The underlying reason behind any leadership transformation is to bring about a positive change within the leadership culture that ultimately results in tangible corporate goals or outcomes. Without a collective imperative for change, the transformation may lack the required degree of leadership impetus to change, and crucially to maintain the necessary momentum, communication downwards in the organisation, and importantly the desired display of behaviours.
We have all been party to disastrous short-lived management campaigns for change that have been badly thought through, high on presentation and low on content, and obviously unsupported by influential line managers.
The specific targets and objectives you select as sustainability priorities must clearly reflect the realities within the organisation, the external marketplace it faces into or the current morals and ethics of the societies and their environments that you depend as a competitive business on, where you want to be in the long term and critically where what you desire in terms of the corporate culture. It would be an ambitious sustainability leader in an oil and gas giant who wanted to go carbon neutral in 3 years’ time, whilst handing out a strongly worded climate change policy without any resource backing behind it. Yet it happens!
Choose your priorities carefully, and make sure they have real alignment between the desired sustainability theme, business reality and a linkage to future growth opportunities, such as:
The choice is yours, but it must be clear communicable to the target audience that you are seeking to transform. ‘Don’t spout Head Office crap on my Garage floor’ I was once harshly informed by a Glaswegian foreman when seeking to improve recycling efficiency, ‘Tell us what you want, tell us clearly and let us then work it out together, no fancy bullshit’. A great leadership lesson in how to communicate, listen and be authentic’. Thank you, Glasgow!
A successful sustainability transformation demands full leadership commitment and buy-in from all tiers within the organisation. As sustainability responses often mirror the internal ethics and morals of the workforce, many sustainability transformation programmes often fall on fertile soil, strangely it is the leadership response that is often lacking and managing upwards can often be the hardest part of the transformation. Leadership plays a dynamic role within most transformation programmes, as the need for role models and transformative leadership coaching during the transformation are key change agents in demonstrating the desired responses and behaviours to be achieved. Without leadership commitment, and a willingness to transform their own cultural behaviours, employees will be unlikely to commit themselves to long-term change, especially where there may be proven resistance by their manager to adopting the desired change behaviours and working practices.
When undertaking change programmes, there are four main targets for your sustainability transformational skills, and all of these may be present and require a change in a complex and radial programme to address a business-critical sustainability risk or opportunity.
When the organisational resilience and growth are threatened by a social or environmental risk that demands action to reduce business enterprise risk, or even the long-term survival of the business itself, it presents a strong driver for a change in working practices, attitudes and that things need to change in some parts of the organisational culture. Whilst internal performance may not be the cause of the risk, an externality such as stakeholder objection to unsustainable practices, a looming change in future ESG compliance or performance criteria or an emerging global trend, are powerful internal stimuli for the need to change in performance and the associated ways of working that support them.
Megatrend analysis and Critical systems thinking can help diagnose the issue from the business’s individual perspective and help the affected sections of the organisation evaluate existing practice cessation against future change options, and to design an appropriate strategy. Sustainability leadership with its focus on often intangible risks and trends can often bring a different and innovative perception to the problem that can help develop novel alternatives to existing responses, address emerging organisational ethics and more sustainable systems.
In assessing the organisation response to change, it is vital to accurately understand the reasons behind the existing approach that is at risk, the level of attachment (is it a sacred cow or just ‘the way we have always done it’?), ground truth the risk in the eyes of those who have a better understanding of the production process, and to fully understand this function or teams’ internal decision making culture (how do they prefer to work?). You can use a range of transformational tools, underlined by an authentic and humble ‘listening’ approach, to build trust and understanding:
having an open approach to gathering information and ideas helps build trust, develop future working patterns and evaluate responses against a wider backdrop of evidence (rather than what the team leader thinks).
Often, I have found that risk can arise because a business or team has lost its competitive or innovative edge, becoming complacent after a long run of success, or by ignoring new disruptive competitors who have enhanced sustainability practices or offering to customers, or more often have become too bureaucratic because of adopting new management approaches and then forgetting that they are there as a guide, not a Bible.
Change can often be triggered by an existing leader’s level of activity or lack of activity. It is claimed that poor leadership is the cause of a 5-10% productivity deficit as the cost of unsustainable performance has yet to be costed across many industrial sectors, and with many organisations possessing multimillion turnovers, the combination of both can cost a significant portion of its potential profit.
I have come across several ways in which a negative leadership culture can act against a greater drive or absorption of sustainability practices:
The active or over-achieving leader wishes to be seen as an alpha, proving themselves internally and often adopt aggressive or pace-setting performance for their direct reports. Nothing wrong with that, if it strategically pays respect or incorporates a wider corporate agenda than just narrow definitions of ‘time’, ‘cost’ or ‘quality’. They may be seeking to set blue water between themselves and the leader they have replaced. Aligning with their energy and zeal can be highly beneficial in many circumstances for the sustainability leader’s purpose and a positive opportunity for innovation and change within a previously reluctant or unsustainability minded team. However, it can also be a negative step, as new initiatives threaten established (or establishing) sustainability culture pillars within an organisation. I have personally experienced new Operations Directors deliberately cutting out environmental and sustainability governance through ‘value engineering’ exercises that have threatened statutory compliance, stakeholder consent and the reputation of the organisation amongst other statutory bodies. In one notable case the removal of a park bench worth £250 in a scheme costing £40 million delayed project commencement by 6 months, destroyed local trust in the organisation (it had previously committed to this action to remember a local councillor who had greatly aided the project) and offended the Local Council so much they added extra layers of bureaucracy into the project. Just for a 0.0025% project saving, that was ultimately wiped out by bad feeling and added delivery costs against the organisation! When calling for new higher performance culture, take care that everyone understands the ramifications of the resulting change and that all parties have an opportunity to assess and evaluate both the positive and negative aspects of change.
When seeking to work closely with such leaders, carefully evaluate their view of the existing culture within the organisation. The desire to change a particular aspect of strategy or corporate culture can often be linked with their feeling that it is associated as a restraining brake on the desired performance outcome. Take care that your sustainability change programme either helps deliver their goals or is designed in such a manner that it is business neutral on their new sacred cows!
Most sustainability change programmes occur as a direct result of external trends, societal change or new disruptive elements entering the marketplace. As they are powerful opportunities for organisational sustainability change, don’t be surprised if they stimulate reactions in other corporate systems that impact your own programmes. In these situations, as evidenced by the financial crashes of the 2000s and 2007’s, The UK Foot & Mouth crisis, and recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have moved my focus on sustainability management towards a corporate resilience aid and looked at how sustainability leadership can assist organisations to address new tangible risks and their impact on the corporate business model. The tools are these when you stop regarding sustainability as a means of your impact on the external environment and flip it around to evaluate the impact of the external environment on your organisation. You must be able to work in across both spectrums and look at issues from both an internal and external viewpoint.
Often such shocks can reveal the fragility in existing processes, occasionally fatally, or identify that their performance efficiencies were illusionary when viewed over the long-term or open competition through the entry of new market entrants. For existing organisations, the latter is of particular interest as they increasingly use improved sustainability as a market identifier – not the growth among ‘new’ green investment funds and organisations over the last few years as a more attractive location to reside long term pension and investment funds. The act of change in the external environment or a greater sense of competition can act as a great stimulus with leadership teams at risk of being out-performed, dramatic changes in sustainability culture can help rescue or create a dramatically different sustainability culture.
As we have discussed briefly above organisational change management programmes can be an effective attempt to change performance and internal culture towards a specific goal. It is important to evaluate such changes and weigh up whether they can enhance the organisational change management programmes and priorities that are critical within your strategy. Can a dual function or advantage be discerned allowing you to align with the proposed change that is being initiated by other leaders, and can an alliance be formed to assist both goals? In the consideration of new technology and processes, the final decisions can often be influenced by the addition of sustainability criteria (energy usage, material wastage, materiality, etc). Don’t let change pass you by!
Undergo Sustainability Leadership Culture Transformations when they booster your sustainability agenda, taking advantage of internal leadership change initiatives and external ‘nudges or crisis
Sustainability as a promoter of corporate culture transformation can form a valuable shift towards a more sustainable agenda or business model within an organisation. The transfer of individual and collective leadership behaviours towards a pro-sustainability agenda can move an organisations outlook, resilience, and growth potential significantly towards a ‘future fit’ strategy. It can be demanding but if handled professionally can align with the existing beliefs and moral codes within the existing workforce, stakeholders, customers and within wider society. Therefore, carefully consider the priorities for sustainability change, the existing baselines beliefs or processes within the organisation, the strategies that can achieve success and ultimately how it has a tangible impact on business growth.
