Game, Set, Match: Corporate Social Responsibility Takes a Tennis Lesson

As I watched ESPN's coverage of the Sony Ericsson Open women's semifinal match in Miami on Thursday (Sharapova def. Petkovic 3-6, 6-0, 6-2), I couldn't help but notice the NASCAR-like profusion of corporate logos strewn across the Crandon Park Tennis Center.

From FILA to FedEx (FDX, 95.00, +1.45), LAN Airlines (LFL, 26.23, +0.64) to Lindt (SWF:LISN), BackOffice Associates to BMW Group (BMW, 61.22, +2.47), Itaú Private Bank International (ITUB, 24.26, +0.22), Rolex and of course, the championship's title sponsor, Sony Ericsson, which, in addition to dominating the backboards behind the players, had logos on the net itself, it was hard to escape the presence of the global market.

(In between points, I was overcome by a burning desire to eat a Lindor truffle, put on a pair of Alfa II's and drive an E90 to FedEx to ship a Oyster Perpetual Datejust to my banker friend in Rio.)

PLAYING TO WIN-WIN: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A CHAMPION

But the relationship between sports and the private sector goes much deeper than corporate sponsorship. As many successful executives know, many of the qualities that make champions in competitive sports are also important qualities in the boardroom.

And part of that is a sense of responsibility to teammates, managers, coaches, fans, sponsors, staff, the public and yes, even the playing field (read: ecosystem). Or, as corporate social responsibility officers call them -- stakeholders. (I can't help but recall how several tennis pros recently got together for a game of soccer and a gala dinner in Miami to raise money for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.)

For their part, Sony Ericsson currently ranks second behind Nokia in the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics and is the best performer on the toxic chemicals criteria of all the ranked brands.

PREPARE TO SERVE, CONTROL THE POINT

But what struck me most about the connection between corporate social responsibility and tennis was not the CSR rating of the Miami Open's title sponsor, but something that former tennis pro Mary Jo Fernandez said when she and fellow ESPN commentator Cliff Drysdale were picking apart Sharapova's post-shoulder-surgery serve.

"The serve is the toughest stroke in the game," Fernandez said. "It's ironic because it's the one shot you have total control over." I wondered, is tennis like life this way? Are we better at reacting than acting?

Perhaps. But if, as personal development blogger Dragos Roua says, "acting is what makes you happy, reacting is what makes you miserable," then it just proves the pessimistic view that happiness is hard to come by.

"Whenever you act, you perform a conscious choice, you decide you're going to do that thing. You become responsible," says Drouga. "But when you react, you follow somebody else's choice, you're responding to an external stimulus. You're not responsible anymore, you leave the responsibility to the stimulus. When you act, you're the pupeteer, when you react, you're the puppet." In tennis, the puppeteer is the one controlling the point. In business, the puppeteer controls their own storyline.

A good serve is a combination of physical mechanics, mental toughness and strategy. And it starts with preparation, but this is one of the most overlooked aspects of the serve. Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are infamous for their intense serve preparation and have been criticized by their opponents for taking too long. But this approach has (quite literally) served them well -- they are currently the top two players in men's tennis.

BAD PREPARATION = BAD SERVE = BAD CSR

So often though, companies don't serve well because they just don't prepare well. Those companies don't realize that they have more control over their actions than their reactions. Think of BP's lack of preparation that led to the Gulf oil spill. Or Union Carbide's negligence in the Bhopal disaster.

Or take nuclear power. (Please.) We don't know how to store the waste. One of the problems at Japan's crippled Fukushima plant is that the spent fuel was stored at the reactor site itself, which is how it's done in the United States. And only now we react: The U.S. is going to reevaluate how spent nuclear fuel is stored. It doesn't help that TEPCO, the firm that operates the plant, was embroiled in scandals and cover-ups.

Another example of bad preparation is the ongoing destruction of intertidal mangrove forests to make room for commercial shrimp farms. Mangroves are nature's perfect coastline protectors. But the deforestation of them due to the expanding shrimp aquaculture industry ultimately led to deaths in the 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami, which claimed more than 230,000 human lives. Is eating shrimp really that important to mankind? (For more on this, see my 13.7 Billion Years interview with Alfredo Quarto, executive director of the Seattle-based non-profit Mangrove Action Project.)

GOOD PREPARATION = GOOD SERVE = GOOD CSR

John Pilmer, the founder and president of PilmerPR, asserts that the secret to effective corporate social responsibility is planning. He should know -- his firm was recently recognized at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., for its work in the field.

"With careful planning, clear objectives, and relevant tactics, your organization's CSR campaign will not only be effective, but it will also provide a clear return on investment," writes Pilmer on UtahBusiness.com.

Sony Ericsson Open sponsor FedEx "understand[s] how vital preparation is to the success of the business, whether the mission is to ensure a critical overnight delivery or to aid charitable organizations in their response to a large-scale disaster," according to Rose Flenorl, FedEx's manager of Social Responsibility. "Each day we deliver services and solutions all over the world, but the key to any successful operation is preparation."

Tennis great Andre Agassi once said, "What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose." Considering those very special things we could lose without good government, individual ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility, we can all stand to work on our serve.

image: Roger Federer serving at Wimbledon, June 26, 2009 (credit: Squeaky Knees, Wikimedia Commons)