I’m currently developing two proposals for Sustainability Strategies for different public bodies. Public bodies being public bodies, they’re always quite prescriptive, not only on what they want from the project, but how they think it should proceed. Given most people develop strategies on the basis of Theory X – “here’s the draft strategy we wrote for ya [thunk of paper on desk], whaddya think?”, but we insist on the much more intrusive and effective Theory Y of “let’s build this strategy together, brick by brick, so you own it, not us” – this stage is always a bit of a risk for us as we are asking them to change the spec. Of course if the buyer really knew how to develop a Sustainability Strategy, would they not be better doing it themselves?

Anyway, our big ask is always a workshop with the board and/or senior management team. Why? because buy-in at the top is gold dust. In fact I would say it is more important than the actual strategy contents; as the old saying attributed to Peter Drucker goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” And culture flows from the top, so if you don’t have genuine emotional buy-in from leaders, you will soon run into the sand. Better a pretty good strategy that gets implemented than a pitch perfect one that just gathers dust.

For more on Sustainability Leadership, including how to get buy-in from the top, check out our webinar on Wednesday 6 Nov 2024.