The biggest change in our consulting approach since Terra Infirma was founded in 2006 is the move away from a traditional 'clipboard consulting' - gather evidence, analyse data, formulate recommendations, write report - to a facilitation-based approach - gather stakeholders, agree goals, generate ideas, come to mutually agreed conclusions. The reasons for this shift are numerous:
You unlock the intellectual capital of the organisation;
You lessen the risk of proposing conclusions which are incompatible with company culture or other strategies;
You lessen the risk of missing important factors;
You get buy-in from the stakeholders - the results are much less likely to sit on the shelf if key people have been directly involved in generating them;
The kinaesthetic experience of arranging Post-Its, sticky dots etc brings out the creative in us all;
I find it quite incredible that the Hungarian 'toxic sludge' disaster has only had a tiny fraction of the press coverage as, say, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A similar number of people have died, there remains an ongoing threat at the site itself, and one of the great rivers of the world, The Danube, is at great risk. The BBC has an incredible series of pictures here and here which brought home to me the scale of the disaster.
But the front pages of the paper have been largely sludge-free and I haven't noticed '#toxicsludge' trending on Twitter the way that the '#oilspill' hashtag took off. There was even a TEDxOilspill event, but no TEDxSludge. Why?
Is it because a big multinational was involved in the oil spill and not the sludge disaster? Do we mistrust big oil more than other primary industries? Or do we in the English speaking world simply care more about the US than Hungary?
In my opinion, the only legitimate factor that distinguishes between the two is that the oil spill was a warning of the challenges of pursuing a high carbon future, whereas the toxic sludge is a relic of Soviet-style indifference to the environment.
The two are representative of two very different but serious risks to business. The deep drilling in the Gulf is a canary in the mine telling us that business as usual is not an option. Sticking to a high carbon strategy will become increasingly expensive and risky. The toxic sludge is a reminder that industry needs to take a look at the legacy of its past, the obvious suspects including contaminated land, old oil storage tanks and waste dumps. But, as we move towards a low carbon economy, other 'assets' - inefficient buildings, plant and vehicles that are the norm now - could become liabilities.
A green business will have cleaned up any legacy, eliminated the storage of hazardous material and reduced its dependency on dwindling oil resources. It makes sense for the business and the environment.
Two giants of the world's retail stage are standing down: Sirs Terry Leahy of Tesco and Stuart Rose of Marks & Spencer. The two are quite different in style - Leahy a modest, quiet man with a core of steel, Rose more the classic swashbuckler, never afraid to voice his opinions. But the two had one thing in common, apart from financial success: both are showing clear leadership in regard to sustainability.
In my experience, industry is largely stuck at the level of "environmental management" and it needs to make the vital leap to "environmental leadership". At last week's Low Carbon event, I had a table of delegates frustrated that they were being tasked to develop an "environmental strategy" at a middle-management level, but with no buy in from above. How can it be a strategy if the senior levels of the organisation aren't interested? Delegation is fine, but derogation of responsibility is not. Responsibility must be held at the top, with full ownership of any strategy.
It's funny how many people get to a leadership level and won't lead. BP boss Tony Hayward (in)famously said "he'd like to get his life back" during the early stages of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. Not only was this extraordinarily insensitive to all those who are finding their livelihoods ruined by the disaster, but it shows a complete lack of leadership backbone. This is what you get paid so much for Tony, buck up and sort it out. But Hayward isn't alone, I often get called in to talk to the boards of companies only to find the Chief Executive ducks out of that particular meeting, much to the embarrassment of the others. Leadership means being there in the thick of it, whether or not you want to, showing that commitment.
Leahy, Rose, Mike Duke of Walmart, Bob McDonald of P&G, Ray Anderson of Interface - leadership is the difference between the best and the rest.
I'm shooting down the East Coast Line for tomorrow's Low Carbon Best Practice Exchange in London Olympia. The drizzly weather means I'll be spending less time gazing out the window and more time working on book #2, The Green Executive. But I have been mulling on the event I spoke at yesterday hosted by ISPE (which is one of those acronyms that used to mean something but now just is, but it's the professional body for pharma industry engineers).
Engineers are a tough audience - I'm an engineer, so I can say that. Not because they heckle, but because they don't. They don't ask questions or challenge you in the same way as say, environmentalists, politicos, marketing people etc, etc. The other talks at the event were heavy on the engineering, so I decided to be provocative and challenge the audience that their focus on energy efficiency, returns on investment, value engineering etc, were holding their companies back from sustainable innovation and thus profit - actually I went further than that and accused them of murdering Rachel Weisz (somebody left at that point, but I think it was for unrelated reasons). I got nods, chuckles, smiles, some good feedback afterwards and even an approving tweet, but only one question. One. And that question was a technical point about how waste legislation can impact on industrial symbiosis - good question, but it didn't explore or challenge any of my main themes.
Questions are essential to the way we deliver on the environment. Imagine if BP or the US Government had challenged the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Deepwater Horizon which said the risk of spillage was negligible and the impact would be small if it did happen? No, there were lots of figures produced, so they must be right. Likewise my engineering audience were totally focussed on the how and not the why. One of the earlier speakers was asked whether energy efficiency improvements were dependent on the chemistry being undertaken - again a good point - but no-one went on to the logical next step - whether we should be changing that chemistry to deliver the energy efficiency rather than the other way round.Engineers are essential to a sustainable future and we must start asking the questions that matter.
I like the idea of The Toddler Test - keep asking 'why' until the question cannot be answered. It might be annoying, but you won't innovate if you don't challenge the status quo - as Einstein said "we won't solve problems with the kind of thinking that created them."
Tomorrow, I'm chairing a panel session on staff engagement with some really great panellists. My biggest worry? That no-one will want to ask them a question...
... if you've squeezed every efficiency out of a system, but you still aren't where you want to be, then you need to change the system!
Secret No 3 of The Three Secrets of Green Business is about making a series of huge leaps to align your systems and processes towards sustainability while making continual incremental improvements in between. The latter will only take you so far before you have to make another huge leap.
The key is in making sure each leap will lead to the goal and not up a cul-de-sac. I use 'backcasting' with clients to make sure all leaps forward take you in the right direction.
Backcasting will help you decide what to do. Another big strategic question is what are we not going to do? The best organisations kill off products, services and processes which are holding them back. That takes real guts.
It seems that, by some sort of intergalactic law, every blogger on earth has to use Apple's new iPad as the subject of a blog post, no matter how tenuous the link. Well I'm not going to be buying an iPad anytime soon as my iPhone and MacBook Pro cover all my Applacholic cravings. But I do find that my iPhone in particular is a fantastic tool with many green attributes - and I'm not just talking about Apple's shiny new green image.
It's more the flexibility and adaptability of the device. When I started interviewing people for The Green Executive last summer, I thought "I'll need a voice recorder". No need - a cheap app covers all my requirements - no extra stuff required. Likewise the dictionary, maps, train timetables etc etc - never mind the fact that I don't need a separate iPod/MP3 player/organiser or anything else ever. And I rarely buy music in a physical format any more.
I had the opposite problem when my 3 wireless broadband 1st year offer came to an end. I had two choices - go on a monthly tariff with the existing dongle which would work out as £180, or, ditch the old one and get a new one (materials, embodied energy, packaging, documentation, SIM) with a year's free use for £80. What a stupid and unsustainable business model - more stuff costs 44% of the price of no extra stuff and encourages me to consider rival options.
My (soon to be) three year old is starting to assert his independence. This morning there was a big row because I forgot to let him carry the Weetabix box to the breakfast table. Howls of outrage resulted. How did I get him to calm down? I asked him "how many Weetabix would you like?".
The secret is in the very last character of that last sentence - the question mark.
It's not just children who respond to the calming effect of being asked a question. I use the technique to deal with all sorts of situations and it is great for dealing with recalcitrant staff when implementing environmental strategies. A question is non-threatening, flatters your companion, and engages them in conversation.
Look at these pairs to see how the question version is more persuasive than the declaration:
"We must go green! Everyone is doing it!" vs "How are we going to compete against green rivals?"
"We must cut waste!" vs "How can we cut our energy, waste and water bills? Any ideas?"
"Pollution incidents must be eradicated!" vs "What are the implications of a pollution incident?"
I was doing some background research on BT's sustainability activity for the Green Executive and the Service Network talk I'm giving in two week's time. Their sustainability report says they've saved £400m between 2005 and 2009 and supported bids worth a potential £1.9bn in 2009. Which means:
• direct cost savings: £100m per annum • indirect business benefit: £1,900m per annum = indirect benefits are worth 19 times as much as direct cost benefits
So, please, don't be taken in by by the old "go green and save money" line - BT could have lost out on direct economic costs and still made a handsome profit on their sustainability programme. The prize is much, much bigger than just a few bob's worth of energy savings. The best of the best have their sights set much, much higher. Have you?
It's that day of the year when scientists (whose evidence presumably comes under somewhat lighter scrutiny than that of climatologists) declare it is the most depressing day of the year in the UK - post Xmas slump, weather, illness, yadda yadda blah blah.
So what can you do? There seem to be three options:
1. Muddle through, complaining constantly.
2. Give up - go back to bed with a cup of tea and a magazine full of adverts for stuff you can't afford.
3. Take control - go for a run, start a new piece of work, read something inspiring.
There's an analogy here with your reaction to the environmental agenda - you can muddle through, hide under the duvet or take control of your destiny. It is clear from the businesses and I work with that the last option is the only way to do it properly. So why not take a break from the routine today and decide what this agenda means for you?
I had a brilliant but exhausting day at the Low Carbon Best Practice Exchange last Thursday. A late train led to a missed connection wiping out my planned acclimatisation/caffeine hit period before I was straight into the my first workshop, Empowering Your Staff. As with the second session it was over-subscribed and I was relieved not to keep everyone waiting.
During the session, I used Arnstein's ladder of participation to lead the attendees away from beating staff over the head to making them part of the solution - by getting them involved in developing solutions and delegating power as low as possible in the organisation. What always hits me about this session when I run it is the fear of getting staff involved - a lot of excuses were made why this just wasn't possible. "Empowerment" has become a bit of a cliché, but few people are really doing it. Getting client teams involved in developing solutions is the basic technique at the core of much of our consultancy work now as a. it gives better solutions and b. buy-in is automatic. We know it works.
There's always something new for me at these events and when I shared Northern Food's colour coding of machinery technique, one attendee from a food company pointed out how this could solved language barrier for her - her company has 32 different native languages on the factory floor. I hadn't considered that as a barrier to engagement before.
The second session was on long term environmental strategy. I got the participants to analyse their organisation using the sustainability maturity model. All agreed that they would have to move to the full integration level to address sustainability properly. We then discussed the difference between forecasting and backcasting in developing strategies and I got them to describe a vision of their business in 2020 to get them into the backcasting way of thinking.
As well as the two sessions, four people had requested individual meetings with me (two because they couldn't get on the first session). I also interviewed Nick Coad, Environmental Director of National Express, for The Green Executive - a really interesting guy, describing himself as "a failed elephant tracker" - and caught up with the two clients I had invited to the event who appeared to have really got lots of value it. My last meeting at 3pm was cancelled, so I finally got a wander around the stalls and then got out for some fresh air before getting the train home.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - these events are brilliant. Learning, sharing and networking are maximised and, while there were some powerpoint driven seminars in side rooms, I got through the whole day without hearing the words "I'll just get the technology sorted, and then...".
Story-telling is a powerful way of creating a compelling vision for the future. When doing backcasting exercises in strategy workshops, I used to get participants to draw their vision of their organisation in 20-whatever, but I've recently found it much more effective if I get them to tell a story about it. Not a sitting-round-the-campfire story, but something like "write the CEO's foreword to your 2020 CSR report summarising the six headline achievements you would like to have made by then". This keeps the vision on the right side of science fiction and, it appears, is an easier ask of participants.
We've just updated the projects page on this site to better reflect the kind of work we have been doing in the last 12 months or so.
You'll see we've been deliberately shifting away from 'heads down, long report' type projects to working in collaboration with our clients and their stakeholders to develop more strategic solutions as this is where we believe more value lies for those clients.
This extra value comes from:
Collaboration = stronger ownership of solutions = more successful implementation
Collaboration = more capacity in the client organisation to implement projects = more successful implementation
Collaboration = utilising the intellectual capital (employee's nous!) already there = better solutions
