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&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m peeved.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At an event yesterday that featured many senior-level professionals (mostly women, both on the main panel and in attendance) from some of the country&#39;s &quot;Best to Work for&quot; employers; I ended up in forceful conversation with a fellow attendee.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even before the official event began. But it sure set my mood for the rest of the evening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[For a quick background, the well-attended event marked the release of a study on women advancement in the workplace that highlighted the importance of sponsorship in our daily career management (more on the findings in a later post).]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here&#39;s how the conversation went (and for at least &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; of you, this will sound familiar):&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Anonymous Exec&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;So, what do you do at Vault?&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Me&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;&lt;em&gt;I focus on corporate social responsibility, diversity and women leadership.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Anonymous Exec&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;So what&#39;s your interest in this event?&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Me&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Since the study being released focuses on women advancement in the workplace, it is an important tie-in for my concentration on CSR&lt;/em&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Here&#39;s where this gets unfunny]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Anonymous Exec&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;CSR? How can you say that? There is a very real business case for women advancement in the workforce. It is very strategic.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Me&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;&lt;em&gt;So is CSR&lt;/em&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;RAISED EYEBROWS; QUESTIONING LOOK&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Me (Ctd)&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;&lt;em&gt;If companies are responsible and ethical enough to empower their women and minorities to succeed, that&amp;rsquo;s corporate responsibility. If these women are mentoring younger professionals and leading discussions on transparent management, that&amp;rsquo;s corporate responsibility. And these practices lend incredible value in building the startegic and competitive advantage of companies.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, she went on to reemphasize that there is a very real strategic business case for women empowerment and not so much for CSR, etc. but you get the point.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, writing about CSR every day of my working life, I am surrounded by people who &lt;em&gt;get it&lt;/em&gt;. But hearing such responses&amp;mdash;often filled with complete outrage like this one&amp;mdash;continues to remind me that the informed remain few and far between. And the sheer lack of understanding among corporate America&#39;s senior leadership then becomes the logical target for my frustration.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps, the real problem is a case of incomprehension. No one connected what she believes in so strongly&amp;mdash;and works for&amp;mdash;to a jargonized term like CSR. No one had a conversation with her that aligned her priorities with the bigger picture.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Like PwC&#39;s CSR Leader Shannon Schuyler admitted in a recent interview:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;I had to realize that I needed to accept that some people weren&#39;t going to come to the table or invest in this, from a personal or a business standpoint just based off of my perspective alone. I needed to create four or five or, in some cases, seven different business cases for why each one of these people should come to the table. As long as I could get these different stakeholders engaged based on individualized perspectives of the value-add, they all would come.&quot; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Contextualization is indeed key. And here&#39;s why: A few minutes further into our conversation, the attendee was happily iterating how her employer is a celebrated champion in diversity and women leadership.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But understanding that the employer she was so proudly endorsing was simply practicing effective corporate social responsibility was a new concept for her.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;These conversations have to occur much more organically across organizations. Having a CSR Leader who understands it and a CEO who sort of gets it isn&#39;t going to be enough anymore in a world of ever-increasing management crosspollination.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So, here&#39;s another addition to my New Year Resolutions&lt;/strong&gt;: I will have these &quot;connection conversations&quot; as many times as I can. And I will aim high by targeting every senior influencer I can talk to.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Care to join me in my resolution? Got a similar story to share or feedback to add? Leave a comment, email &lt;em&gt;In Good Company&lt;/em&gt; or connect with me @Twitter!&lt;/p&gt;

Aman Singh Das

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