PwC Pulse Podcast Ep: Leading with Trust: CEO Outlook for 2024: PwC

How can CEOs lead with trust? Building trust is the bedrock to enabling your company to continue to be relevant now and in the decades to come. So how do you earn trust with your customers, stakeholders and society at large?

In this episode, we’ll take a deeper dive into the importance of trust and how it is shaping CEOs' plans for 2024, with a conversation between Former PwC US Senior Partner Tim Ryan and Daryl Brewster, CEO of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose. Their discussion was recorded during a recent Trust in Action webcast presented by PwC's Trust Leadership Institute, which convenes senior executives and thought leaders to navigate the most complex trust-related issues.

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About the podcast participants

Tim Ryan is Former PwC US Senior Partner. A forward-thinking leader committed to driving human-led, tech-powered outcomes to build trust in society and solve important problems, Tim has a proven record advancing strategy, growth, innovation, and upskilling. He reimagined PwC leading a complete digital transformation and launching a bold new strategy – The New Equation – to get ahead of the rapid pace of change bringing the best people, capabilities and technology together to support clients in building trust and delivering sustained outcomes. Equity is foundational to Tim’s trust-based leadership – he is also the founder of CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion.

Daryl Brewster currently serves as CEO of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), an organization focused on empowering senior executives of the world’s leading companies to achieve unprecedented progress on societal challenges while driving business performance.

Daryl has nearly 30 years of executive experience in the US and abroad. He has been an officer for several Fortune 500 companies, served as the turnaround CEO of a publicly-traded company, run five multi-billion dollar business units and currently serves on several privately-held and non-profit boards.

Episode transcript

Final episode transcript below.

20240301-Pulse-020-V4

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:
00:00:00:00 Welcome to PwC Pulse, a podcast to provide insights to help you solve today's business challenges.

JONATHAN BLOCK:
00:00:10:06 Hi, I'm Jonathan Block, managing director at PwC’s Trust Leadership Institute. And I'm thrilled to bring you today a special episode of the PwC Pulse podcast. In our last episode, we heard from PwC’s US senior partner Tim Ryan, who shared his insights from the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

00:00:30:03 In particular, Tim talked about the challenges presented by the megatrends, which are climate change, technological disruption, demographic shifts, the fracturing world, and social instability, and the role that trust plays in all five of them.

00:00:49:04 Today, we'll take a deeper dive into the importance of trust and how it shapes what CEOs are planning for 2024. We'll listen in on a conversation between Tim and Daryl Brewster, CEO of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose.

00:01:03:05 The conversation was recorded at a recent program presented by PwC’s Trust Leadership Institute, which convenes senior executives and thought leaders to navigate the most complex trust-related issues facing business today.

00:01:18:13 Before we start, I want to share a bit of background about Daryl. As the leader of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose. Daryl works to provide a roadmap to purpose for senior executives who are looking to address social challenges while enhancing their business performance.

00:01:31:05 Those companies represent $7.7 trillion in annual revenue. Earning trust is the bedrock of ensuring our companies continue to be relevant now and in the decades to come. So how do we earn trust with customers, stakeholders, and society at large? Let's take a listen.

TIM RYAN:
00:01:55:08 Daryl, you and I have had the privilege to know each other for quite some time. We worked together on CEO, Action for diversity, equity and inclusion. You were one of the first signatures. And thank you, as always, for your leadership. And it's been a pleasure to get to work with you. Before we dive into the real formal discussion. I'm going to do a couple icebreakers because I wanted to get to know you a bit.

00:02:13:22 So let me start with maybe, beach or mountains in the winter; what's your preference?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:02:19:01 Well, first, Tim, it's so great to be here with you and the great work that you've done over the last number of years, as it has been quite a journey. But it's all about beach.

TIM RYAN:
00:02:26:15 Yeah, I'm with you, by the way. So the next icebreaker, we go into the New Year. Some people make predictions, other people make resolutions. Are you a prediction person or are you a resolution person?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:02:37:04 Actually, both. So each year and probably going back 30 plus years, we've gotten a group of friends together. The friends has varied and we'll literally go through a dozen predictions for the upcoming year from the, the Dow Jones. What's going to end? Who's going to win the Oscars, Super Bowl champions, all those kinds of things. So make all those predictions, which is great.

TIM RYAN:
00:02:57:11 Sure can you share with me one of your predictions that you have? You think about what's going to happen in 2024?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:03:03:09 Yeah, it's hard to do one, but I'm still calling a soft landing on the economy and some sort of a political surprise. I don't know what that's going to be, but I have a sense that something's not going to be quite what we think it is.

TIM RYAN:
00:03:12:00 You've got me hanging out of that one, so I'll be coming back to you on that. So Daryl, let’s jump in. You have this incredible privilege at CECP to really see a number of different CEOs and you talk to them all the time.

00:03:25:02 And our most recent CEOs survey, 45% of CEOs that we surveyed globally, they did not believe their business will be economically viable in ten years. You talked to a lot of folks. What are you hearing these days from CEOs?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:03:41:16 Yeah, you know, one of the great things we have to do at CECP is we work with hundreds of the world's leading companies, CEOs and like you do, get to talk with them on a regular day across industries and areas. The answer each year is cautious optimism. That's kind of what we've heard over the last few years. So we have the word cloud.

00:03:57:10 People put in a couple of words, how you feeling? Uncertainty was at the top of the list. And all the other VUCA words of volatility, complexity, ambiguity kind of surfaced as well. So really entered the year with a lot of uncertainty.

00:04:10:09 Underpinning that was a stream of confidence that some companies had. So some were feeling comfortable over work going, but the overall feeling was just so much going on in the world geopolitically. Wars in Africa, Middle East, Europe, economic issues, technology. So I think we're hearing that at a much greater degree than we've seen in the past.

TIM RYAN:
00:04:28:01 So Daryl, just staying with this one a bit. You and I have talked. We also get to hear a lot from CEOs. What has really struck me is there is this tremendous uncertainty. Some are doing a really good job of focusing on what they can control and they focus immensely on making sure their cost structure is fit for purpose, making sure their portfolio makes sense.

00:04:48:18 Making sure that they've got the right growth strategies. Others maybe are having a harder time focusing on what they can control. What advice do you give to CEOs when they're dealing with all this uncertainty? But then there's all these things that are within their control at the same time.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:05:03:17 A few things from a company we heard, a lot of comments about what can I do with my four walls? What can we do under the control area? What we talk a lot about with companies as given all these, it is really critical to clarify and make sure you're staying on top of your corporate purpose. Your why, why do you exist and your key values as well as the audiences that you're serving.

00:05:24:24 With everything else going on. When you have great volatility, then you need even clearer vision. Right? When you have the great uncertainty. You need better understanding. So each of the VUCA words that we often use, there's a corresponding word in terms of what you need.

00:05:38:05 So complexity. We need clarity. Ambiguity. We need action. And we talked an awful lot about the shared resilience the companies did during the global pandemic.

TIM RYAN:
00:05:48:17 Yeah.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:05:48:19 We weren't expecting that. That was a year that the confidence was the highest I think we'd ever seen coming in, right? 2020, we knew it was in the election year, but people were really ready for that, that time frame and obviously a couple of months later was a different world. And that was one of the themes we've come back to the companies. We know how to do this.

00:06:05:13 It's just we're not quite sure what's going to go. But “purpose” is a key area we come back to with companies.

TIM RYAN:
00:06:09:13 Yeah, thank you, Daryl. And one of the piece of advice I'd be giving the CEOs is, the more time if you spend with your team, the better the performance will be, especially in times of uncertainty.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:06:19:05 Spending time with them, listening to the issues that they're really raising. What are they seeing and hearing? They're often going to be closer to the customers and others.

TIM RYAN:
00:06:26:03 So, Daryl, you were the CEO of Krispy Kreme back in 2006. The company had a lot of challenges when you arrived. You needed to make some really hard decisions to make sure that companies survived. As a CEO, what was the biggest hurdle that you had to face in making those changes and what role did trust play?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:06:47:04 Yeah, trust was critical. Maybe, you know, this perspective. We were facing billions of dollars of lawsuits for a company that wasn't quite that big. Department of Justice, investigations. Then being sued by employees, franchisees, etc., as well as having to restate five years of financials.

00:07:03:03 And we were starting to run out of cash. I took it as a turnaround situation, was brought in to do that. I said, what a great assignment. I knew the brand. My first date with my wife ended at a Krispy Kreme and it just felt that was a great opportunity to do it.

00:07:16:08 And what we realized was the trust had really been broken with some of our stakeholders. Investors really had issues, suppliers concerned if we could pay the bills.

00:07:27:07 You know, so that was the trust there. The same time, I found that we still had enormous trust with our consumers. They still love those warm Krispy Kreme donuts at our communities. And if I recall going in to a Krispy Kreme, I was doing my store visits, one of my first ones in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And as I walk in, a woman comes up to me.

00:07:48:21 I can still feel the hug she gave me and said, thank you. Thank you for coming to save the company. It's like, oh, man, we have some pressure on here. But the community, because of what Krispy Kreme had done over the years, this fact is one of the reasons I work at CECP, they're investments in their local communities and really helping people have been so strong that we knew we had a lot of trust there.

00:08:09:21 The question mark, because we knew it was going to take a while to get the investors back on was our employee base. And we had seen tremendous amounts of turnover. Performance was not good and that's where we really had to focus was the listening to our team.

00:08:21:09 Both our headquarters in North Carolina as well as our stores across the country, our franchisees around the world to gain their insights about what's happening. What can we do here as an organization to get going? So it was a lot of listen mode, but we had to listen and move pretty quickly because the cash with all of the legal bills was really mounting up.

00:08:41:08 And out of that I think really emerged what we called the original purpose of the organization, sharing sweet smiles. That's what Krispy Kreme is all about, but underpinned it with our three S strategy, which was survival, stability, and sustained growth. And that became kind of the watchwords.

00:08:59:07 But it was listening, working, and putting in plans across all of those.

TIM RYAN:
00:09:03:18 It’s such an important lesson that you're sharing, which is understanding where the trust is broken and then having a strategy with each different stakeholder because they all come at it from different perspectives.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:09:13:23 Because the needs of the stakeholders are asymmetric. I mean, the investors, they knew what they wanted. The consumers just wanted great products, they want the stores open and all that. Communities appreciate the support and the employee base was tough because some of them didn't realize how difficult the situation was because prior management hadn't been all that transparent on some of the areas.

00:09:33:04 So we really spent a lot of time helping people realize we need to survive. I mean, this was key. So one of the great programs we had was just bringing home for our management team. I said, you know, one of our plans here was a strategy called Save Money Everywhere. We need to really figure out how. And I said, at subpar to that with be “save your salary.”

00:09:50:49 Which is a clear way of saying what we got to get done. We're cutting back legal fees and some other things that we just needed to do. And an assistant who was the receptionist at our factory in Winston-Salem, she went out on her own and renegotiated the cleaning contract. We used different cleaners in each place.

00:10:07:20 She went out and said, hold on, Mr. Brewster, I have an idea. I think I can save my salary. And when she laid it out and by the way, I saved almost two X her salary, nobody was thinking about it except her. And it really helped to bring people together in this on the notion of, you know, how do we really save the enterprise?

00:10:23:24 So it was a really powerful way to kind of get the culture and have those specific examples that people could rally around.

TIM RYAN:
00:10:31:02 So, Daryl, I want to build off of that and go to something that has been on my mind as I talk to one of our CEOs. We know that many companies are transforming. They're adopting new technology, reacting to new competitors, a changing world. And we see business model reinvention happening across our client base. We know that in order to transform a company, trust is essential.

00:10:52:17 We also know that high trust organizations outperform organizations at low trust by multiple of two or more. And we see that. Yet many CEOs would say they understand that. ‘But I have trust with my employees,’ one of the key stakeholders, ‘I have trusted my employees.’

00:11:09:07 Yet when we talk to employees and we look at the data and the statistics, there's often a gap between the CEO's perspective of how well she or he is trusted and the employees. What do you see there and what advice you have for leaders to close that gap?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:11:28:03 You know, CEO level. You know, we trust we're at 80-90%. The C-suites there, people who are working in headquarters pretty high. But the further and further out you get, the least trust you have, and I think it's a real challenge. How do you really build that trust? You know, we are chief executives for Corporate Purpose, so we think that purpose is a really critical element.

00:11:47:22 And in many ways I think trust is to quote Branch Rickey of those who follow baseball, he talked about luck is the residue of design. I think trust is the residue of design and action. So I think the design that you have in place and then the actions you take that it's essentially the residue, right? It's what you do.

00:12:05:06 You earn trust over time. So we've created a piece over time as we've worked with companies sharing their sustainable business plans. It's called a purpose pyramid and it starts at the top with what's your purpose and values of the enterprise? And you're making sure there’s alignment around that and that's that rallying cry, sweet smiles.

00:12:21:03 I mean, that worked at our stores, it worked at our headquarters, it worked in working with investors and thinking about where you are with those stakeholders. You know, at Krispy Kreme. We got a mixed bag. Different companies, maybe the employees are onboard or the investors are, but the customers aren’t happy. You know, because there are certain trade-offs there, asymmetric needs that companies have to go through.

00:12:38:07 So we think a lot about that area as well with companies. So where you are with your significant stakeholders, your critical strategies, you know, what are you driving to create value over time as a big topic, an issue, and what are the actions you're taking?

00:12:53:01 The ends, where are you investing? What are your incentives? What are those integrated efforts that you can have? But those all kind of come together and that your time begins to build trust and then you have the metrics of your KPIs around financial metrics and material risk or ESG factors, but also trust factors.

00:13:09:04 And you can kind of measure that we think over time, but bringing that together with consistent action. And then, of course, listen as you do so well Tim, and communicating, getting out there is crucial to talk with the employees, particularly those on the frontline.

TIM RYAN:
00:13:24:16 Yeah. What has really struck me is I've talked to so many companies is there is a growing realization among CEOs. You can have a great strategy for transformation, but without the hearts and minds of your thousands of employees, it's not going to happen.

00:13:37:06 One of the things I'll close out this topic by saying, some of the best leaders just lead authentically and employees will relate to that.

00:13:46:23 Sometimes maybe the structure of the companies lead to a lot of corporate speak, but in times where you have uncertainty and large transformation, authentic leadership is something there's a premium on these days.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:13:58:08 Absolutely. And the CEOs who are out there to listen and hear what's coming in, understand, integrate that action. And often they're playing that back and beginning to have consistent messaging around here's what's acceptable, here's where our focus is, help to build climates of success. I think that's so critical.

TIM RYAN:
00:14:15:04 So, Daryl, I had the privilege of going to the World Economic Forum. The main road in Davos, Switzerland is called the Promenade, and at the end of the Promenade for our listeners who haven't been there is the Congress Center where all the formal meetings.

00:14:28:03 And then on the Promenade for about a mile, store front after store find at the store front end, companies, countries, trade groups all have the topics they're talking about.

00:14:40:14 You couldn't go two steps without seeing something for generative AI. It was without a doubt the overwhelming topic at the World Economic Forum. We launched our CEO survey at the World Economic Forum and 68% of CEOs said that their business would significantly change around generative AI in the next three years. You're hearing a lot on that topic from CEOs.

00:15:04:06 It's not just Davos. How are you advising companies to capture the value on generative AI? And the topic of trustworthiness comes in again. Where does that play?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:15:14:19 Yeah, it's a huge issue. But similarly, what we're hearing and I've been doing this now for ten years at CECP, and there's always such themes that come out each year as we talk with CEOs today and we hear it at the top of list and it's really merged pretty quickly is AI. That everybody's done their ChatGPT, examples of that.

00:15:30:10 I think companies are at early stage of this. One of the tech guys I think was quoted said, this is bigger than fire and electricity combined. So the promise here is enormous. We heard that in our CEO Investor Forum, just great examples of how companies were applying that. I think on the other side, there's an awful lot of employees like ‘Wait.

00:15:48:06 What is this AI? Where did it come from?’ And I think there's a lot of fear and concern, both at the employee level and broader society. There was some recent trust research saying, wait a second, not all this innovation has been trustworthy. Businesses have a particularly important role to play with their own employee base, with their customers, and broader society about what this is.

00:16:09:21 - 00:16:22:18 How do we keep this appropriately managed here as we go forward? One of the things we're doing is getting the AI experts and having just companies share what they're thinking about because it's happening so quickly to understand what's going on.

TIM RYAN:
00:16:22:20 Yeah, Daryl, one of the things that CEOs said to me that I thought was very insightful, it's come really quickly, but let's not lose sight of the fact that in many companies, infrastructure still needs to be moved over to the cloud, data strategy, data governance needs to be done. So the real benefits is a lot of investment, a lot of learning until some of that plumbing at companies gets done.

00:16:43:04 He said to me, Tim, we need to be adults in the room. It's going to take some time to get that done, which then leaves time to bring employees along as well. And we are seeing a number of companies invest in their employees and teach in the generative AI skills as well so they can go on this journey as well.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:16:58:11 I think the way you've laid that out for PwC on technology is in fact I've got a quote early shared. Here's an example of how guys are doing it. Maybe you can talk a little bit about some of the ways you're approaching it with your group investing in people, but it's a two-way street.

TIM RYAN:
00:17:13:10 Yeah. Daryl, thank you for that. One of these, we listened to our employees six years ago, way before the pandemic, they were worried about their relevance just as technology was continued to proliferate throughout the workplace. And they were worried about their job relevance.

00:17:28:10 And what we did is we launched internally a program that we called Your Tomorrow, and we said to our folks, we won't leave you behind as long as you choose not to be left behind.

00:17:38:01 And we're going to make employee upskilling a can do, health care and 401k. We're going to make it a benefit. And we wanted this journey together. We taught each other how to build in automation. We taught each other how to build human-centered design. And now we're teaching all of our people how to use generative AI.

00:17:53:10 And what we're learning, Daryl is we're raising their IQ, which helps them with their own sense of self-worth and viability in the job place, but also by teaching them, they then identify where the opportunities are.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:18:09:04 I think it's a great model to apply, and we're suggesting that to companies who are, have frontline workers who are very concerned. What does this mean? We know, we need more truck drivers in America. We definitely do, but we have driverless cars go, why should I invest in my career there?

00:18:21:03 So how do companies help people, whether they're knowledge workers, as you all would be, frontline workers, to really develop and embrace this area?

TIM RYAN:
00:18:30:18 You got it. So speaking about future, let's maybe jump to climate. Climate transition continues to be top of mind for everyone. In that same CEO survey that I mentioned, over 65% of the CEOs said they are innovating around new climate friendly products, services, technologies.

00:18:48:05 What do you hear from CEOs on climate, their sustainability efforts? And also, are we seeing real business impact yet?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:18:56:22 Well, first, while there is some debate around the whole climate issue. When people have been polled around the globe as to whether this is a real and pressing issue, 90% plus of citizens say it is. The US's but at the lowest from what I saw some of the research, it's still over 80%. So it is, we can see that on a regular basis.

00:19:15:21 We have to separate out between sometimes weather and climate and other things and areas like that because it can get complex. So number one, I think companies recognize this is a real issue. It matters to our employees and it matters to our business as we go forward.

00:19:28:10 And we think we're all concerned now. Is there really progress? Yes, those 2050 plans are wonderful, but that's like our grandkids will be there. We were delighted to host our 11th CEO Investor Forum. Now this is something, we bring CEOs in and they share their sustainable long-term plans and how they're going to create value on an integrated basis across their enterprise. This year, we focused it on climate leaders.

00:19:50:05 Literally as we were doing it. Some research came out from Richard Edelman, who happens to be on our board also at CECP. That said, the least trusted voice on climate was CEOs, which is kind of scary from a CEO standpoint. Businesses trusted overall, but not on this topic.

00:20:06.:05 But this was an example where we had CEOs representing over trillion dollars market cap share. We have people from industry, from the food industry, from energy industry, across multiple industries, environmental services and things like that.

00:20:18:24 And it really came out of that with a sense that companies were taking this very seriously. They were investing in it, they were acting, and they were beginning to see some real progress on it.

TIM RYAN:
00:20:29:15 One of the things that you mentioned earlier was purpose and one of the topics that you are very passionate about is corporate purpose. You were quoted recently in Leaders Magazine and you were talking about how corporate social responsibility has evolved from a philanthropy mindset to one that's more driven by corporate purpose.

00:20:49:10 We're seeing companies engage more with NGOs, other businesses, public sector as part of putting that purpose into action. Something you have been a leader on. Can you talk about the shifts that we're seeing in corporates around how they think about corporate purpose?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:21:06:18 Sure, it's interesting because in the CECP horizon we're in a non-profit, but we work with the world's leading companies and others. We've seen it ourselves. When I got to CECP 10, 11 years ago, it was founded by business leaders Paul Newman, the actor/salad dressing maker John Whitehead, David Rockefeller, Paul Volcker and luminaries at the time.

00:21:26:00 As the committee encouraging corporate philanthropy that was the focus. Make money, invest it back in their communities, at least some part of it. But really that's a small sliver. It's how does it work across the full enterprise is where we really need to be.

00:21:40:10 So we have really seen our own selves make progress on it. And the companies have really embraced the notion of purpose and higher purpose of not only having sustainable business success. Time frame being a really critical part.

00:21:52:06 You can all do something for the quarter, how do you sustain that? But doing that through a positive impact to the world, as we talked about on the climate side. By solving this, we're going to be able to make more money. So we've really seen a shift in that. We've seen a lot more collaborative activities that companies are pursuing.

00:22:07:16 One example, CEO of a food company found out that particularly in inner city areas, the food lunch program has been run almost as a profit center by many educational institutions and public schools and private schools and so we’re going to help it. And they're happened to be headquartered in one of the poorest cities in America.

00:22:23:05 And they went in and they said, we're from corporate, we're here to help, but they really went to help. And they really took a different strategy. Their

goal was to make the teachers, the administration, local officials, the heroes. It wasn't about the company’s signature program. And they've built a program to have significantly improved the nutritional intake from kids in one of the poorest cities in America.

00:22:45:20 Did it in a way that they created a road map that they can take to other facilities. Such a great example of collaborative efforts.

TIM RYAN:
00:22:54:03 One of the things that many of us talk about as leaders is being trusted. What I hear you saying is part of being trusted is make sure you're making a difference for all of your stakeholders, and that's going to be part of your purpose. It's hard to be trusted if you're not making a difference with your employees in the communities that you do business in.

00:23:11:40 And helping to make the world around you better. So differently. But it's all just about money in the quarter in and quarter out, it's hard to really earn trust.

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:23:20:10 And because those needs are asymmetric, that's the challenge of having an integrated plan for people. So look, we could all please the investors if you're a public company for a while, but eventually that's not going to work for your employee base or you're going to get prices that are way out of whack. We've all seen examples of that.

00:23:34:09 It's a balancing act that really kind of works together and it's that integrated effort, we believe, connected to the purpose of the enterprise that everybody can relate to and the values of the enterprise that can really drive sustainable success.

TIM RYAN:
00:23:48:07 So Daryl, when I travel around and meet with CEOs, and especially when we're one on one, one of the questions that often comes up when the door is closed is, it's really hard around addressing social issues these days. I, as the CEO feel stuck, not sure what to say. I'm worried about upsetting a stakeholder.

00:24:08:09 You said in a recent interview with BBC that business has an opportunity, if not to find common ground, but to find a higher ground that society can move towards. I love that saying, but I have a question for you.

00:24:21:09 How can a leader find that higher ground without losing the trust of people who may strongly disagree with that CEO?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:24:31:09 The quote is a paraphrase from Rand Stegen, who runs the Stegen Institute. So he… let's, instead of trying to find this common ground where people are just, won't even talk with each other, is there a way to find a higher answer to folks. And it's a great (INAUDIBLE 24:45). That's nice. Now, how do you go do it?

00:24:47:07 An example of this has really come up because we were very, (INAUDIBLE) I don't think much of the world and some of the many people who are listening have heard the debate around ESG.

00:24:54:03 All right. Now, I view those as material risk factors, but all of a sudden, ESG had become a four-letter word in some people's minds in terms of that. Some were asking for everything possible under the sun to be disclosed and companies weren't doing enough. And others were saying companies shouldn’t do anything in this area.

00:25:12:10 It's bad, it's evil, but it's not. It's material risk factors is that we're really dealing with. And we took on an effort. We were asked by a number of our companies who were struggling with it, and the challenge, they said, is we would like to get our frontline workers to get excited about ESG.

00:25:27:22 We went on to talk with companies. They said, hey, before we go there, we need our C-suite to get excited about ESG. And by the way, ESG is maybe we shouldn't even use those words. So we took that on an area as a kind of a communications effort, talking with companies.

00:25:40:06 And we literally took the framework that maybe we ought to drop ESG. It's just become so weaponized. Let's talk about responsible business, driven by purpose to drive sustainable value by responsible business, and then think maybe about each of those letters and how we might put it in words that people, wherever you are on the political spectrum, would say, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea.

00:26:00:06 So you take E, there's great people, who are doing great work and I've read the science and all that. Let's not disagree with that. But if you talk about

two degrees or 1.5 degrees Celsius in America, people have no idea what you're talking about because we don't do Celsius here. Right?

00:26:14:06 We are Fahrenheit people. So how do we put that in words that really work for people. So clear air, clean water, conserving natural resources, reducing waste like we get unanimity.

00:26:27:14 Yeah, those are all good ideas. Yeah. So that really helps you on the environment. Each company, each group may solve that in different ways, but now at least we have a common language. We can work at, S is even harder, right? Because it's social and that opens up all sorts of areas.

00:26:41:05 We encourage companies to think of the S as around stakeholders because those are at least people who you're already engaged with and working with you to find what those, those really are. And stakeholders are still probably a little outside human terms. This is something like let's talk about people, right?

00:26:55:09 Treating people better, treating your employees better, dealing with your customers, you know, privacy issues, whatever those issues might be relevant to your business. Treating with suppliers, paying your suppliers on time, your investors.

00:27:06:05 They are also stakeholders. Your communities are really critical stakeholders. But thinking about those and how do you make each of their lives a little bit better? Here's areas the companies can really make a difference and I think can actually measure what those are.

00:27:18:09 So now all of a sudden we've evolved that conversation to real specific things companies (INAUDIBLE) governance around transparency, lack of conflict of interest, accountability become very good areas.

00:27:29:00 And then the other element we said is that but also recognize once you get that language right, when you talk to your CFO versus your head of HR. Use those words, but also with CFO, you better have some numbers associated with it. And if you really want to communicate it, put it in a language that people understand.

TIM RYAN:
00:27:44:01 Really helpful and frankly, a part of the strategy or the agenda where many CEOs are struggling with. So I appreciate you sharing that. I want to come to the last question, and it's got a couple of parts. We have a lot of CEOs and leaders who are with us today. As they go into ‘24. If you had to pick, what do you see as the biggest threat?

00:28:06:16 But then I want to close on what do you think the biggest opportunity is for the people listening?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:28:11:16 Great question. Well we're going to have to get the debt and deficit under control. That's unfortunate. It’s not even being talked about, but we'll probably be all right for a while until we're not, right. I think we are in a time here, this VUCA world, and we have a an election that's coming up in the US, or 60, I think are happening around the globe.

00:28:30:15 And we may not find common ground, but can we find higher ground on that? And how do companies kind of manage what could be a very divisive situation? I think companies are getting ahead of that, setting up ground rules. They are trusted by employees to just be a safe ground, whether it's having conversations or not, but to set the ground rules for success.

TIM RYAN:
00:28:49:08 So what do you see as the biggest opportunity for CEOs and businesses going into 2024?

DARYL BREWSTER:
00:28:56:04 As we talked to CEOs, the continued role of innovation for business. That business can really help us innovate and solve issues. Sometimes the short- term pressures take us away from those, but how this innovation can help solve problems, but also bring people along on that process.

00:29:11:04 But I think that, you know, the role that business can play in innovating, solving, and maybe thinking about that higher purpose can really help as we go through these challenging times.

TIM RYAN:
00:29:21:00 Daryl, I think your point around purpose,from my perspective, the biggest opportunity out there is as companies harness this incredible power within their employees to reinvent their businesses, to meet the needs of stakeholders to solve some of these seemingly intractable problems.

00:29:33:04 Like climate, how we embrace AI. I think the leaders that our audience who truly embrace the power of their employees to drive real innovation and solve some of the things.

00:29:47:01 I think the rewards are immense. Way beyond dollars by the way. Daryl, I can't thank you enough for being here today. Your purview of what you say, your personal experiences in terms of your leadership. The advice you've shared here today has been incredible.

JONATHAN BOLCK:
00:30:02:06 Thank you and Tim and Daryl, and thank you for joining us today. I hope you found the discussion between Tim and Daryl on the value of leadership rooted in trust to be as thought provoking as I did.

00:30:13:02 If you're interested in viewing their full conversation, please visit PwCTrustinAction.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's conversation, so please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

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