This blog entry which I wrote for Canadian Business talks about how some of the core skills of critical thinking can (and indeed should) be applied to a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts.

Three questions to ask yourself about corporate social responsibility

A further element of critical-thinking-for-engagement is to help employees see that active support for your CSR program makes sense given what they already value and believe in, and that it’s OK for them to bring those values—their generosity, their sense of community, their passion for the environment—to work with them. In other words, give your employees a pro-CSR argument that is grounded in their own values and beliefs. Doing so requires thinking critically about the various arguments in favour of social responsibility, understanding their structure, and deciding which ones both work logically and are rooted in starting points your employees can accept.