Dick's Sporting Goods Followed Its Conscience on Guns--and It Paid Off

[Nevilledog]

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Shannon Watts
@shannonrwatts
Given Florida lawmakers’ anti-gay extremism, Disney should read this Harvard Business School analysis of how Dick’s Sporting Goods’ CEO successfully removed guns from its stores by being methodical, building consensus, and communicating effectively.

hbswk.hbs.edu
Dick’s Sporting Goods Followed Its Conscience on Guns—and It Paid Off
After the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Dick's Sporting Goods' CEO declared: "I don't want to be part of the story anymore." Two new case studies by George Riedel go inside the retaile...
11:37 AM · Apr 20, 2022

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/dicks-sporting-goods-followed-its-conscience-on-guns-and-it-paid-off

*snip*

“Increasingly, business leaders are expected to take stands on societal issues—to do societal good. It’s gone beyond ‘do no harm,’” says George A. Riedel, the Henry B. Arthur Fellow and senior lecturer at HBS, who wrote the pair of cases entitled “Dick’s Sporting Goods: Getting Out of the Gun Business.” “Standing on the societal sidelines is increasingly becoming less of an option for companies and business leaders.”

Riedel stresses that no two companies are the same. Other firms looking to take a stand on social issues can’t necessarily take the dramatic steps Stack and his colleagues took to rid their firm of most, though not all, gun sales.

But Riedel, who teaches Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA) at HBS, says business leaders can still learn many lessons from how Stack successfully navigated this difficult decision. These lessons include getting top executives on board with a change, analyzing the financial impact, and developing a communications strategy aimed at explaining the firm’s actions to customers, employees, suppliers, and investors.

“There are always going to be tradeoffs,” says Riedel. “But what the Dick’s Sporting Goods case shows is that you can get it right, that you can have a positive outcome if you handle things well.”

*snip*

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Guns were probably a small part of their sales operation.

Most of the clientele is younger and more non-gun sports oriented. Know your customers!

[Hoyt]

2. Support any business who sees problems with gunz in our society. Also,

think there are plenty of issues where businesses shouldn’t stand on sideline.

[oasis]

3. K and R