I have posted a survey for organisational change agents, as part of my research for a forthcoming chapter in a book on organisational change and sustainability, published by Greenleaf in 2012. Please note that the survey is now closed. The paper can also be accessed here.
If you want to dive into the detail, here is a pdf of the full responses.
Thanks for collaborating!
Penny
Here are three great ice breakers for meetings, as described in a recent column in the environmentalist. They are:
NB the photo used to illustrate the article is not a meeting set-up I would recommend. And what's with all those tissues...?
Use, adapt, enjoy, tell me how it goes, and warm things up a bit.
Distilling practical experience and really helpful theory, the 2006 Change Management for Sustainable Development practitioner is my modest contribution to helping sustainability professionals harness the insights from organisational development, change mangement and behaviour change. It also features blank spaces for you to make your own notes, so it's as much like a conversation as I could make a paper-based book. And there are downloadable worksheets on IEMA's website, it you want to run workshop sessions using some of the exercises.
I'm delighted that people have found it helpful, and that - for example - it's been drawn on in subsequent IEMA practitioner guides like this one on climate change.
One of the things we do at the one-day Change Management training workshop is to look through a decision tree (aka flow chart) to see which approach to change might be most effective, given the starting point of each person on the course. Questions to ask yourself include:
The flow diagram is explained in this article, first published in the environmentalist.
The next workshop is on 20th July in Leeds - why not book to join us?
There's a part of the UK's business ministry, BIS, which provides expert guidance on public dialogue, as well as promoting and supporting dialogue projects. The Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre has supported dialogues on a wide range of science and technology subjects, including nanotechnology, hybrid embryos and how to make the shift to low-carbon energy sources. There's a set of principles to guide people who are setting up a dialogue, so they can keep it open and multi-directional. Crucially, there needs to be a policy 'owner' in Government who will use the outcomes of the dialogue to help form policy.
Plenty of case studies are available on the Sciencewise-ERC website. Since every project has to be independently evaluated, there are also evaluation reports. And there's a team of Dialogue and Engagement Specialists (I'm part of this team) to advise.
Find out more in this article I wrote for the environmentalist, published in June 2010, "Wise up! Engaging the public in science and technology".
If you're trying to get fashion-crazy teens and young people interested in climate change, it makes sense to start where they are. And that's what Global Cool have done, in their Eighteen Degrees of Inspiration campaign. But isn't it superficial, missing the point, and above all not going to get the scale of change we need at a systemic level?
Well, according to Chris Rose's VBCOP theory, starting where people are and eliciting changed behaviour for non-'green' reasons is the most effective way to build up political space for systemic change.
Want to know more?
I've written about this in the environmentalist, and you can read that article here.
Ever been in a meeting where everyone is sure they've tried everything, and nothing works? And nothing will ever work?
And it's everyone else's fault?
Sure you have!
Tempered radicals and other internal change agents face this kind of situation alot. So do external consultants, activists and coach / facilitators.
"The eco-champions meetings I go to are a real groan fest!"
When I was faced with this heartfelt description in a training workshop, we spent a bit of time coming up with ideas. But I was sure there must be some even better approaches than the ones we suggested.
So I posted a question on two great forums: AMED (the Association of Management Education and Development) and IAF (the International Association of Facilitators).
The useful suggestions from fellow facilitators, coaches and OD (organisational development) professionals gave me a lot of chew on, and the result is this article. It was first published in the environmentalist, and has also been reproduced in the IAF Europe newsletter.
Your own experiences and suggestions are very welcome!
Not groaning,
Penny
The latest 'engaging people' column has just been published in the environmentalist, and it's about ecosystem services and stakeholder engagement. It was a lot of fun writing this article with the erudite and ebullient Mark Everard, who I first met when working with The Natural Step. Mark is one of that rare - but thankfully increasing - breed of technical experts who really understand the importance and value of stakeholder engagement.
The article explores engaging people in using an ecosystems services approach to understand places, problems and solutions.
It was great to compare experiences of running stakeholder workshops which are either centred on ecosystems services, or included a nod to that way of thinking.
Mark's experience has been more extensive than mine, and he seems to have witnessed more positive resolutions. When a farmer asked "what is the job of a river" in the workshop I was running, he gave his own answer: it's to carry water away from farmland as fast as possible. There wasn't the opportunity to enable a longer conversation which could acknowledge watery multi-tasking, and the benefits people from it.
We all rely on ecosystem services, whether we like it or not. We all eat food. We all drink water. We all breathe air. Mostly, in a country like the UK, we just don't realise that these are ecosystem services - carrots come from the supermarket, not an ecosystem.
But it seems to me that some people feel threatened by the weight given to ecosystem services which seem - to them - to be more 'about birds than people'. Dialogue which enables deeper understanding of our dependence on the natural world is enormously helpful, but in my experience it is hard to engage people in this kind of conversation when they are suspicious that the process it is part of is an excuse for stopping them meeting what they see as their more immediate and direct needs.
So I'm excited to hear about Mark's successes in moving beyond mistrust.
A bright, warm, sunny, late October day.
The sky is blue, butterflies are dancing through the air and a fat red dragonfly buzzes us as we walk along the footpath in our T-shirts.
I want to lose myself in how lovely it is, but part of me is saying "We'll be nostalgic about cold cloudy autumn days with proper rain once climate change kicks in".
Curses! Sustainable development change agents have a hard time of it, what with being so aware of impending ecosystem collapse and the paltry efforts our organisations are making to stop it.
Can't we just enjoy the sunshine and let tomorrow worry about itself?
How do we feel about it? And how do we help ourselves feel effective, empowered and persuasive in the face of the latest information on ice melt, ocean pH and HIV/Aids? This survey of organisational change agents may help you feel less alone.
Take a look at this slide show, that illustrates the results of the same survey and draws some conclusions.
What do you feel about it?
*Update: Jonathon Porritt blogs about optimism and pessimism here.
*Update 2015: Roger Harrabin writes about scientists's tears, and the comments are very telling too.
The latest issue of the environmentalist includes an article I've written, entitled "who can help me make this change?". In it, I share an approach I've used successfully in training courses and (as my daughter would say) in true life: it helps people to systematically identify key internal and external players who can help them bring about the change they want to see. If a particular person or group are crucial to making the change happen, then you want them to be supportive of it. Ask them what they'd like to see happening, and how you can help them. Find common ground and enlist their support.
If someone is already very supportive, but not really needed, then see what they can do to influence or recruit those who are needed. Or enlist them to support you.
Remember, the art of engaging people to help create transformational change involves listening and letting go.
I love World Cafe as a 'technique' to use in meetings. And I was privileged to go to one where Peter Senge was one of the facilitators. This article - a longer version of one I wrote for the environmentalist - explains more about the technique, and the results that emerged from this meeting of a mixture of climate change professionals and activists.
It won't have escaped your notice that not everyone in the UK loves wind turbines. So if you're planning to add to our renewable energy capacity, you might want to think about how to involve your neighbours early on. In 2005 my article (pdf) in the environmentalist described some interesting initiatives specifically designed to help those promoting or planning wind energy developments, to engage their stakeholders.
...the North Wind and the Sun? In Aesop's fable, these two characters argue over who is the strongest, and decide to settle the matter by seeing who can get a traveller's cloak off his back.
For those of you unfamiliar with Greek tales, the denouement can be found here. And while you read it, you might reflect on our behaviour change strategies - and which are most effective.
Too often, I meet with people who see stakeholder engagement as a more sophisticated way of selling their messages to potential critics. That's not the game I'm in!
Don't bother asking people what they think if you're not willing to change your plans as a result.
This article explains why you need to act in good faith when you're listening to your stakeholders.
I've been using a new categorisation recently with good effect, courtesy of Lindsey Colbourne and Sciencewise:
There is absolutely a role for all three, and many processes or even single events will include ways of doing all three.
But if you want buy-in, and want those implementing the outcomes to want to do so, collaboration is the way. And more fun, IMHO.
Facilitator and blogger Myriam Laberge has explored this a bit too.
When we write a blog post, draft a leaflet, design a poster or click 'publish', it's important to think about who we're trying to reach, and what will get through to them. This isn't just about the mechanisms, it's also about the tone of voice, the words we choose and the messages we decide to present. Sometimes we get it right, by chance or intuition. Sometimes - especially when we're trying to reach out beyond people like us - we fall flat on our faces.
Here's some ways that you can segment your audiences, to make sure your talking gets heard. The article was first published in the environmentalist.
At an action research seminar organised by Bath University, Dr Gill Coleman shared a work-in-progress: a learning history of the iconic eco-factory built by MAS Intimates in Sri Lanka. By coincidence (if you believe in it), someone from MAS had been a student on the Post-Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business (on which I was a tutor) so I was intrigued to listen to this detailed inside story.
I've written more (in the environmentalist) about learning histories as an 'intervention', and about the eco-factory here .
Good. Then I'll begin. Stories are a powerful way to get your message heard. And telling our own stories is a powerful way of helping us to make sense of our experiences.
The story you tell might, when you examine it, be unwittingly framing a situation. Change the frame and you may see something different.
Making sense of stories and unravelling their role in building better understanding between us are just two of the themes covered in my article on stories for the environmentalist.
Here's a round up of stories about climate change, from the good people over at the Centre for Alternative Technology.
There's a neat metaphor for understanding the delicate relationship between a change maker (be they in a formal leadership position or leading from the middle) and the rest of the people in an organisation. Imagine you are connected to the rest of the organisation by a big elastic band. As you move off in the direction of more ambitious, radical change, the elastic stretches. The pull on the others may be just enough to get them moving and bring them with you. You stay a bit ahead, to maintain momentum.
But if you go too far ahead, and they aren't ready to move so fast or such a distance, then the bounce goes out of the elastic, the tension rises and -ping- it snaps.
As a result, there's nothing holding you back!
But, unfortunately, there's no-one moving in your direction any more, either. And, if you look back now, you'll see that you're alone.
This article I wrote for Croner helps you check that you're involving people properly. They're happy for me to include the original here, as long as I say this:
"This report was published as part of Croner's Environmental Policy and Procedures, a resource designed to guide organisations through setting up an effective environmental management system. For more information on this and other products published by Croner, go to www.croner.co.uk or telephone 020 8547 3333."
Which I'm happy to do.
From time to time I've been invited to work with Jane Ashton and her team at First Choice, now part of TUI Travel plc. Jane understands the importance of enabling sustainable development to leave the safe haven of the CSR team, and spread virally through the organisation. One way that First Choice encourages this is through tailored training for people in different parts of the organisation, whether they work in retail shops, in holiday destinations, liaising with local suppliers of accommodation and activities, or in teams that dream up the new products to sell to holidaymakers. I was delighted to be asked to work with Jane's team and the Travel Foundation to develop this training.
Once piloted by First Choice, the training courses and materials were made generic, so that any similar business in the sector could use them. This won't just help staff become more aware of sustainable tourism, it will also help them plan together how to rethink their own businesses to make them more sustainable.
You can access those training materials here.
I get uncomfortable when greener-than-thou environmentalists criticise others, because of their supposed hypocrisy. I think it leave us all vulnerable to a similar criticism, and seems lacking in empathy.
That doesn't mean that I think we shouldn't pay attention to our own environmental footprint. What it does mean is that when we are reflecting on our practice as change-makers of one kind or another, we can be a little more sophisticated, and avoid judging ourselves (and others) as either eco-sinners or saints.
In my own work, I've been able to help fellow climate-change champions to reflect in a structured way on their personal and collective environmental footprints, and how to manage the (inevitable) incongruence between what they espouse and their personal negative impact, using a workshop format.
That workshop format, and the results, are described in Being the Change for Climate Leadership, first published in Organisations & People, the journal of AMED (the Association of Management Education and Development).