"The Road To Reinventing “Corporate Purpose” Is Full of Reckless Stakeholders and Potholes", Forbes Monthly Business Leadership Strategy Column

With the advent of 2021 and the arrival of the Biden White House, let's hope the new team, beginning with Mr. Biden himself, improves upon the Trump administration's dismal record of launching an on-going dialogue about corporate governance with the U.S. business community and key stakeholders to help reinvigorate U.S. competitiveness in global markets. 

Trump tried to establish such a conversation, but corporate chieftains rightly walked away at the inaugural meeting after the President's divisive remarks in the wake of the tragic events in Charlottesville in August 2017.

One of the hooks for the Biden team might be the Business Roundtable's (BRT) "Statement of the Purpose of a Corporation,” published in August 2019. However, while the BRT initiative is a helpful start, at best it is so only on a conceptual level. In truth, pragmatically it falls far short.

The antiseptic statement fails to define an operationally credible, systemic process and set of goals for dealing with the emerging challenges and opportunities for reforming core elements of corporate governance practices of U.S. public companies as they vie to compete in the world marketplace--especially as it is experiencing dramatic fissures, driven, in part, from the increasingly pronounced impacts of China's state-dominated economy on the global pattern of technology development and adoption. 

I outline some thoughts on this in my recent monthly Forbes column: "The Road To Reinventing 'Corporate Purpose' Is Full of Reckless Stakeholders and Potholes."  Comments on the column are most welcome.