The world is changing for the better and leaders must keep pace

OPINION: It’s fair to say that Facebook doesn’t always have the best reputation among large corporations. The global giant, which has made a spectacular business selling your data to third parties, has made spectacular blunders on the public forum.

Witness the blissful performance of CEO Mark Zuckerberg before the Congress committee a few years ago. Rather than declaring the US government’s appetite to advance anti-trust measures against the social network, the “Zuck” appeared to have the opposite effect, with appearances that seemed to suggest that no Facebook customer is safe, not even his.

Likewise, Facebook’s backlash last year after being fined 225 million euros (NZ $ 374 million) from the Irish Data Protection Commission only underscored that virtually any fine is chicken feed imposed on a US $ 140 billion (NZ $ 198 billion) company.

But since the rise of Covid-19 and a growing awareness of a global social network in times of a global pandemic, it seems to have changed its tone. Indeed, he seems to have developed an ear to hear the social context and respond in a sensitive and also pragmatic way.

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An example of this new sensitivity came this week when COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that Facebook was buying $ 100 million in unpaid bills from 30,000 small businesses owned by women and minorities.

In other words, Facebook is for small merchants who are owed money for work done and who pay on behalf of debtors.

Of course, there is a business edge here, as Facebook is increasingly courting small and medium businesses with its business services. But by choosing to buy the debt (and recognizing how difficult late bill payments are for small businesses), what he’s offering is a helping hand rather than a handout, which is smart.

Moreover, it does so in the wake of the attitudes of the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements. Taken together, this is a great example of social investment, achieved through an attentive ear to context and priorities.

Consider the opposite: companies and executives who have profound hearing loss to the pulse of people and social cues. Yes, I’m talking about National Party Leader Judith Collins.

Unless you cut the tires off the hybrid car of Chief Health Officer Dr Ashley Bloomfield, you couldn’t find a worse thing to do than attack the nation’s favorite pink-haired microbiological investigator Dr Siouxie. Wiles.

It was always going to end badly, but Collins’ choice of epithets, suggesting Wiles was a “big, big hypocrite,” made matters worse.

The size is not a reason to criticize anyone, and having met Wiles, I can confirm that she is not large.

Fat. Are you kidding? Shaming anyone is unacceptable, but doing it knowing that you are spreading this message nationwide means that you are giving up all hope of being prime minister.

Finally, in a kindness-driven Aoteaora, cycling 5 kilometers to sit and support a friend you share a bubble with doesn’t sound like hypocrisy.

You could pretty much hear the other 32 national deputies banging their foreheads with an audible “hit” last week.

Like the well-to-do Auckland couple who are accused of violating the lockdown for a vacation in Wānaka, there has been a very bad call here. Hiring a Queen’s Counsel and asking for the names to be removed (at a time when a million people are on lockdown) after a fair cop was a monumental error in judgment.

While the National Party should be grateful to Collins for suffering some electoral defeat after the Todd Muller debacle last year, that’s no reason to cling to a leader whose superpower appears to be alienating. the Kiwis. Not to mention alienating its own staff, with three departures lately.

The point is, Collins is facing someone who is the opposite of the deaf. Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has a remarkable ability to choose the mood, judge the context and present it well.

Better than that, Ardern manages to inspire people to elevate their behavior to new levels. She’s even better than former Prime Minister Sir John Key, who wasn’t a slug.

So whoever replaces Collins, be it Mark Mitchell, Christopher Luxon, or Shane Reti, they need that ability to sniff context, read social cues, and get it right.

It’s important to note that they need to do things intuitively, just like Ardern does now and Key before her, rather than relying on spin specialists and social engineers.

Ironically, Covid-19 has been identified as the catalyst for Zuckerberg to “make amends” with society. It was the use of Facebook’s considerable resources to combat the effects of the virus that led to initiatives such as the purchase of small business debt last week.

And so it could be that using the power of the opposition benches for good is the catalyst for the success of the next national leader.

I am not a defender of the National Party, but I am a defender of an effective opposition. And at the moment, we don’t have one.

– Mike “MOD” O’Donnell is a professional director, writer and advisor.