On Wednesday I was delivering a workshop upskilling green champions at one of my healthcare clients. Just before we got into the meat of the session, learning about green jujitsu (see above) in order to engage effectively with their colleagues, the director with responsibility for Sustainability (amongst a much wider portfolio of responsibility) arrived to talk to the champions.

I’m always a little nervous at times like these as I have to keep my fingers crossed that what ‘The Boss’ says is aligned to what I am trying to communicate. While I have done a boardroom session where I used green jujitsu to get the board to make the links between the health and sustainability agendas, I haven’t explicitly coached them in the technique.

I needn’t have worried, the director told the champions clearly that, as their mission was to save and improve lives, then Sustainability was very much part of that mission, whether in terms of air quality, reduction of toxic materials or climate change. That is the perfect green jujitsu, when you can link Sustainability to the core purpose of the organisation.

I then explained the principles of green jujitsu to the champions. We all filter out all the stuff that doesn’t interest us and pay attention only to what we want to – like flicking through the magazines in the dentist’s waiting room until an article or picture catches our attention. So to get people’s attention in Sustainability, you have to find the elements of Sustainability which get through their filters.

If your message is “Stop thinking about what you are passionate about and think about what I am passionate about”, you start to sound like the pub bore. My client’s employees are passionate about health, so health becomes the starting point every time.