When we meet with business leaders and inquire about their interest level in future-proofing their business, there isn’t a single leader who says – not interested.
When we share with them what’s involved, the strategic approach and necessary actions, how we’ve developed a 200-point checklist to shore up vulnerabilities and opportunities, we often witness leaders whose heads nod in agreement – and perhaps with a sense of relief that a partner is here to help.
Yet when we use one word to sum up this all-encompassing work, there is pause.
And that pause of perception reflects a bigger problem – a pause in business growth.
Your business agenda is growth
How you get to the growth you’re aiming for is rooted in your business strategy.
Your business strategy reveals the business priorities that affect people, processes, and outcomes.
And your record of accomplishment gets measured on how well you and your teams have built a growing business and your ability to sustain it. That’s the responsibility – to be a profitable business that pays people, creates jobs, and satisfies customers – all of which are part of doing the right thing.
This is business sustainability, and it is what you’re after, what shareholders want, and what your end customers might desire beyond a great product or service – even when you disagree on what is meant by the nuances of that divisive S word.
You’ve been practicing it all along
In the last decade or so, strategy work has been rebranded and repositioned as sustainability work – and that slight twist of phrase and perception has stymied many business strategies.
So for the sake of example, let’s insert another S word in its place – sustenance. It is defined as maintaining someone or something in life or existence. Your business is that something – and it needs the right sustenance to survive.
What will you do to not only survive, but also thrive?
Attract and compensate the best talent regardless of background, or dismiss it as DEI propaganda?
Make strategic investments that reveal long-term, bottom-line savings – maybe even in energy usage or greener building materials that double as environmental stewardship – or ignore them as wasteful ESG initiatives?
Evaluate the wants and desires of key stakeholders and customers and integrate into your strategy, or ignore the social signals with a heads-down, business-as-usual mentality?
Not surprising, but many successful and growing businesses have been making these strategic, sustainable decisions long before any special interest or partisan perspective on sustainability emerged.
Sustainability work – the deep strategic work that informs processes and systems and impacts people and their collective work outcomes – is about sustenance. It determines your ability to survive all the business challenges coming your way.
Smart businesses assess and apply smart business practices
Regulatory environments change. Social sentiment shifts. And doing the right thing is constantly under scrutiny.
What hasn’t changed is the need for taking regular strategic assessments with a long-term view of what success can and should look like.
It is why – regardless of any love, disdain, or neutral viewpoints for sustainability as we know it – we are actively engaging companies to push through cultural misconceptions. With our expertise in business sustainability, we lead and conduct growth-minded business reviews that comprise people/culture, strategy, brand, processes, industry regulations, core customers, investments, expenses, product analysis, market placement – everything you know that comprises doing business – to deliver on your promise and what you say you stand for.
This is what we mean by future-proofing your business. And there should be no controversy that this is an imperative of every good and growing business.
Define it (or be defined by others)
Most leaders need help working around this landmine of a word, and its practices, because it is preloaded with preconceived ideas. To that we say lean in, and tap into the expertise and support you need to navigate this important strategy work that sustains your business.
And, if it helps you to gain some initial traction among the doubters, you can start by stealing our business definition:
*Sustainability is the right to endure amid environmental, social, and regulatory change.
Genuine sustainability is validated by your people, processes, and your promise—your truth. When it’s yours, you won’t want to do something to do something; you’ll do something that means something.
