Politics and polarization are top concerns for organizational leaders .
Here are a few ways Polarization Risk Advisory can help.
RESEARCH: POLARIZATION AUDIT
Problem: Firms face a myriad of challenges from political polarization, but do not have a systematic way to assess these risks or to develop a firmwide strategy.
Solution: The greatest risks from polarization are when key stakeholder groups hold significantly different ideological views and different views about how a company should engage in politics. An example of this is when the ideological profile of customers varies significantly from that of employees. We will harness a mix of research methods to conduct a Polarization Audit that maps the ideological profiles of your organization’s key stakeholders and assess how they expect you will engage in politics. This could include:
Interview and survey firm leadership and employees
Customer research (surveys, focus groups)
Political market and investor research (analysis of legislative and donor activity, social media and sentiment analysis)
The output will be a quantitative and qualitative report on polarization risks along with recommendations for firmwide strategy to reduce risks.
SCENARIO PLANNING
Problem: Politics and culture increasingly feature intense polarization. This is a global phenomenon and does not appear to be going away any time soon. Polarization generates a range of difficult-to-predict risks for firms. Such polarization risks include employee activism, customer boycotts, being singled out by political leaders or groups, among others. Firms lack a method to systematically pressure test their vulnerabilities to these risks.
Solution: We will facilitate scenario planning exercises that takes your company’s leaders through a dynamic array of potential challenges the firm could face with in the short, medium, and/or long-term. The exercises will challenge firm leaders and personnel to manage high-pressure internal and external polarization through a war-game type of exercise. The exercise will reveal systems and processes the firms need to strengthen in order to build the type of adaptive capacity necessary to successfully manage and overcome any polarization risks.
With this service, we will build a scenario model based upon input from firm leadership and from our own unique analysis of potential polarization risks. We will provide all participants with the relevant background information, rules, and guidance for their individual roles, and then organize and facilitate the war-game exercise. We will lead a de-brief session to capture immediate observations following the war-game and then produce a summative report offering recommendations for ways to bolster resilience against election-related polarization risks.
STRATEGY: BUILDING COHESIVE CAPABILITIES
Problem: Polarization pulls organizations apart. Common pain points include sharp ideological conflicts between customers and employees or between employees and management. But increasingly all of an organization’s stakeholders are being pulled in polarized directions. The remedy is to cultivate COHESIVE CAPABILITIES—these are capabilities necessary to build, sustain, and strengthen a consistent and aligned firm narrative: your identity, values, and how you will express through values through internal and external action. Cohesive capabilities cut across functional areas and take into consideration all your stakeholders, internal and external.
Solution: We will support your firm or organization in implementing trainings, processes, and, in time, a firmwide strategy, to cultivate cohesive capabilities. Specific services could include:
Leadership orientation and training: The need for cohesive capabilities has always existed, but it is now essential. From social media and hybrid work to geopolitical polarization, it has never been more challenging and more important to hold a consistent narrative across your stakeholders. We’ll guide leaders to see how cohesive capabilities will help your firm overcome polarization and better execute its strategy.
Manager and employee training: One of the core elements of cohesive capabilities are that they are deeply embedded. Cohesive capabilities include skills, knowledge, and culture. We lead trainings with managers and employees on how to understand and reduce ideological conflict, how to reframe issues so as to see common ground alongside of difference, and on how to engage various external stakeholders—from investors to political actors—in ways that hold a consistent narrative.
Advise and support the firm on implementation of the strategy.
Source: Teneo Vision 2024 CEO and Investor Outlook Survey. Available https://www.teneo.com/app/uploads/2023/12/Teneo-Vision-2024-CEO-and-Investor-Outlook-Survey.pdf