthusiastic buy-in and skepticism & hostility.

Last week we saw why names are important and what makes a good name. This week we'll examine the five essential principles when choosing what name to use in your own company.

Consider the sheer variety of terms you can choose from. There are the usual suspects like sustainability, corporate (social) responsibility, citizenship, stewardship, double or triple bottom line, accountability, and sustainable development. Some companies use more generic terms like responsible business practices, ethical business, or simply good business. Or you could invent a phrase of your own, like how Hewlett-Packard famously coined The HP Way to describe its management culture and its commitments to community responsibility and the advancement of humanity.

#1: Use What Makes Sense For You

Find and use a term that reflects your approach, your strategy and the major economic, social, and environmental issues faced by your company. Are your efforts primarily directed at improving your environmental impact? Then a term like sustainability might be most appropriate. Does your company manage fragile but precious resources? Perhaps stewardship is ideal. Do you feel that addressing these issues is a moral obligation? A term with responsibility could communicate this. And if none of the common terms really reflect your company's approach, you could invent something new.

When writing on this blog, I use what makes sense for me: corporate social responsibility or simply corporate responsibility. I use these terms not because they are fundamental, but because they contribute to my objectives. They are widely known (albeit not necessarily widely understood) and thus people will recognize them when they get to this site. I want all the business leaders that are trying to understand and leverage CSR to find this site, and so I need to use the terminology they will be looking for. Your objectives, of course, will be different! So pick a term that reflects that.

#2: Consider Your Stakeholders

What will your stakeholders (your customers, employees, investors, community members, etc.) understand and identify with? What terms will resonate with them? What are the issues that are most important to them?

If you plan to communicate your corporate responsibility actions to your stakeholders (and your employees, at least, will be involved) then the terms you use will need to make sense to them as well.

Consider: if you invent your own phrase to describe your CSR, this phrase could be more difficult to explain to outsiders than a common phrase like sustainability. And if they come to your website looking for CSR, sustainability or a related term, they might not find it if you exclusively use your own terminology. On the other hand, inventing a phrase could ultimately result in less confusion, since people won't bring in their own (incorrect) assumptions about what the term means.

#3: Say What You Mean

Whatever term you choose should be accompanied by a definition. Don't just throw out a litany of words and expect people to understand them. When you choose terms to describe CSR, explain what they mean to your company. This is true even (and perhaps especially!) if you are using common words like sustainability which mean many different things to different people.

Your definitions should be simple and clear. They should relate to things that people already understand. Remember that they must, first and foremost, make sense to your stakeholders. In a recent comment, Chris MacDonald offered a few good suggestions about how to begin definitions of CSR, but you could use these for the definition of any term:

• "CSR is the obligation to..."
• "CSR is the belief that..."
• "CSR is a mechanism to..."
   

#4: Be Repetitive & Consistent

If you switch back and forth between the words sustainability, CSR, and ethics, people will understandably get confused. Do you mean different things when you use these different words? Or do you mean the same thing but are trying to sound more interesting?

When speaking about unfamiliar concepts, it is important to be consistent in how you explain them. The last thing you want to do is confuse people. Confused employees become insecure and feel threatened. Confused customers are skeptical and will question your sincerity.

And don't be afraid to be redundant and repetitive. Use these new terms. In conversations, speeches, emails, interviews, training, newsletters, intranets, websites, brochures. Everywhere. Encourage other people to use them. These terms will only become comfortable when they have been repeated a thousand times.

#5: Get Going

It is important to pick an appropriate name and to craft an effective definition for it, but it also important to move on and start acting upon your corporate responsibility goals. So avoid analysis paralysis at all costs.

Don't go crazy trying to find the perfect term than everyone likes. Remember, the particular name you choose doesn't matter all that much (after all, you can just invent something). What matters is how you use it. What matters is what you decide that name will mean. And will you ensure that everybody understands what you mean?

So pick a name that sounds good, is appropriate to your goals, and makes sense to stakeholders. Define it clearly. Use it consistently and use it over and over again. This is just the beginning of an effective CSR communication strategy. But it is an important first step, so take it seriously and you will be off to a great start.