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News & Views From the Front Line
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Time for a change...
... 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.
Labels: backcasting, environmental strategy, sustainability strategy, three secrets of green business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 11:17
0 Comments
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
iBandwagon...
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.
From the sublime to the ridiculous...
Labels: business model, environmental strategy
# posted by Gareth Kane : 13:05
1 Comments
Monday, 1 February 2010
Questions, Questions
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?"
It works, doesn't it?
Labels: environmental strategy, staff engagement
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:07
1 Comments
Monday, 25 January 2010
Indirect benefits outweigh cost savings for BT by a long, long way
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?
Labels: costs, environmental strategy, green business, savings
# posted by Gareth Kane : 10:22
0 Comments
Monday, 18 January 2010
Blue Monday (Tell me, how do I feel?)
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?
Labels: environmental strategy
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:10
0 Comments
Monday, 7 December 2009
Feedback from the LCBPE, 3rd Dec
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...".
Labels: environmental strategy, green executive, low carbon best practice exchange, staff engagement
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00
0 Comments
Monday, 19 October 2009
Telling Tales
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.You read it here first!
Labels: backcasting, environmental strategy, storytelling, sustainability strategy
# posted by Gareth Kane : 05:21
0 Comments
Friday, 5 June 2009
Don't forget...
...I'll be facilitating those two sessions at the Low Carbon Innovation Network, next Thursday, 11 June at the Olympia, London.Just to remind you, the sessions are:
1. Long Term Environmental Strategy, 10:00am
2. Empowering staff to take action, 3:30pm
My summaries of previous events can be seen here and here. Of course, I'll be posting a summary of next week's sessions here after the event.
Labels: environmental strategy, low carbon innovation network, staff engagement, training, workshops
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:58
0 Comments
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
More example projects...
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
- Strategic = longer term solutions = better ROI
- Strategic = higher level staff engagement (typically director level) = stronger leadership
If any of this is of any interest to you, then drop me a line.
Labels: environmental strategy, sustainability strategy, terra infirma
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:09
0 Comments
A highly accessible, practical guide to those who want to introduce sustainability into their business or organization quickly and effectively.
