“This is like building a loft extension in a house suffering from subsidence.” is the rather brutal advice I had to give an organisation recently. They were trying to launch a substantial Sustainability initiative in a division which was failing to perform even its most basic tasks. How they ever thought it could take on a massive change management process was beyond me.

Drucker was damn right (as usual) when he said:

“There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.”

But a close second must be doing the right thing incompetently. Sustainability requires direction AND competence and, if it goes pear-shaped, Sustainability will get the blame rather than duff management.