CHATTERJI AND TOFFEL
more eff ective. Target is particularly vulnerable in this regard. Thus
it’s not surprising that the retail chain, which has many stores in
politically conservative areas of the United States, has taken action
to assuage the criticism by spending $20 million creating single-
occupancy bathrooms in its stores. On the other hand, Nordstrom’s
customer base of affl uent urban women did not threaten to abandon
the upscale department store chain when President Trump attacked
it for distancing itself from Ivanka Trump’s apparel line.
Companies generally lack good data on the political beliefs of
their customers, but this information would be useful in assessing
potential reactions to CEO activism. CEOs and their companies are
likely to know more about the political beliefs of their employees
and can better predict their responses, however. Will employees
rally to the cause or go public with their disapproval— as more than
a thousand IBM employees did after CEO Virginia Rometty met with
President Trump?
CEO activism also risks a backlash from politicians. Trump has
tweeted his disagreement with numerous companies and their man-
agement decisions, marshaling millions of Twitter followers and
creating public relations headaches. CEOs and their teams should be
gaming out the likely response from supporters and critics in their
own organizations, the media, and the political sphere.
It’s imperative to hold postmortems, too, and answer the ques-
tion: Did I make a difference? Metrics to assess the impact of
activism should be established ahead of time, whether they be
retweets, media mentions, public opinion polls, or actual policy
shifts. Big swings in public opinion are rare, so it makes sense
to set realistic goals, track intermediate outcomes, and measure
progress over time.
CEO activism could become a fi rst- order strategic issue. As more and
more business leaders choose to speak out on contentious political
and social matters, CEOs will increasingly be called on to help shape
the debate about such issues. Many will decide to stay out of the
fray, but they should still expect to be peppered with questions from