Collaboration vs. Confrontation and Competition

Turning Conflict Into Cooperation
by Peter Asmus, Hank Cauley, & Katherine Maroney
Fall 2006 - Stanford Social Innovation Review, Graduate School of Business)

Ten years ago, top executives at three Mitsubishi companies were suddenly faced with a consumer boycott by Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an activist NGO that was willing to wage a protracted war against the corporation’s brand in order to get it to change its business practices. Instead of fighting RAN, the companies did exactly the opposite of what most of its lawyers, public relations experts, and crisis professionals advised them at the time: They sat down and engaged in a dialogue with
the group’s leaders.

After many fits and starts, the dialogue between RAN and Mitsubishi resulted in several significant achievements.
It created a precedent-setting agreement that helped drive sustainable forestry practices at some 400 companies,
a new system for measuring corporate environmental and social impacts, and some close personal friendships between former foes, which continue to this day. No laws were enacted in the process, no regulations promulgated, and no lawsuits filed. Yet the impacts of that early engagement continue to multiply
even today.

The tactics that RAN employed – dubbed "stakeholder engagement" and "market campaigns" – have become standard operating practice at many NGOs. Instead of trying to get governments to enact laws, these NGOs target companies that they believe have negative social and environmental impacts
with public campaigns that place the company’s brand at risk.

Collaboration vs. confrontation is a hard process to initiate in our competitive society. Even among nonprofit organizations I see tremendous resistance to collaboration when resources are scarce -- and we all know what happens when animals are starving....

It's regrettable that we can't work together for mutual survival during the toughest times -- which are the times when the potential benefits from cooperation and collaboration is greatest.