Creating clarity on a sustainable future

In an earlier post “Conversational practices for smart sustainability professionals” we outlined four types of conversations that contribute to effective communication and collaboration.

The most overlooked type of conversation is a conversation for clarity, where we articulate and test our understanding of a situation; explore the understandings of others; and develop a shared understanding.  Conversations for clarity  eliminate misunderstandings, build trust and allow progress to flow.

Is there a process behind our heroes?

Joel Makower’s recent blog “Why aren’t there more Ray Andersons?” was an interesting read with great insights into who Ray was from other famous sustainability players.  The ongoing conversation from that article is the basis of this post.

There was a process BEHIND Ray Anderson’s “aha” moment on sustainability…

I only met Ray through his books, including “Business Lessons of a Radical Industrialist” and “Mid Course Correction.  Among the many insights he shared was his personal process of transformation. In my interpretation, this was:

• The person – an innovator, entrepreneur and good leader (Jim Collins would say “Level 5”).
• The timing – that he was looking for a new challenge after 20 years of success. – an external prompt – ongoing demand from his customers – to do “more” about sustainability (persistently re-iterated by then research assistant Jim Hartzfeld).
• The do-able first step – to form an internal working party (proposed by Jim Hartfeld).
• A personal challenge to deliver internal inspiration (from Jim Hartzfeld to inspire the working party).
• The timely provision of inspiration (the friend who sent him “The Ecology of Commerce”).
• The realisation we CAN destroy eco-systems (in the book “The Ecology of Commerce”).
• The vision of entrepreneurial possibilities for business (in the book “The Ecology of Commerce”).

If disasters have multiple causes, the emergence of a hero may be the result of a process rather than a miracle. Is a more relevant question “What happened to turn Ray Anderson on to sustainability and how do we re-create the process?” And perhaps we need more Jim Harzfelds as well?

There was a process behind the “aha” moments that got me started, too…

What stopped me for many years was the assumption (I think based on mass media messages) that sustainability was a problem, that there were no potential solutions, and that the primary thing for me to do was use less.

What got me turned on was also a process :

• Turning 40 and asking “well what do I REALLY want for myself in the coming decades” (to make a difference reducing corporate burnout as a professional coach)
• Learning to listen to myself during my initial coaching studies
• Noticing that I was (reluctantly) interested in a Masters in Sustainability announced at lunchtime during graduate eCommerce studies
• Doing post graduate studies and being introduced to the books “Natural Capitalism”, “Mid Course Correction” and “Cradle to Cradle”

There was my serial “aha” (with a great inspiration from Ray Anderson included). I had been a supply chain systems consultant, and these particular books spoke to both my personal and business experience. Because of this experience, I believed (and still hold the assessment) that as an individual consumer I could not make a significant difference. Much as I loved my bush garden, I had no sense of power or possibility or connection to “this sustainability thing”.

What these three books gave me was HOPE – and a positive, explicit vision of practical ways our system could be AND WAS changing. These ways were congruent with my own knowledge of the inside operations of factories and warehouses in a range of industries.

That’s what activated me – HOPE and a specific positive vision.

Our emerging challenge…

In Innovation Diffusion terms, the challenge I see in front of us now is how to get this new way of doing business “across the chasm” to the Early Majority who are motivated differently from Innovators and Early Adopters. My experience in CleanTech circles is that the Innovators and Early Adopters have “got it”.

To me, if popular, powerful voices make “sustainability” look difficult and expensive to the Early Majority then that “chasm” will get wider, especially if they have to risk their reputation on “costly new programs”. So the more well-known people we can get to speak out about how straightforward, sensible and rewarding sustainability is when it’s done strategically to achieve win/win/win outcomes the better.

I assess that it’s also important to distill the systems changes required to get started into simple, powerful memes that suit our time. Easy, useful products and ideas get cross the “chasm” quite easily

Are your opinions making you impotent?

How we understand and explain the world (our assessments) controls what we see, how we act and how we feel.    If our beliefs and opinions are inaccurate or out-of-date we can find ourselves expending enormous amounts of energy without getting the results we want.   We can find ourselves feeling powerless, resentful and on the road to burnout.

If you’re in this situation, then inspecting the quality of your opinions (grounding your assessments) can help you develop new insights about how to achieve the results that you want.

Powerful conversational practices for smart sustainability professionals

“It is through conversations that we interact with each other, coordinate actions and get things done.  Conversations underpin and accompany everything we do, and what we do and do not accomplish.”

Alan Sieler, ‘Coaching to the Human Soul. Volume 1’ p.249

Getting things done in the world – and particularly in business – happens through conversation.  Yet how many of us have been trained to understand and use conversations well?  When did you get taught the basic building blocks of language or the different types of conversations and how to combine them?

Whether you want to influence business leaders, deliver a successful project or organise a dinner party, understanding key types of conversations, their content, structure and purpose can help us communicate more effectively and be more successful.

WHY? WHAT? HOW? WHAT ELSE? 4 key communication elements….

In thinking about the quality of our communication, making sure we cover  4 key learning questions can make a big difference.   Reflecting on mainstream sustainability messages, many of them are really heavy on the “Why?” question (potential ecological catastrophe) and have limited “What?”, “How” or “What Else?” content.  Sustainability practitioners can increase their effectiveness by understanding the basic learning styles and how to present their content…

Learning styles for better communication…

In a public speaking course I did years ago, the trainer introduced the 4MAT learning styles model.  Essentially, it suggested that different people like to learn differently, and that your best option for maximum cover is the following sequence:

1. Why? Imaginative learners need to connect what they’re hearing with prior knowledge and experience.  Connect what you’re communicating with their personal meaning system.
2. What? Analytic learners want to know the underlying theory and the authorities behind it.  Give them information about the facts as experts see them.
3. How? Pragmatic learners want to jump in – to get hands on and learn in the doing. Answer the question “How does this work (specifically)?”
4. What Else?  Dynamic learners learn by doing, and then explore what else they can do with what they’ve learned.  Answer the question “What can this become?”

So if your message isn’t getting through, maybe there’s a gap?  Particularly in group situations, are you  answering all four questions – or is there some key information missing?   If so, you could well be losing part of your audience along the way.

Who are you talking to and what’s their preference?  In individual conversations, check out your receiver’s style.  Touch on all 4 styles and see what they respond to.  If they’re a “What?” person, focus on .  If you’re sending “Why?” or “What Else?” when they’re a jump-in-and-do-it “How?” person, you may not get great results.

4MAT for powerful sustainability messaging…

In my assessment, many sustainability advocates don’t make it past the “Why?” message.  They have lots of reasons about present and developing ecological problems – and that’s about it.

I don’t often hear a specific “What to do” message (apart from “stop what you’re doing now”).  They can’t describe what to do instead;  how to go about doing it; or what else might be possible.  Where there is a “What/How” message, it is often limited to “efficiency” inside the current paradigm, which may not hold great opportunities for many in their audience.

If you want better results, then balance your message…

Make sure you’ve covered “Why?”, “What?”, “How?” and “What Else?” – and in that sequence.  If you don’t have good answers for “What?”, “How?” or “What Else?” then get some. 

Find out who’s getting big shifts and find out what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.  For example, if you want a better industrial system, then find out who’s doing big, profitable reductions and study them.    Don’t forget to go the next step – also find out what else they’re planning or doing.   Then craft a message to reach your target audience.

Our suggested starting point for people in manufacturing  is Ray Anderson’s book “Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist“.   If you have an executive audience that wants “What?”  and “What Else?” without too much “How?” then my “Deep Green Profit Handbook” might suit your needs.

Flexibility Wins…

Take on the challenge “The quality of your communication is the result that you get…”  Blaming your audience limits your options – big time.  Studying how to communicate effectively  will make you more flexible – and the person with the most flexibility is most likely to win overall – in life and in work.

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Leigh Baker is a regenerative business coach and trainer, teaching the core principles of regenerative business and developing the  influencing and communication skills that maximise sustainability and success.  

 

10 tips for getting better results

Can you make an offer too good to refuse?   When you make a request for something to be done, do you get the result you want when you wanted it?    If you want to get better results, there are ten things to consider in how you make your requests.

Making requests (and offers)  is  a key skill for sustainable business advocates, because we’re asking people to change how they live and work.   The better our requests are, the more effective we are in contributing to a regenerative economy.

A fundamental way that we get things done in the world is to make requests and offers.  Up to 80% of the work we do in the world is done in groups, so the better we can organise to get things done, the more effective we will be.    Ontological Coaching provides a great toolkit for using language, including an understanding of how to make more compelling offers and requests.

What’s the success rate of your requests?

Count the number of requests you’ve made today.  How about during the past week?   How many of them got delivered on time, first time AND done correctly?  How much time are you spending following up, correcting and managing problems with delivered requests?   How much more time might you have if you could get just 10% more effectiveness in the requests you make?

The following checklist is adapted from the book “Coaching to the Human Soul Volume 1” by Alan Sieler of Australia’s Newfield Institute (well worth having in your library if you’re in the business of making change happen).

Check the effectiveness of your requests

1. Have you made sure that you’re using words that your listener will understand? Are you clear on the values and beliefs of the person you are asking?   Have you checked your understanding or could you be assuming things that aren’t so?
2. Have you clearly described the task to be performed (including the steps to get started)?  What do you want the person to do?  What resources will they need to use?  What results do you expect?
3. Are the standards (quality) for satisfactory completion of the task explicit?  Do you have an explicit agreement on what success will look like?   Will the person have the resources they need to perform to the required standard?
4. Has the precise time frame for completion been specified?   Does the person doing the task understand how much time they’ll need to allocate?  Do you have a progress check-point?
5. Is the reason for the request is clear?  Check that its importance to you, to those around you and its importance to your listener are explicitly stated?
6. Is the mood of the situation factored in? What’s going on for your listener emotionally and mentally? What are their current priorities?
7. Do you as the requestor have a good understanding and  trust of the competence, reliability, commitment and sincerity of the person you are asking?
8. Has a direct request been spoken?  Have you made sure you’re not being too subtle for the listener?  What could you be assuming?
9. Has the request been made to a specific person who is concerned with the task domain?
10. Has the request is made from a solid belief in its legitimacy and value? (Including your posture, voice volume and tonality if it’s face-to-face).

The better you make your request, the better the result you are likely to get.  So take some time to make sure its working for you.

What about the offers you make?

An offer is essentially a request you make where you do the task for someone (instead of asking them to do a task for you).   In regenerative business practice we’re often making offers to people to make their lives more rewarding, their jobs more successful and their businesses more profitable.  If our offers aren’t made effectively,  the people we’re talking to miss opportunities  – particularly new products, new services and new markets.

So if your offers aren’t being heard, you can use the same 10 point checklist to refine them.

Do you want to be able to make more compelling offers and requests?

The art of making effective offers and requests is a key element of our Influencing and Communication coaching and training programs.   If you need to get more done right, with less supervision and following up then build your mastery of human communication then our Conversation Skills for Change-Makers program might be just what you need!

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Leigh Baker is the author of The Deep Green Profit Handbook: Winning Business Strategies for the Sustainability Revolution. She teaches sustainability innovators how to turn their good ideas into great regenerative business results.

5 tips for effective listening

The first step in innovation success is listening – really getting to know the people you want to influence.  NLP’s model of primary interest filters provides a handy checklist of 5 things to listen for to help you  influence.  Use this list to identify what interests different people have and how you could interest them in the results you want to achieve.

Neuro Linguistic Programming has its roots in the 1970s and has developed a number of useful tools for understanding and influencing human behaviour.   One such tool is the framework of primary interests.  It proposes that there are five basic areas of interest that people have, and that by adapting our conversations to their interests we can influence them more effectively. 

(Later developments  in NLP have identified more specific areas, but the original five are a convenient model to start the process of listening differently.)

5 interests to listen for

There are five main primary interest filters from which different people observe the world.  Most people are particularly interested in one or two. Understand them and recognise them and you can design your messages more effectively:

1. Place-oriented individuals have a strong awareness of their location, and find certain places to be important. Where they did or were going to do something would be a key factor in their decisions.
2. Activity-oriented individuals are interested in focus on what they or others do. This sort likes to be active, going out and doing things.
3. People-oriented individuals are interested in relationships and relating. They tend to be outgoing and friendly and do well in people oriented jobs.
4. Information-oriented individuals focus on ideas and learning – that’s what will engage them.
5. Thing-oriented individuals  focus on what is in the location or environment. They will be interested in  having, owning or collecting objects.

So next time you have someone to influence, listen to them for a while.  Notice what interests and excites them.  Ask them about the weekend, a holiday, or their favourite memory and notice which of the five filters they use most.  Then take some time to think about your innovation.   How could you frame your message in terms of their favourite filters?

What are your filters?

You could also do a self-analysis exercise to know your own preferences, so you don’t project your interests onto other people.  Write about your weekend or latest holiday without thinking to hard.   When you’ve finished, re-read what you’ve written against the five filters.

Other applications

You can use the filters as a way to broaden the audience for articles you write and talks that you give – by covering the five major filters you’ll interest a wider range of people.

The quality of your communication is the result that you get

You can blame the world for not listening, or you can study how to influence the people around you.

How can understanding Anxiety increase your sustainability success?

[cross-posted from my old blog]

When fear continually lives in the background of our existence, even though there is no obvious impending threat, we are likely to be trapped in a mood of anxiety.” – Dr. Ainslie Meares

Anxiety is a powerful emotional contributor to human behaviour and a root cause behind greed and selfishness. The history of the past 100 years can be interpreted as one of constant challenge and uncertainty, increasing underlying anxiety levels in the community and reducing our ability to respond effectively to big challenges.

If we understand the anatomy of persistent moods of anxiety and have tools to shift it then we can be more powerful as a change-maker. The more we build our capability to sustain and share the resourceful moods of curiosity and wonder, the more we can contribute to the spread of Regenerative Business.

Our Anxious History
From at least the start of the 20th century, global events have increasingly challenged our sense of security and certainty. The early 20th century saw World War I and the Great Depression. These were followed as the century continued by World War II, and the Cold War and a range of regional conflicts.

Then as the 20th century ended and the 21st century started, the technology revolution accelerated, terrorism threats increased, and we had a Global Financial Crisis. Nature has added to our challenges, with tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and fires providing additional disruptions.  Future concerns about longer term environmental changes simply add to the mix. 

Anxiety – Mood or Emotion?
In this discussion, we are primarily concerned with a persistent mood of anxiety. We consider anxiety that comes and goes in response to specific circumstances to be a normal human emotion essential to our well being.   What we wish to explore is the existence and persistence of a more subtle mood – the habit of anxiousness and its potential to limit regenerative business innovation.

Like language, our habitual moods are learned early and largely unconsciously – inside the families and networks of social relationships where we grew up. In the same way we learn to speak with our own national or regional accent, we learn a set of understandings about how the world works and how we need to operate in it. These “ways of beings” are not just embedded in our conscious and unconscious thoughts, they also show up in our moods and emotions, and in our bodies as habitual postures and muscle tensions.

Given the history of threats and uncertainties of the 20th century, many of us may be living in a mood of anxiety without really being aware of it. Our anxiety may not be our own, but learned from parents (or grandparents) who were the children of World War I, grew up through the Great Depression, World War II and started their families during the Cold War.

Anxiety Changes Behaviour
Our anxiety increases when there is threat that we don’t feel we have answers to – when we have a problem but don’t see solutions; or when we can only see solutions that will compromise the core issues that we care about – our concerns for comfort, self-esteem and achievement. So if we don’t see that there are solutions, or only perceive solutions that carry big costs, our anxiety increases.

When we live in unresolved anxiety, we tend to act differently. We automatically want to withdraw and to protect ourselves. We put more of our time and our energy into watching out for threats and getting ready to attack the source of the threat. We can end up putting a lot of time and energy into protect ourselves from perceived threats rather than acting towards positive solutions.

 

So anxiety pre-disposes us to play it safe and not take risks. And our protectiveness plays our in a range of behaviours – “…it provokes us into defensive attitudes such as aggression, timidity, suspicion, greed and selfishness, and so makes us a lesser person that we might have been.”

A detailed understanding of the anatomy of habitual moods of anxiety can give us access to ways to shift out of it.  Learning to blend around anxiety can be a powerful tool for sustainability advocates and campaigners.

The Anatomy of Anxiety
The study of Ontology (how humans go about the process of being) provides a valuable insight into the structure of persistent moods of anxiety and ways to explore alternatives.  The mood of Anxiety can be characterized as a strong desire for the certainty of an un-threatening future. At its’ heart there are two assessments:

1.  “The world is an uncertain, threatening place where bad things happen”; and
2.  “I will not be capable of coping if the worst happens and will not survive”

Ontology also emphasizes the power of the mood of anxiety as a deeply embodied way of being, one that operates unconsiously.. We can carry it subtly in our posture – our muscles are tensed in a constant readiness to react and protect our bodies, especially our heads and torsos. We live just a little bit “on the back foot” and out of balance without recognising it.

Not only can we carry anxiety – we can spread it or catch it quite unconsciously. As human beings mirror and match those around us in posture, not just in words.  So we can find ourselves in un-resourceful moods that have little to do with our own circumstances, like an emotional influenza.

From Anxiety to ???
Working with a mood of anxiety is about shifting our assessments about living in an uncertain world – challenging our habitual ways of thinking. Instead of accepting the core assessment “I will not cope in this threatening world”, we can use more positive language:

1.  “The world is uncertain place – it is interesting and fascinating to consider what the future may hold”.
2.  “I have the capacity to learn to deal successfully with life’s uncertainty. I am open to embracing the mystery of life.”

These assessments give us access to the powerful moods of Curiosity and Wonder – a new mindset where we accept uncertainty and exploring new possibilities. When we get curious, we get creative. We begin a quest – asking different questions based on the assessment that we can deal creatively and successfully with the uncertainty of the future.

We can be curious as we ask questions such as:

• I wonder how we could live comfortably AND sustainably?
• I wonder how we could work productively AND sustainably?
• I wonder what might be beyond sustainability? 
• I wonder what it would look like to live and work in a regenerative economy?
• I wonder how we could find valuable ways to meet our customers’ needs in ways that restore our environment and allow our eco-system to regenerate?
• I wonder what new, regenerative products and processes we might develop?

Possibilities for Regenerative Practice
So what does this mean for sustainability practitioners and regenerative business coaches? (I wonder how you’ll find it useful?)

Some of the powerful possibilities we see include:

• Spreading the good news – learning to tell quality stories about exciting win/win/win ways forward. Develop strategies to defuse ambiguity and dilemmas to reduce anxiety.
• Explore your own moods – make sure you’re not an Anxiety carrier.
• Practice embodying resourceful moods such as Curiosity and Wonder. Spread it around.
• Learn to access and generate the moods of Curiosity and Wonder in working with individuals and groups, whether it’s in casual conversation, presentations or workshops.

Focus on Ways Forward
Anxiety particularly becomes dysfunctional if there aren’t credible ways forward. Powerful sustainability advocates offer credible ways forward. They take responsibility for creating hope.

I was at an Adelaide conference in 2009 where a well-known environmental speaker listed a range of pending catastrophes. He spoke really well, creating great energy in the room. Then we got to question time, and someone asked him “What can we do?”

The answer he gave was short and closed. The only thing he had to say was “I don’t know”. The energy in the room vanished. There he was, with a room full of coaches wanting to take action and he – the expert, the keynote speaker – had no possibilities for them to explore. To me, he lost a great opportunity.

We do know what directions to work towards, even if we don’t have all the answers. The design thinking has been done, and we have some pretty good ideas which way to head and how to get started. And we have evidence that regenerative business can be profitable business when it’s designed, planned and executed well.

This doesn’t mean that sustainability practitioners should claim to be experts with all the answers. What it does mean is that they’ll be more powerful if they know some ways forward and can tell powerful, relevant good news stories that will inspire and inform their audience.

Explore Win/Win/Win Possibilities
Part of our 20th century inheritance has been a set of assessments about “environment=cost”. Our initial “answers” were based in scarcity – turn off the air conditioner; turn down the heating; turn off the lights. The mis-conception that this is all there is to “the answer” is still surprisingly common, even in environmental circles.

Broaden your conversations to reduce the anxiety-increasing dilemmas inherent in win/lose solutions. Explore big-picture perspectives that give your audience a better understanding and more possibilities for win/win/win solutions that have financial, environmental and human benefits.

One of our stories is about a pair of invalid pensioners in Adelaide – their new solar power unit is going to pay their rates by selling power back to the grid, not just reduce their energy bills. They win and the environment wins. Less obviously:

• The power supplier has less need for big, inefficient power plants.
• The government wins because they don’t need an energy subsidy.
• Their community wins because they have a little more disposable income to share.

Isn’t that more exciting than “Turn your TV off at the wall…”?

 Explore Your Own Moods
Investigate what you say to yourself and how you feel. Make sure you’re not an unconscious Anxiety carrier. Turn up the volume on your internal commentator and find out:

• What are you saying to yourself about people as individuals?
• What are you saying to yourself about various groups or organizations?
• What are you saying to yourself about yourself and your capabilities?

Put your awareness on your body as well as your language:

• Where’s your centre of gravity? Are you in balance, or subtly “on the back foot”?
• What’s the level of muscle tension in your shoulders and neck? What’s your chin position? 
• Are you carrying a subtle, protective hunch – or are you open to fascinating possibilities and relaxed and accepting of the current situation?

Practice Resourceful Moods
Explore and practice the moods of Curiosity and Wonder. Try making a daily practice of speaking the underlying assessments out aloud:

• I assess that I cannot predict with certainty what the future will bring.
• I declare my acceptance of uncertainty as part of the reality of life
• I assess the world, including its inherent uncertainty, to be interesting and fascinating.
• I assess I have the capacity to learn to deal with the uncertainty of life.
• I declare that I am a learner, with the desire to embrace the mystery of life, open to how I can deal with the unexpected. 

Play “I wonder how I will…” as part of your regular personal practice. Be prepared to do lots of wondering rather than rush to action. You might explore some of these “I wonder how I will…” questions:

• I wonder how I will live more regeneratively?
• I wonder how I will influence my organization to explore regenerative practices?
• I wonder how I will contribute to a prosperous future for my community?

The Player With The Most Flexibility Wins
So next time you find your inner (or outer) conversations being about “selfish, greedy, short-sighted consumers/business/government/parents/GenY” take a pause. How are you making yourself feel? Are you helping your resourceful self find new ways to influence?

If you’re interested in exploring new ways of communicating and influencing, you can:

• Sign up for our newsletter, the Balance3 Update.
• Inquire about our 1-to-1 coaching program Conversation Skills for Change-Makers.
• Inquire about our group training program Conversation Skills for Innovators.

 

Recovering meaning: language tools and sustainability

Listening to a passionate sustainability campaigner recently, I suddenly found myself back in class – more than a decade in the past.  I was in my NLP Practitioner Training and we were talking about language.  Whatever your background, if you’re into coaching you understand just how much the language we use limits our experience and the possibilities that we perceive.

Meta Model Applications in Sustainability

So there I was, time-travelling back to 1998 and exploring the Meta Model – a toolkit for better understanding how thoughts are translated into words.  I was learning in detail the ways in which we move from a thought to word s; we can lose information along the way; and how to recover that information and the powerful new possibilities that come with it.  Some Meta Model structures include:

• Unspecified nouns and verbs;
• Incomplete comparisons;
• Judgments without standards;
• Unspoken rules of necessity and possibility
• Over-generalisations
• In-built assumptions

The particular structure that stood out for me at the time was the use of nominalisations.  The passionate person on television was upset about how “business” and “government” weren’t doing enough for “sustainability” – three nominalisations in a row.  

Can you put it in a wheelbarrow?

When we turn a verb that describes an ongoing process into a noun, linguists describe this as a nominalisation (linguist is a nominalisation of linguistics – the process of studying language).  The test for a nominalisation is “Can I put it in a wheelbarrow?”  If you can’t put it in a wheel barrow, you’ve lost information – you’ve left out the process that’s happening behind your noun.

“Business” is the process of swapping value between people in organisations through the exchange of money, products and services.  “Government” is the process of governing – a town, a state, an institution or a country.  “Sustainability”  – well, that has a wide range of definitions.  I’m more interested in “Regenerative Business” – the proven process of designing and delivering profitable products and services that are good for the eco-system as well as the customer.

The danger of nominalisations is that when you lose sight of the process you lose the ability to a) see it AS a process  and b) work out how to influence the process.  In their book “Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming”, O’Connor and Seymour suggest that “By turning processes into things, nominalisations may be the single most misleading language pattern” (p. 96)  

And to me, that’s what I heard – that the passionate person I was listening to had lost sight of the processes behind the nouns “business”, “government” and “sustainability”.  What could they have lost by doing this?

What’s the process hidden in “business”?

When we nominalise business, we lose sight of lots of things.  Here are just a few:

• Visibility of business as a processes performed by people.
• Visibility of business as a cultural process, with many unconscious mental models still embedded in the nineteenth century.
• An understanding of the challenges that people in business can be subject to (e.g. The e-Myth).
• An understanding of corporations as groups of people – people that can be influenced in lots of different ways.
• An understanding of how many businesses are big corporations, and how many are SMEs responding as best they know how to corporate demands as they perceive them.

(The way to clarify a nominalisation is to turn it into a verb and ask for the missing information: “Who is doing business with whom to provide what products/services and how are they doing it?”)

Humans get things done through language

Whether we’re organising ourselves into action inside our heads, or organising something to get done in the world with a group, the better we use language the better our results (yes, NLPers, there goes an incomplete comparison).

So business development practitioners (whatever their background)  can make a big contribution to a future where profitable businesses  nurture and protect their finite eco-system while delivering satisfying products and services.    This “sustainability” thing is primarily about working more effectively – as individuals and in groups.

Coach yourself about “the environment”

Take a little time for a self-coaching exercise.  Without judging what you’re writing, spend 3-5 minutes writing down what you think about sustainability:

• What are you saying to yourself about sustainability?
• “Should” someone be acting?
• What “should” they be doing?
• What judgments are you making?
• What possibilities DON’T you see?

Then get out your preferred language tools (NLP meta model, ontological basic language acts, whatever).  Read it back and analyse it.   Are you missing out on what some consider “the greatest opportunity since the invention of money” because “it’s nothing to do with me”?

If you’re into coaching, you’re into living better, working smarter, thriving, etc. You’ve trained up on a whole lot of tools and services to help people make their personal and business worlds better. Don’t miss out on your sustainability opportunities because of ungrounded assessments or judgments you’re living in.    Tune the filters on your Reticular Activating System to “opportunity” and see what’s out there.

Let me know what YOU find.

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Want a starting point for your exploration ?  Try our presentation on what’s possible and what’s already happening.  It’s a slide show called “Stories of Deep Green Profit”:

http://www.balance3.com.au/files/Principles%20of%20Deep%20Green%20Profit.pdf