So What Exactly Is ‘Corporate Diplomacy’?

Corporate Diplomacy: Negotiation skills for executives operating in today’s volatile global business environment

The course offered interesting-looking case-studies and role-plays, with a focus on negotiation/mediation skills. But to get there you had to survive … Morning One:

Skilled top managers employ the tools of diplomacy to advance their objectives through interactions with the leaders of other corporations, governments, analysts, the media and interest groups.

This lecture will describe some of the tools and techniques necessary to conduct effective corporate diplomacy on a bilateral and multilateral basis. It will cover decision making theories such as cybernetic, rational actor, disjointed incrementalism, organisational processes and group think

Hmm. No wonder the FCO slid downhill under New Labour: it was just not cybernetic enough in tackling the problems of the Middle East and Balkans.

There are other ideas as to what corporate diplomacy is all about. According to another view corporate diplomacy pertains to situations where corporations’ brands are identified with one particular country (Coca Cola = America) and what that means in practice:

Or take (if you can bear to) the view that it is about boosting a corporation’s legitimacy:

… the authors suggest that ‘corporate diplomacy’ is also a process by which corporations intend to be recognized as representatives of something that might be a concept or a country or its related values. In this case, it is essential to create a sincere adaptation of the corporate values to the societal values if a corporation wishes to have a symbiotic relationship with key stakeholders.

‘Corporate diplomacy’ thus becomes a complex process of commitment towards society, and in particular with its public institutions, whose main added value to the corporation is a greater degree of legitimacy or “license-to-operate,” which in turn improves its power within a given social system.

Uuurgh. Note especially the depressing collectivistic distinction drawn between the corporation concerned and ‘society’.

Back in the real world, this is more like it: talking about actual technique:

Great diplomats proceed from the assumption that supportive alliances must be built in order to get anything serious done. They understand that opposition to change is likely, so they anticipate and develop strategies for surmounting it.

They don’t expect to win over everyone; instead they focus on creating a critical mass of support. Most important, they devote as much energy to figuring out how to do things as they do to understanding what should be done.

The foundation of effective corporate diplomacy is a deep understanding of agendas and alignments. Leaders put a lot of effort into cultivating relationships in their organizations, believing that these connections will pay off when it comes time to get things done – which is true.

It’s wise for leaders to build new relationships in anticipation of future needs. After all, you’d never want to be meeting your neighbors for the first time in the middle of the night while your house is burning down…

If relationships don’t necessarily imply alliances, the reverse also is true: effective corporate diplomats often build alliances with people with whom they have no significant ongoing relationships.

Here’s another variation on that theme. Cari Guittard explains how ‘diplomatic’ skills can be used to build relationships:

Respect – Your mindset should be I am a guest in their country, and at all times should be respectful of their customs, traditions, and modes of behavior

Maybe it’s all about damage limitation and managing legal problems judiciously:

… companies with complex structures, operations and supply chains can expect to face disputes over their impacts on communities and other stakeholders, however good their policies, monitoring and auditing systems.
The only question, then, is how they respond. A failure to resolve disputes effectively carries numerous risks: lost productivity, high staff turnover, strikes, attacks on infrastructure, lost reputation and brand value, lawsuits and lost business opportunities.

Corporate diplomacy can also be work in progress.

Further rummaging around on Google will give lots more examples.

What is notable in looking at these different examples (and more) is how few of them seem to involve real-life diplomats or former diplomats making useful contributions. Instead you see all sorts of people proclaiming importantly what diplomacy is or does, without showing much first-hand knowledge on how in fact diplomats do it.

This is perhaps not surprising. Real diplomats are hard at work doing real diplomacy. And there aren’t too many ex-diplomats wandering around, at least as compared to sociologists, corporate affairs pundits and other phenomena within the dense corporate diplomacy analysis undergrowth.

Which brings us back to ADRg Ambassadors. We are unique in global corporate diplomacy processes in having a team of former diplomats with many decades of hard-won experience between us plus, now, the additional insights afforded by professional mediation training.

Plus all of us in one way or the other have done actual diplomatic commercial work with the FCO/DTI, advising significant companies on how best to tackle local and/or global markets, problems and personalities.

In short, any senior executive with a problem in the organisation may sense that a bit more ‘corporate diplomacy’ is part of the answer. But blather, jargon and theory are no use. What busy serious people need is discreet advice on what exactly s/he should do next to make the problem manageable and then tackle it in a systematic but subtle ‘diplomatic’ way with an eye on government, media, NGO and numerous other angles simultaneously.

They also may need experienced outside advice not only on making close relationships but on when and how to break them, and at what cost. Diplomacy is not only about the nice, reassuring ‘win-win’ options – sometimes they are just too expensive, or create even worse problems elsewhere.

Corporate Diplomacy boils down to our old but elusive friend, Judgement:

Maybe the same thing can be said about a judgement-free Chief Executive.

If you are a Chief Executive needing ideas on how top-level standards of diplomatic Judgement might best be applied within or by your own corporate organisation to get a turbo-boost of Corporate Diplomacy, it makes sense to approach people steeped in those standards. People who actually know from working for years at high levels of global diplomacy what they are talking about.

You have the right number to call.