Sustainability – great engineering isn’t enough

I’ve enjoyed reading Jim Stengel’s bestseller Grow, in which he explains how pursuing great values is critical in the game of trying to grow a business.  He shows some credible evidence – does this mean that sustainable approaches to business aren’t important to growth after all?  Are values all that matter?

In fact, much of his argument sounds like a sustainable business story, but with different language.  In essence (and I don’t do justice here – read the book) he’s saying that if the people involved in your business are all on the same page, engaged, and positive about your mission, you’ll do well.  And these are the very qualities that are critical to a business on a sustainability path.

Great engineering, fully engaged kids.  Credit: Extra Ketchup

The journey towards sustainability needs to be part of the CEO’s vision – but it’s not something that can just be imposed, like an ERP system.  Employees, suppliers, customers and partners all need to be engaged and positive about the sustainability mission.  They all need to understand what it really means, and agree on where that puts the priorities.  You want people to be so engaged and committed that there is no temptation to game your measurement systems, or to undermine outcomes for the sake of attention or status.

Business values and stakeholder engagement often receive too little attention in attempts to create change towards a more sustainable business model.  No doubt this is in part because the phrases are so clichéd – of course we’ll do stakeholder engagement, this is part of our core values.  Engagement is a bolt-on “done” by some department or external expert.  Values are a given.  It’s hard to think about them in a way that is wholly integrated with the sustainability journey.

The struggle to give this “touchy feely stuff” enough attention may also be influenced by a tendency for the engineering approach to sustainability to take over.  Because a firm needs systems thinking, robust measurement, and a sophisticated understanding of process technologies (in the strict and loose senses) to identify problems and solutions, this is naturally going to be the dominant mode of thinking about the change process.  But change involves people, and their behaviours and relationships are not so easily engineered. 

Stengel isn't really talking about sustainability, but he does seem to have an insight into part of the solution to this dilemma.  Any company that feels stuck on its sustainability journey even though it has a great understanding of where it's going may do well to ask it's stakeholders - are we all moving together?