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Michael Hopkins

A few years ago I was walking by the poolside at the Muthaiga Country Club to my table when I spotted my dear friend Bob Munro, now sadly passed away. He was there with his family and with his friend Michael Hopkins, to whom he introduced me. Since then Michael and I became close friends as well, but equally sadly he too passed away just recently, a few weeks before his eightieth birthday.

For the last few years Michael had been living part of his time in Malindi, part in Nairobi and part in France near the Swiss border, in each location continuing to pursue his passion for Corporate Social Responsibility, where he had been a pioneer in developing sustainable frameworks. He’d written numerous books on the subject, including periodic updates, and he was also a visiting professor at many universities, including Management University Africa here in Nairobi. He’d also written a series of blogs condemning the awfulness of Brexit, which he later collected into a book called Brrrexit!.

Professor Hopkins was greatly in demand for interacting with students on the highly topical subject of sustainability, as well as with corporates, and this around Europe, in India and Mauritius, and elsewhere. He was also in demand with me, as he became my guide on CSR and sustainability, plus the closely related ESG issues – on Environment, Social and Governance.

I particularly admired him for his “systems thinking”, urging those with whom he interacted to integrate their ESG strategies with their overall ones. And another point he liked to make was not to confine CSR activity to the for-profit private sector but also to not-for-profits and to the public sector. Great thoughts! Plus to have sufficient but not excessive regulations for it all.

I quoted him in a couple of my articles on such subjects in this column, and we participated in a joint book launch at the Westgate bookshop, him with his CSR volume, taking it “From the Margins to the Mainstream” in an uncomplicated way, and me with a collection of my articles on ESG.

Michael and I linked up in several other related ways too. He introduced me to Prof. Mike Saks, a UK colleague of his who also specialised in such fields, and the three of us co-founded the UK-centred International Responsible Leadership organisation, which promotes such kind of leadership around the world.

Now Prof. Hopkins may have been a much-respected academic in his field, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a jolly fellow, whose laughter so often filled the room. Michael was a joker, not least about himself, and he and I would always have such a happy time together, whether just on the phone or in person.

His jolliness, his very firm values and his areas of interest also led me to introduce him to my Rotary Club of Nairobi, where he would nudge us into building sustainability into our community projects. Not surprisingly, his commonest phrases were to “treat others the way you want them to treat you,” and to “treat all key stakeholders responsibly”, very aligned with Rotary thinking.

Michael became a very popular member, often staying behind after our weekly lunch meetings to chat further with a few members. And when he passed away a great sense of sadness swept over the club. Just recently Rosemary Wahome, herself in the sustainability business, asked me if I’ve thought about how to honour Michael’s contributions to sustainability, and it immediately occurred to me to propose a sustainability award in his memory to our Rotary Club. Discussions on this are now under way.

On 16th November – Michael’s 80th birthday – a memorial service was held in Malindi to celebrate Michael’s life, with his son William and daughter Eve present. And following this his cremated remains were carried out on a boat and sprinkled into the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately I couldn’t be there to eulogise my buddy Michael, but happily I have this opportunity to write about him.

We will continue learning from Prof Hopkins about CSR and sustainability by reading his writing and remembering what he taught us, and it will keep reminding us of his permanently on-display sense of humour and his jolly laughter.

Confronting inequality through volunteering

I’ve been reading an interesting 2004 book, From Me to We, by Craig and Marc Kielburger, two brothers who were brought up in a middle-class American home, headed for a normal progression through higher education and into well-paying jobs. But while still in their teens they both were encouraged to fly to the poorest, most miserable Asian environments to see for themselves the dramatic contrast between their lives and the lives of those who struggle in the meanest of slums, including through offering their young children as sources of brutal labour.

It was an eye-opener for them, as the norm in backgrounds such as theirs is to be unaware of the extent of the contrast between their comfortable lives and the awful existence of the large number of poor people, many homeless and with insufficient money for clothes or even food. These are the excessive inequalities we experience these days, including and not least here in Kenya.

The Asian visits transformed the lives of the two brothers, leading them to dedicate themselves to helping the needy around the world. Even before reaching their twenties their ‘Free the Children’ NGO grew to global prominence, as they encouraged people to seek other than just money and power, and to volunteer to help others… together, as ‘We’.

Reading the book I immediately thought of my long association with Rotary, nearly fifty years now. For Rotary, like other service organisations, is a great example of moving from “Me” to “We”, bringing volunteer members of individual clubs together with each other so as to make a disproportionately greater impact on our surrounding communities. Then also having clubs from around the country, the region and globally collaborate, and partnering with other complementary partners too.

My next thought was how other volunteers have been brought together through the development of Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, this within the organisations where they work. CSR activity began to be formalised in the 1950s, and it has gathered great momentum more recently, with the full expectation that businesses should please stakeholders beyond only shareholders, including for the wellbeing of the greater society.

Now CSR projects are being challenged to align themselves with the UN’s 17 Strategic Development Goals (SDGs), which highlight the connection between the environmental, social and governance elements of sustainability. What a great way to educate so many people at so many levels in the private sector (it’s time for this to spread to public sector and to NGOs) so they are not only aware of the bigger picture of universal wellbeing, but so they actively participate in ways of making a difference.

Here they now are, volunteering within their day-jobs, helping to improve the lives of the under-privileged, whether by meeting urgent short-term needs such as providing food and shelter; or by building schools, clinics and other needed services; or by adopting an institution or a whole village. Another area that I have seen is vitally important for volunteering is by raising the level of those with great potential that is not being otherwise nurtured of whom are so many, so they have a chance of fulfilling their potential and indeed then in turn helping others.

It is by being personally exposed to the circumstances under which the most deprived around us live, and then by becoming active in improving their lot, that societies around the world will become more caring. Individuals contributing to such programmes will make new decisions about their values and how they want to live, and redefine their goals and the legacy they wish to leave behind them. Above all, the Kielburgers found, this broadening of the scope of one’s life through volunteering leads one to redefine the meaning of one’s life and what it is that makes one successful and happy.

Here we’re talking about the choice between being totally devoted to one’s career success, accumulating fancy titles and fancy cars on the one hand, and on the other hand balancing this with investing part of one’s time helping others.

In Kenya the whole idea of Harambee fund-raisers are meant to achieve such sharing within communities. Unfortunately though, too often they just became ways for politicians and other people of influence to enhance their personal popularity. Oh to purify that Harambee spirit! Yet we also have many genuine helpers of the needy here, starting at a young age with community projects engaged in by schools.

So if you are a volunteer in some capacity with a “We” group, feel good about it and attract others to join you. And as parents and generally as elders, promote the concept. We need as much as possible of this caring mindset to dilute the huge inequalities in our society.

The Native Son

Almost exactly ten years ago I wrote a column here about the launch of Joe Wanjui’s book, The Native Son: Experiences of a Kenyan Entrepreneur. In it I described the enthusiasm around the event where, as I put it then, “speakers during the evening were so effusive about the author who was being fêted that when it was his turn to speak Joe wondered whether all the talk had been about someone else who just had the same name. Indeed had the man of the moment not been his usual alive, thoughtful and sparkling self, we could have been forgiven for imagining we were listening to the eulogies at his… well, you know what I mean.”

Sadly, a decade later it is indeed time to eulogise this wonderful gentleman, and I will do so by taking from my earlier article. Going back to the book launch, I described how it took place at the University of Nairobi, where Joe had recently completed his time as its Chancellor. Among those who talked about the man and his book we heard something of his rich family life from his friend Fr. Dominic Wamugunda and from his eldest daughter and two of his grandchildren. Others like Roger Steadman spoke of him as a successful entrepreneur and businessman.

Chief Guest George Magoha, then the University of Nairobi’s Vice Chancellor, talked about the leader who for almost a decade was his Chancellor. “He found us as professors, thinking in truncated mode,” confessed the institution’s CEO, adding proudly “but now we are university managers.” In the same vein the Vice Chancellor noted that under Joe’s influence the CEO position he filled was sourced competitively, a pioneering and controversial approach for such institutions at the time.

Joe was absolutely for meritocratic appointments, independent of ethnic background, we heard. He brought entrepreneurs into the Council, and he encouraged other businesslike practices. In concluding, Prof. Magoha described Joe as a true friend, “telling you what you don’t want to hear… and then taking you to lunch afterwards”.

As for me, I wrote, I thoroughly enjoyed all my interactions with Joe. I’ve known him since a year after I arrived in Kenya in 1977, when I joined the Rotary Club of Nairobi. Ten years before that Joe was proposed as the first African member of the club, and in 1974 he became its first African president. In his book he revealed that he continued to support our Rotary Club and its noble ideal, as he actively supported so many other worthy causes. Which is why just recently he was made an Honorary Member of our club.

In The Native Son, Joe wrote about becoming a member of the Kenya Institute of Management’s first Governing Council in 1969. By the time I was elected to chair its council in 2000 he was KIM’s National Chairman, or patron, in which capacity he was always available to me as a source of sound advice, I remembered. It was during that time that he and I organised several Chief Executives’ Forums, a concept Joe described in his book as akin to a “mini Davos”. What a great experience it was.

In my earlier article I also mentioned Joe’s valuable contributions to KEPSA, where in its infancy he became the private sector umbrella body’s most active elder and a strong supporter. I was one of KEPSA’s founding directors, and at one of our retreats I had arranged for a presentation to be made on the emerging Brand Kenya project. Joe was present at the event and promptly offered to organise a presentation to President Kibaki, that led to the initiative being propelled to its national position.

For well over three decades I have sat with Joe at many meetings and shared many platforms with him, I wrote, enjoying the benefit of both his wisdom and his wit. To be with him you know you will be with someone who is pragmatic, straightforward and solution-oriented; and, just as important for me, someone with whom you always also expect to share a good laugh.

He was further building his foundation to promote the education of women scientists, I mentioned, and he continued as a director of major institutions in this country. Here’s how I concluded: “I salute the man who grew up feeling disrespected by the colonials as a mere ‘native’ but who emerged a proud native son of Kenya.”

Today I conclude by stating how privileged I feel that I had the opportunity to interact with Joe Wanjui in so many contexts and over so many years. He leaves a great void.

My son Dan and me, 30 years on

Dan and me in front of his Land Rover in Malawi, 1989

Tomorrow it will be 30 years since my son Dan was killed in Somalia at the age of 22. Dan was a Reuters photojournalist there and he, along with Hos Maina, Anthony Macharia and Hansi Kraus, was attacked with sticks and stones by an angry mob infuriated by the bombing from an American helicopter of a house in Mogadishu where a number of Somali leaders were meeting.

Yes, we knew Dan was operating in dangerous territory, but just as he was confident of his ability to thrive there, we too were hopeful that he would come to no harm.

He was having the time of his life, not only seeing his photos featured prominently in leading global newspapers and magazines — including a double-page spread in Newsweek — but also enjoying selling his T-shirts and postcards, and later a whole book of his photos to diplomats, American soldiers and others.

Dan also ventured into parts of Mogadishu where no one else dared go, including having fun with children, earning the nickname “The Mayor of Mogadishu”.

Dan was one of the media people on the beach who witnessed the cautious landing of the American troops, which became a source of ridicule.

Then, suddenly, this wonderful young man was gone. Who knows how his life would have unfolded had he remained with us?

What would he be up to now in his early 50s? I sometimes idly speculate about that, but mainly I keep focused on how he had been living and hardly on the tragic circumstances of his death.

These days it is not uncommon for funerals to be the “celebration of life” of the person who passed away, and this is how we remembered Dan at his service – which we held at Corner Baridi behind the Ngong Hills, on the land of the Maasai family whom Dan had been helping.

From then I have continued celebrating my son’s life, and the great influence he has had on me — and others — through his vibrant and positive inspiration.

After Dan died, I sought a way to immortalise the essence of Dan by developing the character of young people — something both he and I were active in our own ways.

What emerged was The Dan Eldon Place Of Tomorrow, The DEPOT, which we launched in 1994 as a centre for outdoor experiential learning for youth and evolved into broader management consulting.

Our ethos at The DEPOT reflects how Dan expected his life to unfold and also how I live mine. It is to “have a good time doing good things”, and looking back on our years together I know we reinforced each other in this regard.

There are two thoughts I, therefore, wish to leave you with. The first is that when a close relative passes away, yes it is a time to grieve, to feel sad about the loss of a wonderful person whom you loved dearly.

After my son was killed in Mogadishu, my mind naturally brooded on what happened then — and not least on the American helicopter that I learned hovered above the scene where he was being beaten to death and only landed to pick up his body.

But it turned out that I found it possible to instruct myself to switch away from all that and to focus on his wonderful life rather than on his awful death: on his delightful sense of humour, his artistic talent, his great sense of curiosity and adventure, his spirit of helping others.

From time to time when I talk with someone who has recently lost a close relative, I encourage them to write about the person, perhaps including through poetry, to celebrate their life and the relationship they enjoyed with them.

But also so the memories of the person and what they shared with them can be preserved. And finally, to act as therapy.

My second thought is to encourage all to assume that having a good time is absolutely compatible with doing good things.

Too many believe that doing good things in one’s work, important things, cannot be with a light touch. Not true, as Dan and I have found.

On the contrary, if you are enjoying what you are doing, and helping others to do so, much better outcomes will prevail.

All of us lose loved ones, and at whatever age they pass away we grieve. But pause to also celebrate their lives, and to reflect on how they have uplifted you.

Evolution of philanthropy and CSR

In today’s world more and more firms from SMEs upward – never mind publicly quoted ones – have taken corporate social responsibility as a natural component in how they operate.

For some, it came more naturally than for others. For those where owners’ and directors’ values resonated with being responsible citizens, it was an easy evolution, one they felt good about.

Applying my colleague and friend Prof Michael Hopkins’ CSR definition of “treating all key stakeholders responsibly” (he and I, together with prof Mike Sacks, are co-founders of the Institute for Responsible Leadership) was not a bridge too far. Indeed, their values were such that “saying no when they should” and “treating others as they would wish to be treated themselves” is how they were probably brought up from an early age.

For others with weak consciences though, these are alien concepts that would prevent them from closing the kind of shady deals that keep them in business.

They’re quite OK with incenting beneficiaries at the purchasing end, exploiting their workers, creating a negative impact on the environment, evading tax payments and so forth.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where impunity is rampant, so corporate social irresponsibility is still widespread.

Those organisations that typically invite me to join their boards or to act as a consultant to them are overwhelmingly the ones in the first category.

It’s those who are ahead of the game, in CSR as in talent management, innovation and elsewhere, who know they can still do yet better in their quest for long-term sustainability.

It is of course such organisations with which I want to be associated, and if I am asked by the other kind to engage with them I politely decline, saying I am already too busy.

What have I and others found? (And here I am not talking about public companies.) Most if not all have been making contributions to good causes from time immemorial.

It’s what we used to call charity, typically “helping the needy in society”, and very likely with one-off donations in response to urgent requirements, whether in cash or kind and including volunteering. At the higher end, philanthropy goes deeper to address the root cause of social issues and requires a more strategic, long-term approach, with advocacy sometimes an additional component.

The original meaning of charity, “Christian love of one’s fellow,” is rooted in Late Old English, while philanthropy, or “the love of humanity,” originated in Greek. When “charity” entered the English lexicon by way of Old French’s “charité”, the meaning evolved into what we know today.

Meanwhile, the practice of modern philanthropy is often credited to titans of industry like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, all of whom launched their Foundations to make the world a better place.

Henry Ford explicitly wanted to reduce poverty in his country, as among the consequences would be that more people could buy his company’s cars. And here in Kenya our philanthropy role model is Manu Chandaria and his family, with their Chandaria Foundation.

Dr Chandaria was recently in America, where he was the first African to receive the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.

In his acceptance speech he revealed that having returned from his university studies in the US, early in the life of the still small family business owned and run by his father, he suggested they set up their Chandaria Foundation to help Kenyan communities – having been inspired by the example of Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie.

His father at first thought this to be premature, but after a few years, he acquiesced as his son Manu persuaded him that it was indeed a worthy initiative to be “givers” who are useful to society by serving the community and not just by writing a cheque.

Since then the Chandaria Foundation has blossomed into a major supporter of healthcare infrastructure, secondary and higher education, poverty relief, and the environment.

So that’s something about philanthropy. Now to conclude this article, back to CSR, and this by way of a link to my next one, where I will be delving into the latest trends in CSR and how it relates to ESG (the Environmental, Social and Governance dimensions) and the SDGs (the Sustainable Development Goals).

Life is becoming far more ambitious and complicated in these areas, and organisations from the bottom up – not merely for-profit ones – must keep up to date with what is expected of them. Back in a fortnight.