The leading question

If public awareness of the damage we’re doing to the planet is so high then why is it so difficult to embed responsible thinking and behaviour throughout organisations? Stephen Lewis explains how the use of ongoing executive coaching can help develop the leadership needed to turn awareness into action.

“Business is the only mechanism on the planet powerful enough to produce the changes necessary to reverse global environmental and social degradation” – Paul Hawken “Natural Capitalism”

The planet is dying and we are killing it. This might seem a rather a big claim to make in a business school publication and some may still think it is hyperbole. The scientific evidence is, however, now abundantly clear. If we can’t keep global warming to under two degrees, vast areas of the earth will become uninhabitable, rain forests will burn while the lack of water and sea level rises will inevitably lead to the dislocation of millions of people. Our industrial and agricultural activities are also driving great swathes of the world’s flora and fauna to extinction. Over-fishing and acidification are now emptying our seas of life and the earth’s soils, which provide most of our food, are being degraded, eroded and lost at an alarming rate.

Some of the largest polluters in the world publish fabulous annual CSR reports, while still doing little or nothing to embed sustainable thinking and practice into their business.

Anyone who is even remotely aware of what is going on in the world will know all this. Of equal importance are social issues. Many of the most pressing social challenges in the world today are in fact the other side of the same coin. Poverty, famine, displacement, migration, disease and even some “natural disasters” are often the direct consequence of environmental degradation as well as being the result of the inequity of our present international trading system.

It is not my purpose here just to repeat or re-present these facts. Others can and have done so better and more authoritatively. One only needs to watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth or read Mark Lynas’s accessible but rigorous Six Degrees to understand the scale of the problem. The latest report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) itself, although generally quite conservative due to the need to balance the economic vested interests of so many national parties, predicts a rise in average world temperature of between two and six degrees if we continue on our present trajectory.

The question I would like to address here is how we as business people can help transform our awareness of our ecological responsibility and, subsequently, be supported in our endeavours to bring such thinking and behaviour into our work, lives and organisations? And how can we do this while still meeting the legitimate expectations of our organisations? Are these two aims even congruent?

When confronted with the facts of our species’ culpability in destroying our home, the Earth, the first reaction of many of us is either despair or denial. Sometimes we flip between the two. It is a strange irony that while the human race generally regards itself as all-powerful and as uniquely capable of controlling and exploiting our environment to our own advantage, as individuals we feel powerless. In the face of such a huge challenge what can we really do as a small individual to make a difference? Often we answer “nothing” and having sighed a little we get on with our lives. Business as usual indeed! Denial can take many forms. In their excellent book Positively Responsible, Cary Cooper and Erik Bichard, quoting the work of Chris Rose, list several types of deniers, I characterize them below:

• The indifferent — we could do with warmer weather!
• The doubters — there’s no unequivocal evidence.
• The re-assigners — it’s not caused by humans.
• The deflectors — it’s real but not my responsibility.
• The feasibility sceptics – we will never be able to change what we do enough
• The cynics and reasoned doubters – if it is a real problem the market will sort it out

In my own thirty years in the business world, if I exclude those people who are truly not aware of the gravity of the situation (what Chris Rose calls “Uninformed deniers”), I guess that the vast majority of managers I met fell into the despair or denial camps. I can’t even exclude myself from this. In the 1970’s the books that influenced me most profoundly included The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, Eric Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful and Susan George’s A Fate Worse than Debt. So even if this was in an era before we had heard anything about climate change, I was not unaware of the issues. Despite this, and even as the degradation of the planet continued apace, I felt I couldn’t do anything and just got on with my life and work. Most of the people I know in the business world did and continue to do the same.

Today many companies are finally taking the issue of corporate social and ecological responsibility seriously. In some cases this amounts to little more than “Greenwash”. There are many rather vacuous corporate “Mission Statements” mentioning sustainability, the environment and responsibility towards stakeholders other than shareholders. Some of the largest polluters in the world publish fabulous annual CSR reports, while still doing little or nothing to embed sustainable thinking and practice into their business. Nevertheless, there are now many other examples of businesses that truly do care and are taking determined action to “do their bit”.

Large organisations today invariably have a whole raft of well developed leadership and management development criteria and associated programmes.  Some of these are wonderful. Others, usually involving ropes and building bridges, are a waste of time and money. In the majority of cases, however, the emphasis is not on responsibility, except perhaps to shareholders, and certainly not on environmental responsibility and sustainability.

A whole new industry now exists to help business be more sustainable. There are many green technologies available and many consultants and experts who can help companies drive sustainable practice down through the supply chain. There are also a few excellent business school programmes on Sustainable Development and similar themes. So the tools and practices exist to enable businesses to reduce their footprint radically while at the same time continuing to be successful and make a profit. On this latter point, there are now dozens of examples of companies that have actually prospered while also implementing sustainability. The carpet tile manufacturer InterfaceFLOR is one of the best known. Its founder, Ray Anderson, rightly says, “The cheapest barrel of oil is the one you don’t buy!”

If it is true that the facts of global warming, loss of biodiversity and the degradation of the environment are out there in abundance and that sustainable tools and practices have been pioneered and can be applied, then what is stopping businesses doing more, really being responsible? In my view it all comes down to individual managers and leaders themselves. Much of the attention of the environmental movement has been and still is addressed to governments and the “corporate sector” in general. At the other extreme individuals are exhorted to recycle better, fly less and not use petrol guzzling SUVs to take their kids to school. All this is absolutely needed and justified. But any company or organisation consists of people and only people. People created organisations and people can change them.

The willingness to take action must undoubtedly be supported from the top. It might be instigated there or it might not. The important thing is that spread throughout any organisation there are numerous leaders and managers with influence, if at first only in their own domain; their team, department or sector. Unless these managers really can transform their awareness, and then have the commitment and courage to bring pro-environmental thinking and behaviour into their work and decisions, little will happen. Even if the CEO would like it to.

If the evidence out there has so far not been enough to generate this level of commitment on a wide scale then what can? There are a number of approaches which can help. The one I would like to highlight centres on appropriate and targeted leadership and management development, whether in-house or in the context of a business school.

Large organisations today invariably have a whole raft of well developed leadership and management development criteria and associated programmes. These can range from learning new skills, how to manage and motivate teams better, all the way to how to think globally or in systems terms. Some of these are wonderful. Others, usually involving ropes and building bridges, are a waste of time and money. In the majority of cases, however, the emphasis is not on responsibility, except perhaps to shareholders, and certainly not on environmental responsibility and sustainability. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often addressed within companies via a number of worthy external initiatives “in the community” or in “developing” countries. Business schools often offer bolt-on, self-standing CSR modules. One of the better examples of the former is PricewaterhouseCooper’s excellent global Responsible Leadership Programme called Ulysses, while Cambridge University’s Programme for Sustainable Leadership is one of the best anywhere. Rarely however is an attempt made to really embed responsible thinking and behaviour throughout the organisation. If organisations and businesses truly want to do this they will need to find ways to help and encourage individual leaders and managers to achieve three things:

• Transforming awareness: A profound and deep-seated transformation of individuals’ awareness of their interconnectedness with the environment and our responsibility towards it is required. This is not just a rational acceptance of the facts and the need for action but rather an often highly personal and emotional transformation based on individuals’ own heart-felt values.

• Making a commitment: Following heightened awareness, individual managers will need to make a firm, specific and real commitment to proto-typing pro-environmental behaviour in their business work and in their lives. Usually targeted within their own organisation, a successful proto-type will encourage more initiatives by the manager him/herself and by others.

• Obtaining support: Without support from the top, from colleagues and from the outside as required, individual managers can often find their courage failing or their commitment flagging in the face of self-limiting doubts and fears. Any leadership/management development programme must find ways of providing this support if responsible behaviour is to last and spread.

My own experience and past work plus that of my partners in our company, The Wild Peak Ltd, has shown that these three aspects can’t normally be “taught” in a conventional lecture room or using the case study method but they certainly can be facilitated via an appropriately designed leadership/management programme. Individual transformations, shifts in awareness and making commitments are often very intense and emotional processes. Rarely are they prompted by yet another slide presentation. They are – it must also be said – extremely empowering and enlightening events. We have found and believe that such transformations and commitment towards ecological responsibility can best be achieved outdoors, in nature and, wherever possible in the “Wild”. Why? Because it is there amidst the power of nature that one can get in touch with the awe and wonder of our interconnectedness with the world and begin to access a deeper awareness of our impact on the planet. Individuals can discover what values are really important to them and make a commitment to proto-type these is their own chosen way when “back in the office”. A variety of techniques and methods can be deployed to achieve this end. We use several, drawn from the fields of Behavioural and Eco- Psychology, Change Management, Experiential/Action Learning, Wilderness Experiences and Executive Coaching. Our own Leadership development model is called “CARE”:

• Creativity: How do I rekindle it?
• Authenticity: How do I become a more Authentic Leader?
• Responsibility: How can I make a difference?
• Effectiveness: How can I communicate and behave more effectively?

Running the risk of being too simplistic or reductionist, if we care about something enough in business, as elsewhere in life , we perform better; within our teams, in our companies and, hopefully, for the wider world.

Transformation and commitment, whilst necessary, are not sufficient. People also need to be “effective” and, as I have mentioned, unless they are supported in their proto-typing efforts once back at work they will probably not be so for very long. Their courage and stamina may falter because of fears that such “new” thinking is not really appreciated by the powers that be in their organisations. Thus any leadership or management development programme that seeks to encourage responsible behaviour needs to specifically address how such behaviour can be supported in the hurly-burly of everyday business life. The use of on-going executive coaching can help maintain the momentum as can designed “self-support” from within the programme groups themselves.

The Wild Peak’s approach to Leadership Development for Corporate Ecological Responsibility is certainly just one way that businesses can forward their desire to embed responsibility throughout their organisation. Whatever methods organisations or business schools chose to bring Ecological Responsibility into all aspects of their work it is of the utmost importance and urgency. As Al Gore said at last year’s Skoll World Forum at Oxford University:

“What is our purpose? …. Our purpose is blindingly clear. What we do or fail to do in our lifetimes will determine whether or not any future generations of human beings are able to enjoy a favourable environment and conditions conducive to the survival of human civilization. Our purpose therefore is to find a way to save the habitability of the planet”

There is no single solution or silver bullet to make our civilisation less destructive and more sustainable. Green technology, reducing fossil energy usage and wastage, legislation and changes in individuals’ life-styles  all have a significant role to play, as does a shift in “consciousness” within the leadership of thecorporate world. This would manifest itself as a new willingness to think and behave in an ecologically responsible way, if not for ourselves then at least for our children and grandchildren.

Stephen Lewis Stephen.lewis@thewildpeak.com

Stephen Lewis is the Founder and Managing Director of The Wild Peak Ltd (www.thewildpeak.com) and a Manchester Business School MBA (1983).

Image provided courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosimoes7/1301014184/