What a satisfaction

though posthumous

Knowing when to say enough

What a satisfaction, yes! It is certainly rewarding when something you have believed in for so long – pouring your heart and soul into it and devoting every ounce of energy you have – finally bears fruit. Sometimes, however, the fruit only ripens after you’ve stopped tending the garden and left. You have to accept that.

In fact, sometimes the greatest difficulty – when, for a long time, what you believe in seems to matter only to you – lies in knowing when to call it a day! Turning the page, deciding that the investment is no longer worth it, finding new reasons to move forward in a new direction. This step is far from straightforward. Yet this is also how we grow.

Fortunately, Life is a great teacher, surely the best coach one could wish for. It constantly trains you for the challenges you’ll have to face. In this case, my favourite coach had trained me at length so that one day I’d be ready to let go of a dream, turn the page and set off in a different direction.

Farewell, sustainability

For many years, I have been interested in sustainability and the circular economy. These are topics I came to through the convergence of two fundamental strands of my life: my experience as an entrepreneur, and my studies of Gandhi and peace. These are fields to which I have devoted most of my adult life.

I attribute the “blame” (really a merit) for that interest to an extraordinary person, Ray Anderson, the legendary CEO of Interface. Sadly, Ray has not been with us for a long time now. He was the greatest pioneer of embedded sustainability; that is to say, the integration of sustainability into all business processes: from strategies to the most minute operations, involving all stakeholders and supply chains.

I loved his vision and spent years trying to bring it into the business world, with very disappointing results. I realised that, with a few commendable exceptions, the word sustainability has now become an empty slogan. A green band-aid used to cover up the shame that everyone knows about but no one speaks of: the greed for profit, at any cost. At a certain point, I said ‘enough is enough’: I no longer believed in it and decided to go back to working with people, for people, adopting the motto ‘Being Bread’. It is the human responses, above all, that bring me joy.

There are imprints that remain

In any case, throughout my life’s journey towards ever-greater consciousness, I have always carried a certain humanistic ethos with me. That is why, in my most recent consultancy contract on sustainability, I once again brought my whole self to the table, with passion and an open heart.

Whilst negotiating an unlikely contract with a multinational giant, I decided to put my faith in my CASE® Method for conflict transformation. I dared to propose it to the other party in order to find a win-win solution to the many concerns we both had. The aim was to enable both sides to embark on a daring journey, full of uncertainties, with a sense of calm and confidence. I found an enlightened management team, who were willing to put their careers at risk for the sake of their ethical values.

That negotiation, in which money was not discussed for a single minute, brought one of the greatest satisfactions of my professional life. In a commercial negotiation, I persuaded the other party to entrust me with the symbolic role of third-party arbitrator to facilitate dialogue on the questions and concerns of both sides. One of the parties was my consultancy firm, represented by my colleague. Honestly, not a lot  of persuasion was needed. Talk about inspiring trust…

A fitting culmination

I say this without getting carried away by hybris, but with legitimate pride: the consultancy work that came out of that contract was one of the most satisfying of all my various professional endeavours. I am bound by professional confidentiality, of course, but let me try to give you an idea.

With a team of two – and in the end I even found myself alone – we resolved a difficult problem for the client relating to sustainability and global circularity. We synchronised operations across three continents over 18 months. We coordinated the interaction between two multinationals with turnover in the billions of dollars.

Our project broke new ground in sustainability within one of the world’s least sustainable industrial sectors. We demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt – with the figures to back it up – the soundness of the business case for circularity and sustainability. We presented it, together with the client, at the world’s most important trade fair for the sector.

A cultural shift that will run deep. It was wonderful, moving and exciting; it made all the years of hard work worthwhile, years spent trying to show the beauty of the Sun to managers and entrepreneurs who were blind.  They were blinded by old ways of thinking and the comfort of that’s how it’s always been done.

An $800 million cherry on top

Always because of that imprint… with the chief (…) officer of the client we were working with, we became friends. A friendship which, whilst never blurring the lines between our roles, allowed us to carry out the entire project with complete transparency and trust. It was brilliant.

So, now that the contract ended about a year ago, we still keep in touch regularly, swap family photos and catch up on each other’s lives. Even thousands of kilometres apart, it’s a bond of respect and affection that lives on.

And so yesterday I learnt that the company has launched an 800 million dollar programme for the total refurbishment of its facilities (let’s call it that, for the sake of confidentiality). My friend will manage all aspects of sustainability and circularity, with full authority to guide decisions and investments.

All of this “based on your idea of the collaborative ecosystem”, she writes to me; that is, using the approach we created and developed in the pilot project. Based on the CASE® Method for conflict transformation.

What a satisfaction

Yes, what a satisfaction! For one thing, I’m sure there’s no flattery in what the former client writes to me. Our friendship, and the complete lack of interest, are a guarantee of that. And then there’s the rest of the correspondence, which is obviously private.

This article is simply to share a moment of joy, as well as to remind myself that it was worth fighting for what I believed in, and persevering with it for as long as I could.

It is also to encourage everyone to adopt the approach to life suggested by the ancient philosophy of Karma Yoga. In the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Indian sacred text, the Master invites the disciple to do what he believes to be right, without expecting to reap the fruits of his actions. It is the epitome of ethical behaviour: you engage in an action because you feel it is right, not because you expect it to bring you anything.

Master Krishna’s promise in the Gita is that it is the Divine who will decide when a result will occur; in the same way, Life has brought me a posthumous reward: the confirmation that what I sowed over years of effort has, now that I am no longer involved, produced a great result, which will benefit the whole community. What more could one ask for?

Yes, what a satisfaction!