TOOLKIT
My practice runs on Powernoodle, a cloud-based collaboration platform that builds on more than fifty years of evidence-based learnings from cognitive, behavioral, and decision sciences. Using this platform adds value by increasing participation and decreasing time:
• Smart anonymity encourages open expression of ideas and reduces biases.
• People engage in facilitated processes from wherever they are, whenever they have time.
• Face-to-face meetings focus on the critical few topics that demand more nuanced debate.
Three elements of my toolkit are described below. Others, like process mapping, change management, or lessons learned, can be incorporated based on the client’s needs.
DECISION QUALITY. Making better decisions – in sustainability or any discipline – is a goal everyone can agree with, but almost no one accepts that they aren’t already experts. Nonetheless, study after study indicates that decisions made with confidence using a sound process and then implemented with alacrity by a prepared organization are not the norm.
Decision Quality (DQ) provides a practical and tested framework. The power of DQ comes from understanding that the “soft side,” or how people think, feel, and act is as important as the “hard side,” which includes data science, operations research, and other quantitative techniques.
Approach:
• The right people in the right roles
• Organizational and personal biases are transparent
• Level of rigor appropriate is for the value and complexity
• Readiness to implement considered along the way
RISK MANAGEMENT. One need not be a risk expert to describe the world of today as VUCA — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Leadership teams are challenged by diverse stakeholders to articulate how different sustainability risks — from changing climate and environment to reducing inequality and providing decent work — could affect choices made today and their organization’s long-term success.
Integrating sustainability into the overall enterprise risk management process helps address how emerging opportunities and threats may play out along with other business dynamics.
Approach:
• Risk management best practices emphasizing ESG frameworks
• Articulate risk scenarios using cause-event-consequences language
• Emphasis on both capturing opportunities and avoiding threats
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT. Connectivity is our way of life: everyone knows everything almost instantaneously. Listening to diverse stakeholders may be the most critical activity for any organization. When done well, it is a profound act of leadership and a source of innovative solutions.
Stakeholder’s perspectives need to be part of setting a strategy, making decisions, and managing risk. Active engagement considers the myriad of stakeholders along the value chain —suppliers, employees, customers, governments, interest groups — and considers them broadly.
Approach:
• Stakeholder engagement best practices and gap analysis
• Stakeholder mapping relative to strategies, risks, and on-going operations
• Developing engagement approaches to promote innovation