Turning a blind eye ends up costing us all

If BHP decides tomorrow that there’s more money in selling scented candles than mining iron, it can swap the business around with a few (well, quite a lot of) emails. If Cricket Australia comes to the conclusion that the future lies with Ultimate Frisbee, it doesn’t have that flexibility. It has a mission, involving bats, balls and pads, and it’s bound to it.

At least, that’s the broad theory of it. More and more, though, it looks as if not-for-profits and straight commercial enterprises find themselves in much the same business, which is the business of not pissing everybody off. Businesses that think anything goes provided it makes money for the shareholders, and not-for-profits that think the mission is everything, both find themselves caught in the unforgiving glare of public inquisition.

In Western Australia’s Juukan Gorge, Rio Tinto blew up First Nation history on the basis that it had a legal right to do so, and was battered by public disgust until it showed remorse and promised reformation. On Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, the Ross Trust wanted to fund its numerous good works by building a quarry until it found that its beneficiaries were among its fiercest critics. It backed down, saying, “Our work is being undermined by sometimes threatening, dangerous, vitriolic and misleading behaviour. We cannot allow our staff, grantees, and supporters to … be exposed to this.”

Sorry, Ross. It’s not enough, these days, to do your core job well. You’ve been assigned a whole load of other performance indicators to do with your approach, your attitude, and the means you employ. You have to acknowledge that no group is an island, complete unto itself, and that society has a legitimate interest in the details of your activities.

If there are flaws (or errors, or scandals, or crimes) hidden in your files, you’d better start planning for what you’ll do when they’re found out – or, ideally, what you’ll promise when you reveal them, because there’s a lot to be said for getting in first and having some smidgen of control over the situation.

Rio Tinto, for example, has shown it’s learned something from the Juukan Gorge experience by releasing an independent report on the company’s culture that found systematic sexism and bullying across its operations. In the not-for-profit sector, Swimming Australia has confessed in a new report to bullying, body shaming, and sexism in employment, and has publicly resolved to do better.