Susan McPherson, Founder and CEO, McPherson Strategies
Can you tell our readers a little about McPherson Strategies? Why did you start the business, and what did you previously do?
McPherson Strategies is a boutique agency based in the U.S, focused on the intersection of communications and social impact. We work with both the private and third sector, with clients including corporations, social enterprises, start-ups, non-profits, and charities. The company was founded almost a decade ago; in fact, it was meant to be a placeholder until I found my next job! But fast forward to now, and I have 15 employees and we work with some amazing, large organisations, from Fortune 500 Companies, to NGOs and Foundations.
We help them to strategically communicate the impact they are having on people, the economy and the planet.
Prior to McPherson Strategies, I worked in Corporate America in a variety of roles, but in the last 10 years preceding the founding of McPherson Strategies, my work was very much focused on corporate social responsibility, and helping the private sector to focus on impact as part of the business, and not just ‘lipstick’ or a ‘nice to have’.
What are your thoughts on the social impact and ESG landscape within America and how it’s changed over the last few years?
It’s changed significantly over the last few years, although unfortunately the way it’s being covered right now by some outlets is heavily emphasising a kind of ‘anti-ESG’ backlash.
But if you speak to CEOs – of companies ranging from SMEs up to the big multi-nationals, they are awake, in tune, and focusing on sustainability. They’re focusing on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion. They’re focusing on the fact that we have finite resources on this planet, and all of the problems associated with these things. And if they want to be around in the next 20 years, they recognise 1000% that they need to make ESG a priority.
I definitely feel like we are making positive steps; we probably aren’t as far along as the UK, but we are getting there. What used to be a ‘nice to have’ is now a non-negotiable must have.
Congratulations to McPherson Strategies on achieving B-Corp status. Why did you feel it was important for McPherson's strategies to achieve it and how did you find the certification process?
We achieved B-Corp status during the pandemic, which probably made things a little more challenging to navigate. But we found the process a really useful and healthy exercise; we found out where we needed to focus our attention to improve, as well as where our key strengths already were, and how to enhance them further to achieve the certification. For example, we’ve been a virtual business since the company was founded in 2013; I thought this would give us a significant head start, in terms of our emissions footprint. But it is incredibly challenging to measure your impact when all of your team work fully remotely and don’t necessarily know what their carbon footprints look like. This would probably be easier to measure if we had an office!
I’m really glad that we went through the process, not only for our business but for our clients too; we can advise our clients through their B-Corp journeys now, with visibility and insight that we would never have had otherwise.
You work with some really well-known global brands. How do you find it to work with these companies on ESG and Social Impact?
It really ranges, depending on the stage that they are on their path, and their culture. But because we are hyper-focused on these issues, we generally stay in our lane. A lot of communications firms would be brought in, and then end up doing more traditional PR to help an organisation, perhaps to fundraise or sell its mission. But we stay focused and it keeps things clear.
Organisations come to McPherson Strategies knowing this about us, we generally find that our clients are very committed. They know that if they put resource into the communications of impact, they will receive reciprocal benefits over time: better hiring, better retention, enhanced reputations and so on. And it’s been really refreshing to watch that crystalise at various companies who have employed the strategy that we champion.
We’d love to talk to you about your book: ‘The Lost Art of Connecting’, and the ‘Gather, Ask, Do’ methodology which runs through it. Can you please explain in a little detail what each of these strands are?
To give a bit of a background picture of how the book came to be, it is a culmination of the 30 – 40 years I have spent building meaningful connections over the course of my life in corporate America, and establishing my own business. I would have never been able to build a company at age 40, and have it not just survive, but thrive, if I hadn’t made connecting and supporting others such a meaningful part of my life and my career.
The book is divided into a methodology: ‘Gather, Ask, Do’.
Gather
You are to connect with the most important person in your life: yourself. Do a deep assessment of your ‘superpowers’. I believe that when we go out into the world to network and to connect, we need to lead with the questions ‘how do we support others?’ and ‘how do we help others?’. And if we don’t know what our superpowers are, we can’t be helpful or make meaningful impact. You must also think about who it is that you want to connect with, and how you’re going to break out of the hermetically sealed bubble that so many of us live in, myself included at times, where we tend to connect with people who look like us and sound like us.
Ask
This is phase two, where you lead with asking others questions to find out what’s important to them. And if you listen carefully, and take what you heard, you can then move into the ‘Do’ phase.
Do
Take what you heard – what you listened to – and you apply your superpowers. If you do this, you will become reliable, accountable, and responsible. You do the things you say you’re going to do.
And then rinse and repeat. That’s it! But the most important underpinning of the whole process is to lead with how you can be helpful to others, and to listen to others and proactively follow up.
There’s such a great takeaway from that, which can be applied both in a personal and professional capacity, particularly when thinking about creating a positive social impact as an organisation. In your book, you also talk about using technology as a tool, and not as a means to an end. Can you please expand on that for our readers?
The face of technology has transformed enormously since I started my career. Nowadays, every part of our lives are tech-enabled, and of course social media is a huge part of everyone’s lives.
When I started my career, technology was maybe one person in a ginormous corporation who came and figured out when your computer died, how to get it back started.
Now, every part of our lives are tech enabled. And of course, social media is a huge part of everyone's lives. We carry technology in our back pockets, and I think that because of this, we’ve become far less intentional in our communications; we’ve pinged off messages without thinking about the ramifications and we’ll often say things on social media without understanding what impact they can have, and how they could sometimes be hurtful.
But technology is an incredible tool and a means to connect with others, but we must bring back that intentionality.
What’s the best part of your job?
This may sound cliché, but the best part is that we are actually making a difference and I think that knowing that, especially in this world we’re living in, makes the long days and the challenges worth it.
What’s the hardest thing, or the biggest challenge which comes with your job?
There’s never a quiet time! Managing people so that they feel respected, engaged and challenged can be hard sometimes. And as I get older, the gap between our youngest employees and myself, and some of the other members of the team changes. So I have to make sure that I’m staying in tune with Gen Z, and what their desires and wants are. I can’t just assume that everyone thinks and experiences things the same as I do.
Another challenge would be making sure that I keep up with the news; we run an impact communications firm and we cross issues ranging from climate change, to fledging democracy in the U.S., to abortion rights. So trying to keep informed across all areas of social impact and ESG can be a challenge at times.
Such great points, and some that resonate with us too as a social value agency. To overcome some of these challenges, do you have any recommendations for resources or otherwise which have helped you, or that other professionals in the space might find useful?
A great help has actually been the general news media – I don’t have to go out of my way anymore to stay up to date on these issues; the media more often covers sustainability and impact now, far more than it used to 10 years ago. So just having notifications on, and subscribing to newsletters is a great way to read the headlines and keep informed. Similarly, you can find so many useful resources and articles through social media, just by following industry-specific hashtags.
“ I believe that when we go out into the world to network and to connect, we need to lead with the questions ‘how do we support others?’ and ‘how do we help others?’”
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