In my book The Green Executive, I concluded that three personal qualities were required of green business leaders: resilience, a bias to action and enthusiasm. Since the book was published back in May, I’ve interacted with several hundred employees of different clients from widely different roles and backgrounds and I’m starting to see an important fourth quality emerge: creativity.
Why have I spotted it now and not earlier? Well, firstly I am doing more workshops than ever and secondly my workshops have evolved to become less and less about me talking and more and more about the delegates thinking. And you can clearly tell the creative types in the room: some people struggle to break away from the realities of their day to day activities, but others relish the opportunity to step back and be curious, letting their mind take them on a journey of discovery.
Watching a truly creative person at work can be quite extraordinary. I’ve seen two people who have no background in sustainability propose the rather advanced concept of product-service systems as a sustainability solution within a 20 minute exercise – working it out from first principles. I’ve found a simple discussion on sustainability touch on the second law of thermodynamics (I usually avoid the thermodynamic argument as too philosophical in an hour’s workshop). And I’ve seen people bring in ideas from completely different fields of endeavour and apply them inventively to sustainability.
Breaking free from the ‘tyranny of the present’ is a prerequisite of sustainability – we’re not going to achieve sustainability by doing the same thing, but a little bit greener. We need innovative, lateral thinking type solutions and those will inevitably come from creative minds. The challenge for organisations is how to identify, harness and nurture these creatives. The ‘champion’ route is one way, but make sure you make the role meaningful. Task groups are better when you have a particular issue to address as there is a clear objective and purpose.
Part of me is really jealous of these people, but more than that I love working with them. They challenge me, they stimulate me and they astound me. They certainly make my job a lot more interesting.
So let’s hear it for the creatives!