To become sustainable you have to manage change. Here's how.
Guest post
This week I’m really happy to host Richard Newton, a programme director with more than thirty-five years of delivery/change experience and author of several books including Managing Change Step by Step. I have long believed the real issues are those we don’t see, and handling change is right near the top of the list so I was keen to get a view of sustainability from this perpective.
What are the challenges a business will face moving to a more sustainable model?
“Becoming a truly sustainable business requires a wide range of adaptations in the way you work. The list of adaptations is long. For example, you may need to adapt how you make your products and services; you may need to alter the suppliers you use; you could improve the way you heat and light your buildings; perhaps you seek to change the behaviour of staff in everything from their use of transport, lights, kettles and other energy using devices; maybe you can enhanced the way you distribute your products and services. What are the right and most impactful changes you can make needs careful thought.”
But how can a business make that change happen?
“Achieving sustainability is not just an issue of choosing what changes to make, you also have to implement them, and that’s critical. It’s action that will make a business sustainable, not good intentions, no matter how well thought through.
And here there is a challenge, because as has been shown time and time again there is a vast chasm between intentions and the implementation of those intentions. It is this chasm that is often why sustainability plans fail, rather than the lack of vision or good intentions in the first place. But this gap between intention and implementation is not unique to sustainability. Businesses struggle in all sorts of ways to implement projects and strategies.”
Achieving sustainability is not just an issue of choosing what changes to make, you also have to implement them, and that’s critical. It’s action that will make a business sustainable, not good intentions, no matter how well thought through.
Could you explain what this chasm is?
“People in businesses are often resistant to adapting to new ways of working. There are many reasons for this, from the simple one that staff may feel worse off because of some change, because the change is inconvenient to them, or for more complex psychological factors. It just seems to be that as human beings we don’t particularly like change, even the best intended ones. We emotionally tend to respond negatively to any changes. Yet without change we will never achieve anything new – including improving our levels of sustainability.”
So how do we deal with this resistance?
“This is an old problem, and there is a well tried and tested way to approach change that helps to improve the probability that change will happen, be successful and be long lasting. This approach is called change management. Change management can become quite complex, but at its heart are some relatively simple ideas that anyone can use.
If you start out with a view that any change you make is likely to be responded to by some level of resistance by your staff, then you can use change management to help.”
Could you go into the process a little?
“Change management starts by considering the impact of a change – who is going to be impacted, and how are they likely to respond? And also reflects on how ready the organisation is to change. For example, is this a dynamic organisation that readily adapts and alters all the time, or is this a more traditional organisation that has been working the same way for a long time?
Once you have thought through these issues you can make a plan to assist the change. That plan may include various aspects. Common aspects are:
how are you going to communicate the changes you are going to make so everyone understands them and are ready for them?
how will you educate everyone to understand and be able to work in the new ways?
how will you make the changes interesting or exciting to staff so they adopt them?
how will you encourage staff to work in the new ways? People usually don’t do things just because you say they should
How will you continue to reinforce the changes? – starting when the changes are new, through to the time when the change has just become the accepted way of working. This often takes longer than people first imagine”
Change is difficult, is there anything you can say to encourage people about to engage in it?
“Yes. Although businesses often see sustainability as something new, there are tried and tested management tools that you can use to help support your sustainability journey. Change management is going to be one of the critical ones. If you have planned a journey to sustainability for your business, it is worth considering that journey through the lens of change management.
As an added bonus you will acquire a new skill for your business that has far wider uses than your sustainability journey.”
Resources
Managing Change Step by Step https://www.amazon.co.uk/Managing-Change-Step-build-happen/dp/0273711776/
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