Monday, January 20, 2020

Stop. For Leaders Transitioning to Sustainability Roles. Stop. Reframe To Sustain. Stop.


Last week, a leader was excited to tell us that she had recently taken on the global sustainability role in the organisation. A dynamic leader of 24 years in a FMCG business, she had made her way through the ‘leadership pipeline’ as Charan et.al[1]. described, taking on more complex roles, in new contexts and cultures, each significant turn in organisational position having major changes in job requirements demanding new skills, time application and values.   And now she was given the responsibility of sustainability.

It has taken some time for sustainability to go from something given to the temp as window dressing corporate social responsibility, to being a systemic approach in the business and part of C-Suite thinking and CEO role modelling.  So whenever good leaders announce their new sustainable role, like on LinkedIn, it gives me hope. 

Momentum is gaining. Time is of the essence.  We need our leaders to go full steam ahead. It is the #decadeforaction.

And so paradoxically, it is at this critical transition, this important juncture that such leaders need to stop.   




Because this is not just another change, another complex role.  To use the caterpillar analogy, even big changes like shedding our skin can only take us so far.  At some point, something more transformational needs to happen. As Schein (2015) [2] captured, sustainability is the ultimate team sport.  And for this reason, a chrysalis stage is required. 

At Earth Converse we take a whole-system, mindful and nature-based approach to our conversational work with leaders across sectors.  Our Reframe to Sustain programme is tailored for leaders transitioning into sustainability, inviting them to pause and to take a fresh perspective on nature, leadership and collaboration. 

The programme provides space for stillness, and encouragement to adopt a “beginners mind”, to reflect on their experience and learning so far, and even to scrutinize the lens of that reflection [3].  It is an opportunity for leaders to think about what ‘great work’ [4] means to them – with our ultimate stakeholder and source: nature.  An encouragement to ask the deeper question of why we are worth sustaining, a chance to authentically explore what contribution, we can make to “clean up the mess” [5] and create ‘’regenerative societies’ [6]. And to undertake a rite of passage, to explore what needs to die in order for a rebirth to take place, to truly serve the world. 

We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released…The ecological crisis is doing what no other crisis in history has ever done..challenging us to a realization of a new humanity (Jean Houston)

If you would like to know more about the programme or the work we do, please contact me penelope@earthconverse.com









References:

1. Charan, Ram., Drotter, Steve. and Noel, Jim. (2011), The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company (2nd ed), Jossey-Bass, US

2. Schein Steve, (2015), A New Psychology for Sustainable Leadership: The Hidden Power of Ecological Worldviews, Greenleaf Publishing Limited, UK

3. A reference to double loop learning as advocated by Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1974) Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

4. A reference to what he calls ‘the Great Work’: Berry, Thomas (1999) The Great Work, Bell Tower, US

5. Tolle, Eckhart (2005), The Power of Now, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, UK – reference to his “are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess?” pg. 65.

6. Asking the big questions and going beyond 'sustainable' to 'regenerative' as advocated by Wahl, Daniel Christian (2016), Designing Regenerative Cultures, Triarchy Press, UK





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