SME entrepreneurs at the IoD Annual Convention told stirring tales about the business benefits of social responsibility. Could their grass-roots energy inspire larger corporations?

Bosses at HSBC might be forgiven for feeling slightly smug. Not only is HSBC the world's biggest non-state-run bank, but its resistance to pressure from a vocal group of shareholders two years ago to take more risk has been vindicated. Its squeaky cleanness, compared to some of its bailed-out peers, may have something to do with the nature of its chairman, Stephen Green, who, as an ordained Anglican priest, is that rare thing—a servant of both God and Mammon.

But standing up as Green did at the recent IoD Annual Convention and cracking a joke about the difficulty of being a banker in the current hostile environment seemed to trivialise the impact of, and banks' role in, the crippling financial crisis.

Some of his audience at the convention may have lost their jobs or seen their businesses fail; others are likely to be struggling to raise finance at reasonable rates. But Green compounded his insensitive joke with a comment that all businesses, "not just banks", were guilty of greedy short-termism.

The disaster, he said, had forced us to rediscover the need to serve the long-term interests of all our stakeholders and respond to genuine customer needs. Corporate social responsibility is not an add-on, but essential to a sustainable business model, he concluded.

Such comments are statements of the obvious. What's more, most convention delegates were not from big corporations, but from the kind of SMEs for whom looking after employees, customers and the local community has been second nature. Were I in their place I might not have taken kindly to a banker preaching to me about morality. And when quizzed by IoD director general Miles Templeman about his views for a levy on banks being channelled into small-business support, Green equivocated, talking about the need to rebalance the broader economy and for banks to be robust players in that scene. He also reacted defensively to Templeman's suggestion that some of his bank's CSR activities amounted to little more than cynical marketing.

But if, for bankers, sorry still seems to be the hardest word, the better news is that growing numbers of businesses are practising the kind of embedded corporate responsibility that Green preaches. I spoke recently to the chief executive of a leading insurance company in Scandinavia. Horrified by rioting gangs of youths in Denmark a few years ago, she and some colleagues took four of these youngsters on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain, talking to them over a 120-kilometre walk about the influences that had turned them to crime. Both sides listened and learnt, and she has since given all four meaningful jobs in her company. She has merged this CSR-type initiative into a leadership development programme.

Indeed, "doing well by doing good" emerged as a key theme of the IoD convention, and was exemplified in four entrepreneurs' stories about how they built their businesses—benefiting staff, customers and communities in the process. The enthusiasm, energy and excitement of these people was palpable, and one commented that finding something you feel passionate about makes you "feel" rich. But not one of them seemed to be motivated by money, and they appeared to view their financial success as a welcome spin-off of doing something they enjoy.

Such people seem quite different from some of the servants of larger businesses. Entrepreneurs are more collaborative, people-oriented and creative—all right-brain characteristics. The scaling-up involved in becoming a big business calls for a large share of left-brain types, with their practical, rational and fact-biased focus. Researchers at strategy consultancy Cognosis recently concluded not just that right-brain leaders create more effective, engaging and motivating strategies, but that a whole-brained team approach produces the most valid methods of all.

We are awash with talk of banking reform, and proposals to regulate bankers. But perhaps the most efficient way of ensuring a return to better, more stakeholder-oriented, business practice might be to dig out our old HR handbooks on the importance of balanced management teams.