I attended an ‘unconference’ called Green Innovation in Business Network (GIBN): Solutions Lab on May 21, 2010. Organized by EDF, Dig In and Ashoka, and generously hosted by Bloomberg. People I met there include Dave Witzel and Beth Trask from EDF, Odin Zackman and Mara Guccione from Dig In, Stuart Yasgur from Ashoka, John Davies from GreenBiz, Michael Sater from Maurgood LLC and the list goes longer. They’re all amazing people who matter and make a difference in the real world.
Confession. I started writing this post a while back, but have remained lethally busy with things at office, at home and with my work-permit complexities that still threaten to jeopardize my career. Accept my sincere apologies for sharing the post late.
For all those unaware of the ‘unconference’ concept, the event usually is frame-bound but unlike conventional conferences, does not subscribe to a fixed agenda where communication is one-way. Here, individuals decide the agenda once the conference convenes and then spend the day discussing in a group, some actionable steps. Very important aspect to note here is, you are not expected to come with rocket-science solutions, rather you’ll be asked to share small actionable steps that when integrated will automatically evolve into rocket-science solutions.
Q: What discussion did I partake in?
A: Shifting Corporate Culture (My all time favorite, aka organizational change management)
Q: In my view, what is the Problem?
It’s been a few years that I have worked with Environmental industry in different sectors. I worked with corporations in India, worked with corporate clients from Europe, now in US I’m working with American corporations. I have a bachelor’s degree and an advanced degree concentrated in Environmental Science and Policy. After all this, just like others, what did I learn?
Sustainability is not a solely technical or operational issue which can be solved by engineering or management. It includes behavioral issues as well. Sustainability is a mega-trend. It is not only a lack of resources and motivation but also a deficiency of awareness and education. Corporate culture is no different from human nature, it is innate. The functional words for corporate culture are competency, efficiency and profits. Once the culture is shifted, competence may be replaced by evolution, efficiency by sufficiency and profits by value.
Where is the bottleneck?
The Top Management is committed to go sustainable and issues the orders, the lower management has no choice but to follow, elephant in the room is the middle management. Sustainability generally needs big picture thinking and micro level applications. Middle management usually remains overburdened with strategic planning for the normal business activities and adding the sustainability may look like an overwhelming task. This eventually could lead to achieving unexpectedly low results, if at all. It is necessary and expected that the Top, Middle and Lower management intersect and coincide at the same point when it comes to sustainability. In terms of a Venn diagram, a mutually exclusive and exhaustive event should occur.
Any suggested solutions?
At the GIBN Solutions Lab, the only thing the team did for hours is to try and identify coherent actions which when synergized could induce a manageable difference, if not measurable. (Well, I believe sometimes you can manage what you can’t measure). The group thought that an organization would need to set up a BHAG i.e. A Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. An overreaching goal, a promising commitment which makes the message very clear. Once the goals are set, the coherent actions are brought into actions. This package would then help in smooth shifting of corporate culture.
Remember Michael Sater from first paragraph? Yes, the gentleman whose Posterous blog page is so interesting that you may not have returned to read this post. Michael came up with a great graphic that depicts these coherent actions integrated synergistically.
Here’s the graphic:
Primary functions:
Data: Count your chickens before they hatch. Know what has been going on and decide if you want to continue or maneuver in a different direction.
Diagnose: Identify the symptoms of failure or inefficiency in integrating sustainable behavior at your organization and then try to evolve from the present into the future.
Educate: Teach everyone in the organization, regardless of their place in an organizational chart. Everyone must buy into the sustainability goals. The Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals.
Supplementary Functions:
Dialogues: Get the sustainability buzz work out into the employees. Create green teams, make a community, initiate discussions, and listen with an open mind.
Programs: Start involvement programs, recognize the involvement, and incentivize the participation give tangible targets and conceivable goals.
Policy: This is my favorite part. Create policies that complement and catalyze the desired change. Policies also work as the carrot-stick mechanism, ergo preventing the end-of-pipeline disasters.
Complementary Function:
Internal Advocacy: Be the noise maker or bring in the noise maker. Give responsibility and make people accountable for their actions. Have them be the messengers and the examples. Reinforce the commitment of sustainability.
I’ve tried to be concise, still lavish with words. If you find this post a bit longer than it should be, trust me on this, this is just the nutshell version.
What is your take on shifting corporate culture?
