Grow Me The Money Business Sustainability Forum

Leadership is crucial for driving sustainability in organisations, yet little is known about what sustainability leadership involves. For an insight into how others have sought to advance sustainability in their organisations follow the link below to find a terrific bunch of articles from the WME magazines May 2008 issue

http://www.wme.com.au/magazine/downloads/LEADERSHIP_FOR_CHANGE_08.pdf

Here are a few snippets of the strategies used by others to make their workplace more sustainable:
- Look for opportunities to link sustainability to your organisations strategic objectives
- View the environment as part of your core business
- Work out how sustainability links to your organisations core business drivers
- Seek to embed sustainability into your organisations decision making processes
- Collaborate and communicate with people from all over your organisation

Anyone trying to create environmental change in their organisation is a sustainability leader in my opinion, so if you have experiences to share about how you've gone about creating environmental change in your workplace please tell us all about it.

We actually know a lot about leadership that we didn't in the 20th century. One the things we know is that leadership doesn't have to be about charisma, and anyone can improve their skills.

A key book on leadership is "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. He describes "Level 5 leadership" - the kind that's sustainable for the individual without burnout.

Ray Anderson is a great example of many of these leadership skills, and his story of re-inventing InterfaceFLOR as a regenerative business could almost be a case study for "Good to Great".

Anyone who really wants to influence business should read these books side by side, and start improving their communication and leadership skills.

While you're at it, get your head around the emerging regenerative business models behind "Natural Capitalism" and "Cradle to Cradle" so you can talk to business people about the real profitable opportunities.

"An Inconvenient Truth" and most of the mainstream media stories concentrate on the problem - they ignore the good news about the emerging profitable green businesses that will be increasingly common in this century. If all you do is nag people to use less, they'll stop listening and start resisting. Communicate in terms of what your listener is interested in, and find ways to move "I can do that" out of the home and into business.

So true, it is the positive examples which get people’s attention, inspire action and create sustainable change. In leadership, vision is critical. Anyone who wants to make their business more sustainable would benefit greatly from the books you recommend, particularly 'Natural Capitalism' and 'Cradle to Cradle' as they both present an inspiring vision of the future.

The emerging models of green business put forward in these books have enormous potential both economically and environmentallly. They also highlight a range of organisations who are already realising serious environmental and economic benefits through their sustainability initiatives, thus showing what businesses can achieve today.

For anyone that hasn't read them, the ideas, principles and examples set out in these books have great potential to transform our society, economy and planet. 'Natural Capitalism' is a fantastic book which I highly recommend. It is because of that book that I decided to get into the business sustainability field in the first place. If you want to know what the future is going to look like and how to make your business survive and thrive, be sure to put it on your reading list.

Balance3, your post started me thinking about other literature on business sustainability which people might find interesting and useful. Here are a few that we in the Grow Me The Money office recommend:

- 'The Ecology of Commerce' by Paul Hawken

- 'Sustainability: The corporate challenge of the 21st century' edited by Dunphy, Benveniste, Griffiths and Sutton.

- 'Good News For A Change' by David Suzuki and Holly Dressle

- 'Fostering Sustainable Behaviour: An introduction to community-based social marketing' by Doug McKenzie-Mohr and William Smith.

In addition to these, here are a couple of links to some short articles by the people behind Natural Capitalism, L. Hunter Lovins, Amory B. Lovins, and Paul Hawken:

A Road Map to Natural Capitalism

Harnessing Corporate Power to Heal the Planet

The Rocky Mountain Institute website is also a good source of resources and cutting edge ideas.

If you have other business sustainability books or links to recommend, please share.

One of my favourites in the area of effective communication in business is attached. Its from SimplerWork

www.simplerwork.com (You do have to register an email address, however me experience is that they're don't abuse it.)

Here are a couple of excerpts so you get the feel:

KNOW/FEEL/DO

ONE SENTENCE: What do I want people to know, understand, learn or question?
ONE SENTENCE: How do I want people to feel?
ONE SENTENCE: What do I want people to do as a direct result of my communication?


BEHAVIOURAL COMMUNICATION: MAKING IT AS EASY TO COMMIT, AS IT IS TO COMPLY

• How is this relevant to what I do?
• �t, specifically, should I do?
• Wh�does success look like? (What does failure look like?)
• What�ols and support are available?
• WIIFM — What’s i�t for�? And for us?

While it's written in the context of how to delegate and collaborate, it's process is equally applicable to communicating sustainability effectively (without blame and condemnation).

Build your career skills (85% of what we do at work these days is communication and collaboration) and your skills as a sustainability advocate at the same time.

Interesting article on ethical leadership, its big business focussed but I think the points can be applied to small business as well.

http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?contentid=6350

Leaders come at all levels - a middle manager in a major Australian corporate, the gardener in a small private hospital, as well as CEOs and senior executives.

The first step is often to get out of ''I'm too busy / the government will fix it / I'm not important enough / the boss needs to approve it''.

When we're doing our own jobs by working "smarter instead of harder" then we have time and energy to play a game worth playing. Sometimes time management comes first.

Best leadership video ever....