Following on my Weinberg Center blog post back on October 27, I write today to promote participation in a survey hosted by the University of Delaware’s John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance on public company Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposals under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The survey website explains that the Weinberg Center “seeks to gather practical insights from companies, investors, and related professionals about the scope and effectiveness of the current federal shareholder proposal rule (Rule 14a-8).” I suspect that the referenced professionals include lawyers representing both public companies and shareholders, as well as other advisors to each. More information about the survey can be found on the website.

In the spirit of that October 27 blog post, I am appreciative of the effort to gather information from a wide variety of constituents. I have taught group-oriented change leadership to undergraduate honors students here at The University of Tennessee using design thinking methods, in which the first step is undertaking to empathize. This step involves the team researching, and endeavoring to understand, the needs of various stakeholders. One design thinking website describes this first stage of a group-oriented process of innovation through design thinking as set forth below.

The team aims to understand the problem, typically through user research. Empathy is crucial to design thinking because it allows designers to set aside your assumptions about the world and gain insight into users and their needs.

This is precisely the type of work that provides a strong foundation for law reform efforts, albeit work that may not be routinely engaged. I hope that stakeholders with various roles in the shareholder proposal process take the opportunity to respond to the survey and that the survey serves an important role in fostering measured, well informed debate. I also hope the survey is a force in depoliticizing relevant questions and potential responses as Delaware considers the core public policy objectives of its corporate law and as the Securities and Exchange Commission similarly considers the positioning of the shareholder proposal rule and process in the context of federal securities regulation governing public companies.

As Jim Surowiecki observes and documents in his insightful book The Wisdom of Crowds, quality decision making involves the consideration of a variety of ideas from diverse and independent participants in a decentralized environment that allows for the compilation of those inputs into a an aggregated output. Effective, sustainable regulation should involve the engagement of this superior method of decision making. The Weinberg Center survey represents a potential beginning to that kind of wise process.

If you are a stakeholder in the shareholder proposal debate, please take time out to complete the survey, for the good of all. Contribute to the essence of meaningful law reform. The survey is available at this link.