[This is a public edit of an internal policy. We post it publicly to help others understand how we think about which organizations to work with. It’s a living document that we’ve updated several times as new questions arise, and we don’t claim that it’s exhaustive or complete. If you aren’t sure whether it would apply to your organization, please get in touch. ]

Background

When someone reaches out to us about doing some training, our default stance should be yes. We believe that building better bosses improves work not just for the people we train, but for the teams around them. In the absence of a signal to the contrary, we are excited to do that work.

But our training works. It makes those leaders and organizations better able to do their work. We have an obligation not to help harmful organizations be more effective.

There are a few kinds of organizations we might decline to work with. The first is organizations whose work is directly contrary to our values, or whose major customers are. The second is organizations that are not intrinsically from a toxic industry, but whose actions have made it clear that we are not values-aligned. The third is organizations with whom we have a conflict of interest.

Ultimate accountability for these calls rests with the Partners, but we’ve tried to make our own perspective on this as concrete as possible.

Category 1 - Harmful industries

We should not work with companies who:

Manufacture or sell weapons, or otherwise materially contribute to armed conflicts.
Manufacture or sell products widely recognized to be harmful to human health (e.g. tobacco, asbestos, juul, facebook).
Extract, refine, or sell oil, gas, or other products known to directly lead to widespread environmental damage. This includes mining, old growth logging, and other extractive industries.
Have been credibly accused of human rights violations, or participation in corruption, organized crime, or human trafficking.
Profit directly off of the prison-industrial complex (this includes technology and services primarily designed for law enforcement/policing, surveillance, or profiting off of incarceration).
Profit off of hatred or misinformation.

Category 2 - Harmful Leadership

This category will always be a harder call. We’ll need to make case-by-case judgements about how much a particular decision or pattern of behaviour is indicative of what that company will be, going forward. We’ll also have to decide how much we believe that our involvement can change the way they make future decisions.

Unless we are part of a turnaround story, we should not work with companies who we believe:

Make much of their money from customers in Category 1 industries
Fail to follow up on reports of workplace toxicity (e.g. racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, harassment, assault) with appropriate urgency and attention
Union-bust, violate labour law, play games with contract vs full time, don’t pay a living wage, or are otherwise abusive to their employees
Fire or silence whistleblowers
Have one or more leaders employed who are accused of serious harm to others for which they have not made suitable apologies and reparations

Category 3 - Conflicts of Interest

This category recognizes that the work we do is never separate from the communities in which we operate. We should be mindful not to take on work we don’t think we can perform from a place of objectivity. We should also remember that any work we choose to take, or not to take, may be seen as a signal to others about where we stand. This is also a category where a company might temporarily be ruled out, but not permanently.

We should not work with any company or individual when:

They are recently or presently engaged in litigation, mediation, contract negotiation, or otherwise in a dispute (whether as part of a formal process or informally) with an RSG employee, their family, or close friends.
They are recently or presently engaged in litigation, mediation, contract negotiation, or otherwise in a dispute (whether as part of a formal process or informally) with an organization where RSG, or an RSG partner, plays an advisory or governance role.
Working with them would, in the judgement of the Partners, send a signal that RSG endorses them, their behaviour, or their public positions on an issue which RSG cannot or will not endorse.