A thoughtpiece from the CSR Training Institute by Wayne Dunn Internal stakeholders may be the best investment you can make in the sustainability of your stakeholder engagement and corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs!! Seriously. We all know examples where the people dealing with communities, stakeholders and responsibilities are ghettoized in a corner of a project or company and not seen as part of the ‘real business’. Here are seven proven ways to get colleague onboard. 1. What’s in it for them? Think of their interests 2. Build allies, find champions 3. Share stories from their peers 4. Don’t be a do gooder. Keep your organization’s interest paramount 5. Learn their language 6. Be passionate, but not fanatical 7. Assertive Humility: Humble AND assertive To keep updated on postings and events go to www.csrtraininginstitute.com and sign up for the newsletter

1. Helping business to
serve shareholders AND society
SIMULTANEOUSLY
Seven steps for engaging
internal stakeholders
-by Wayne Dunn
www.csrtraininginstitute.com/knowledge-centre

2. proven ways
to get COLLEAGUES
on board with sustainability
and corporate RESPONSIBILITY
7
The best investment you make in the sustainability of your stakeholder engagement and
corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs could be your internal stakeholders. Seriously!
The people dealing with communities, stakeholders and responsibilities are too often
ghettoized in a corner of a project or company and not seen as part of the ‘real business’. This
costs the company money and can be demoralizing.
They are tolerated, sometimes even encouraged, but when budgets get tight they are often
squarely in the cutting line.
It’s not a very sustainable position, for them or the company. So if that’s where you are, you
need to change your positioning and make successfully engaging internal stakeholders a
priority.
Do it right and other parts of your organization will recognize the important contribution CSR
and stakeholder engagement make to profitability, shareholder value and their specific
interests.
Drop the ball on internal stakeholder engagement and you’ll be near the front of the line the
next time cuts and downsizing happens and near the back of the line for budget increases.

3. Even with your most compelling arguments not everyone will
become a raving fan of your work. If you engage appropriately,
however, some will, and others will at least be supportive.
Your colleagues are your allies; work with them. Help them to
know more about your work and what it means for their area and
interests, for the company and for other key areas.
With the right information, support and rationale you can then turn
one or two into strategic champions for your work and its value to
the company.
3. Share stories from
their peers
2. Build allies, find
champions
Stories are great for communicating and engaging, souse some to
help you reach internal stakeholders.
Find short, pointed stories on how CSR/stakeholder engagement
and other related areas had big impacts on particular areas and
then share them appropriately – and strategically.
page 02
Ask what CSR has to offer your company from top to bottom and
side to side, through finance, human resources, investor relations,
engineering, C-suites, etc.
Work out how your own success contributes to their success.
And think through how it impacts on them if your work fails, if your
project or company loses its social license?
Then capture these thoughts, make lists and communicate them
(see items 3 & 5 below). Use each new specific example as an
opportunity to remind them.
1. Ask what’s in it
for them? Think of
their interests
Seven steps for engaging internal stakeholders
The good news is that the core principles for successfully engaging internal stakeholders are much
the same as for other stakeholder groups. They include, in no particular order:

4. I was near the conclusion of the project, an assessment of the company’s social license/CSR
work in a particular geographic region it was working in.
The work they were doing was incredible, clearly one of the best examples in the world. This
was back in 1999 but is still one of the best – they were way ahead of the game.
However, the local systems and successes I assessed were not consistent across their entire
operations. They had countries and regions where they were doing little or nothing. Big risks.
And they didn’t see them.
So, I explained the risk to the CFO saying that if they had a problem, if something came up in
those other areas, they would have a hard time to respond to an agitated public and confron-
tational stakeholder groups (think about making friends in the middle of a mob!)
But he didn’t seem interested.I think he was happy to see me leave his office.
About a month later the company had a cyanide spill that, while technically not a major con-
cern, quickly became a major international issue both for them and for the country they were
headquartered in.
The spill happened some distance from their mine. However their vehicles routinely passed
through a local community with whom they had not fostered any relationships at all.
You can imagine how the community felt as trucks drove through daily, going to and from the
mine, and with nobody from the company ever coming by. They didn’t even have much oppor-
tunity for jobs or business at the mine-site.
So, when the spill happened, the community used it to get some major attention. Suddenly
there were advocacy and special interest NGOs all over the community and the incident got a
lot of global media attention.
Share price plummeted and the company went into emergency response. Except, they didn’t
really have the relationships with local or international stakeholders to mount a quick and
effective response to this situation (think again of building relationships in a mob!).
A couple of months later when I was back at headquarters, the CFO actually asked to see me.
He had been through a pretty rough period.
As the share price tanked the company was suddenly getting all sorts of attention it didn’t like
from investors, lenders and other financial stakeholders.
The company found itself offside of important agreements like debt to market capitalization
covenants.
Now a previously skepticalCFO had become a believer. Now he could see how the success of
stakeholder engagement and CSR programs had real meaning and value for his job and the
company.
Seven steps for engaging internal stakeholders
page 03
Changed Perception of Value

5. Do good work but don’t be a ‘do gooder’. Your work and the good
you do is important for sure. But so are the interests of your com-
pany. Keep your work consciously aligned with the broader interests
of your company.
Always, always, keep the company’s interests at the forefront. Link
your own job and goals to what is good for the company in other
ways, for example mitigating risk for the company.
Lose that link and you are lost.
Your company wants good work but not a do-gooder, and the same
applies to the stakeholders you are working with.
4. Don’t be a ‘do
gooder’. Keep your
organization’s inter-
est paramount
5. Learn their lan-
guage
You will be much more effective at communicating with various
internal stakeholder groups if you ‘learn their language’. Hint:
Do-gooder language won’t get you very far in the CFO’s office!
By ‘doing’ stakeholder engagement and CSR you can seem like an
alien from another planet! So learn enough about your colleague’s
world and priorities to communicate with them in a way that they
can hear and understand.
page 04
Seven steps for engaging internal stakeholders
These stories will not only help you to better communicate the value
in your work to your colleagues, they will also help you to under-
stand your colleagues’ interests better.
6. Be passionate,
but not fanatical
Most of us working in CSR and stakeholder engagement are pas-
sionate about our work. But so too are many who work in other
areas of your organization.
Passion is a gift. Cherish it. Fanaticism is a curse. Avoid it.
It is perfectly fine to be passionate about your work and the impact
it is having (both on and for stakeholders AND for shareholders).
But, don’t be fanatical about it. Passionate is constructive. Fanati-
cal is destructive.
This is a simple communication skill but often can be challenging to
apply, especially when projects and initiatives feel so important.
Always remember that there is a fine line between passionate and
fanatical and stay on the constructive side of the line.

6. 7. Assertive Humil-
ity: Humble AND
assertive
Temper all internal stakeholder engagement with assertive humility.
We’ve all seen do-gooders that come across as ‘holier than thou’.
It is a turn-off.
We’ve also seen the meek and mild who struggle to make a point
but fail to communicate effectively.
The work you are doing is important. Very important. So is the work that others
in your company are doing. Recognize both of these realities.
Remember – internal stakeholders are key to the success of your work.
Do not assume that they are automatically on your side. Invest time in under-
standing them and their interests and in explaining how and why your success
supports their success.
Learn to engage and communicate with them in effective ways and you, your
work, your company and your other stakeholders’ will all benefit.
page 05
Seven steps for engaging internal stakeholders
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7. Professor Dunn brings a practical and realistic approach to CSR, blending theory and
practice to develop realistic models and approaches to address real-world challenges
Dr. Ellis Armstrong
Former CFO, BP Exploration
…coherent, thoughtful, stimulating and insightful… state of the art! The network of
participants from the public, private and civil society sectors was incredible, some of
the leading experts in the field.
Kojo Busia, Ph. D.
Snr. Mineral Sector Governance Advisor
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa/UNECA
…pragmatic blend of theory and practice, very applicable to helping organizations
meet real-world challenges.
Frank McShane
Manager, Corporate Responsibility Policy and Ethics, Talisman Energy
… readily available to provide support to organizations like Amref that are seeking
partnerships, and looking to bring about positive change in a collaborative and concrete
way. Wayne and the CSR Training Institute helped us to identify and connect with
potential partners and are always available. The training, the expertise, the network
and the overall support are world-class.
Onome Ako
Director of Strategic Partnerships, Amref Health Africa
“The program enhanced the CSR knowledge and strategic skills of our Kosmos Energy
Ghana team, and offered the participants a platform for networking with professionals
from other organizations across Africa and Ghana.”
Reg Manhas
Sr VP Kosmos Energy
Very much helpful Wayne; some of the tips and questions you gave will be an extremely
helpful guide in the process of developing a CSR Strategy for my company.
Emmanuel Aubynn
Regional Social Responsibility Manager, Newmont Africa
The CSR Program was excellent. A key aspect of my work is to encourage and support
private sector development that contributes to Ghana’s overall socio-economic
growth. The learning that I and my staff take away from attending this program will
help us immensely with this responsibility. I highly recommend this program.
Hon. Rashid Pelpuo (MP)
Minister of State for Private Sector Development and Public Private Partnerships
(Ghana)
New and exciting insights into the theory and practice of CSR… great faculty and
participants, very diversified. An excellent learning experience, very practical and
useful. I’m very happy I was able to participate in it.
Hon InusahFuseini (MP)
Minister of Lands and Natural Resources (Ghana)
WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT OUR WORK

8. Should Business Serve
SHAREHOLDERS?
Should Business Serve
SOCIETY?
IT SHOULD SERVE BOTH.
Wayne Dunn is President & Founder of the CSR Training Institute
and Professor of Practice in CSR at McGill. He’s a Stanford Sloan
Fellow with a M.Sc. in Management from Stanford Business
School.
He is a veteran of 20+ years of award winning global CSR and
sustainability work spanning the globe and covering many indus-
tries and sectors including extensive work with Indigenous Peoples in Canada
and globally. His work has won major international awards and has been used
extensively as ‘best-practice’ by industry and academia.
He’s also worked oil rigs, prospecting, diamond drilling, logging,
commercial fishing, heavy equipment operator, truck driver and
underwater logging, done a couple of start-ups and too many other
things to mention.
Wayne’s career includes big successes, and spectacular failures. He
hopes he’s learned equally from both.
www.csrtraininginstitute.com
WAYNE DUNN, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER
Helping business to serve society and
shareholders, SIMULTANEOUSLY.