Home | Sustainable Development Resources | Cultivating Sustainable Enterprise Business Culture
Cultivating Sustainable Enterprise Business Culture
Sustainable enterprises measure business success using triple bottom line (TBL) metrics: financial profitability, social equity and ecological integrity. Outstanding TBL business performance demands cultures embracing: 1) continuous refreshment of workforce talent; 2) responsible use of environmental resources, and 3) deliberate alleviation of societal ailments.
Most change initiatives fail because they focus only on the tangible components of the business enterprise: its basic structures, technologies, systems, and work processes. Successful transformational change alters intangible components of the business enterprise: the way people perceive their roles, approach their jobs, and make choices on a daily basis.
The Idea in Practice
Changing business culture requires alterations in organizational DNA forming the roots of corporate identity. This is an iterative process involving opportunity analyses, work process reinvention, work implementation, business performance measurement and alignment of enabling processes and reward systems.
Installing sustainable development cultures entails: a) envisioning a compelling future state to which people can aspire; b) developing shared values and behaviors aligned with achieving the future vision; c) ensuring that everyone receives the knowledge and skills required to succeed in the future environment; and d) creating an environment in which people at every level see visible, functional examples of the new behaviors they’ve been asked to embrace.
We realign deep seated behavior patterns using four transformational elements: Framing, Aligning, Igniting, and Refreshing (FAIR):
- Framing: shifting corporate mindsets to develop fresh mental models of what we are and what we can become; expanding corporate identity to infuse new visions, aspirations, and resolve
- Aligning: adjusting economic models, aligning physical infrastructure and redesigning workplace processes and procedures to achieve a competitive level of performance. This is more than simply restructuring organization charts to cut heads and reap fast financial payoffs; reinvention requires comprehension and apprehension of fresh capabilities needed to sustain enterprise advantage
- Igniting: kindling growth through achieving market focus, inventing new businesses, and using technology to change the industry rules of competition. promoting organic growth and stimulating new competitive capability most clearly differentiate organization transformation from mere downsizing
- Refreshing: adjusting enterprise information metabolism to foster creativity, generate energy, and restore esprit de corps; investing individuals with new skills and purposes, thus permitting the organization to regenerate itself; revitalizing enterprise sense of community is the most challenging, yet potentially most potent, transformation tool available to organization leaders.
FAIR methodology installs the fundamental business capabilities every company needs to survive and thrive in the sustainable development world of the 21st century.
