Monthly Memos

The New Paradigm Of Corporate Responsibility

Charles I. Mundale
Executive Director of MCCR

July 1994

Education is a societal problem, not a school problem. If our schools do not graduate prepared and motivated people, all other institutions -- including and especially business -- will very soon suffer.

This, in a nutshell, was the message of James J. Renier, former CEO of Honeywell Inc., at MCCR's annual meeting last month. His prescription for a cure is a potent elixir of public/private cooperation that has been successfully tested often enough to earn the equivalent of FDA approval.

"We know there are preventive measures that help children overcome the most common learning handicaps," he declared. We know there are programs that can help break the generation-to-generation cycle of neglect, under-education, poverty and despair. But prevention takes broad community cooperation and effective leadership."

Dr. Renier described community "collaboratives" of schools and social agencies, such as the School-Human Service Redesign Initiative in Hennepin County, and listed three key objectives realized by this kind of cooperation:

• Schools provide a focal point for identifying students' needs.

• Families are helped so they can, in turn, help the students.

• Teachers are relieved of the social agenda and can devote their energies to teaching.

"When I visit cities that have difficulty rousing business support," Dr. Renier stated, "community leaders often tell me, 'You've got to understand, this isn't the Twin Cities.' The truth is that very often the Twin Cities are not the Twin Cities. Too many Business people here still give the issue the cold shoulder."

Despite the fact that "some companies and executives have worked tirelessly" on these issues, he pointed out, the "orthodox" conclusion in business circles seems to be: "Education is a school problem; let the schools solve it."

Arguments that pit social responsibility against economic necessity are "hollow," Dr. Renier stated. "Our economic and social structures support and depend on each other. The strength of one is the strength of both."

Social costs, he argued, "are bundled into the price of everything we make and sell. If social costs go up, prices go up, and our products become less competitive."

Dr. Renier called for the direct involvement of companies and business people in the kind of collaboratives he had described. Such involvement, he said, is "the new paradigm of corporate responsibility." And it links directly to MCCR's two focus issues: work-and-family policy and the core cities.

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