About the Pledge
Why The Business Ethics Pledge Campaign
By Shel Horowitz
Can one self-employed guy working from a farmhouse in Massachusetts actually have an impact on the way business is conducted in our modern world?
Some people seem to think the whole Business Ethics Pledge campaign is misguided, or at best tilting at windmills. I can tell you this: It’s gotten incredibly positive feedback. The last project for which I’ve gotten so many thank-yous was when I started the movement that saved our local mountain from a very poorly-conceived housing development, a campaign that involved several thousand people. That campaign confirmed the idea that one person can indeed make a difference, and that difference is most easily achieved if the lone individual joins with others into an organized force. Oh yes, and people told me right at the beginning that we could never stop that monstrosity—so I’ve had some experience with achieving the “impossible”.
Lots of people achieve the “impossible.” Could anyone have predicted to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1955 that just ten years later, segregation would be outlawed? Would anyone have believed as Soviet tanks were crushing dissent in Prague that 20 years later, the entire Soviet Union and all its totalitarian satellites would come crashing down along with the Berlin Wall?
Jack Canfield (co-author of the Chicken Soup books and the Success Principles) tells the story about motivational speaker Tony Robbins, who tried to rent a van in New York City to deliver supplies to poor people in Harlem. His staff told him there were no vans to rent in all of New York City—so he went out on the street and started flagging down van drivers. Eventually, he flagged down the regional captain of the Salvation Army, who not only agreed to help, but improved the project.
I wrote my book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First (now in an updated and expanded edition as Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green) to help change the world’s attitude about business. And when I realized that the book by itself wouldn’t reach enough people to create the social change I want, the Pledge was a logical next step.
The Ethics Pledge campaign is deeply meaningful to some sectors of the business world, and I will continue pushing the Pledge and everything it represents, both to attempt to actually accomplish its (admittedly ambitious) goal, and to offer support to those who’ve placed their trust in this campaign and who have helped spread the word about it.
Since the 1950s, the concept of the “hundredth monkey” has been used to describe a paradigm shift that happens when a certain very small percentage of individuals shift their actions or beliefs—and then, like a wave, the new behavior or attitude spreads rapidly through society. Malcolm Gladwell calls that point of critical mass “the tipping point.” Usually, a movement starts small, builds for some time while nobody’s noticing (often in another culture), and then explodes into the public consciousness. We’ve seen it over and over again, in every sphere of our lives: politics, art & culture, and yes, business:
Is this goal really important enough to devote ten years of my life? I believe it is. I believe business has the power to transform society for good or for evil, and that too many of the transformations it has created have been for evil. I see an eventual ripple effect that results in improvements to the environment, to working conditions in developing countries and at home, in the way we are treated by politicians, the way the media covers the world and in the cultural consciousness that we are not just consumers, but citizens–people who stand up and step forward to create the world we want to live in. I hope you’ll join me in this movement. the first step is very easy. Just sign the pledge.