Sustainable Ledership… What?

I will close the year 2016 answering a FAQ, something that forcibly happens to all those who open new paths. What is Sustainable Leadership? Well of course the concept stems from two well known – albeit too often misinterpreted – management concepts: Sustainability and Leadership. I won’t go into a critic of the two here: I have done it in many other circumstances. What I have found is that the essential role of leadership is all about the continuous reconciliation of Priorities, Objectives and Needs (see the Home page of this website for this) likewise Sustainability is about the continuous reconciliation of  the organization’s responsibilities for Environmental Stewardship, Social Well Being and Economic Prosperity over the long term. Sustainable Leadership is the global reconciliation of the six factors. Cool! So far it’s just about words, concepts. Pretty easy to play with words, my friend…

But when we get down to business we see that it is not so easy to understand how to reconcile, for instance, a company’s production objective with the interests of a local community, or the need to make profits with the environmental stewardship obligations, or a market crisis with the well being of employees, and so we could continue for days. We need both a theoretical approach and a practical method to resolve the conundrum. Hence The CASE© Method, a practical tool for the transformation of conflicts into opportunities, which is built upon sound theory and a lot of field experience. What does The CASE© do for making Leadership Sustainable?

CASE© has developed an easy and intuitive way – once you have learnt its basics – to make out the root of any conflict. A conflict, be it between people or objectives, priorities… whatever, is but a symptom of something deeper: a threat to one or more of four universally recognized Basic Needs (J. Galtung). If you really want to overcome the problem you DON’T MANAGE the conflict: YOU TRANSFORM IT by addressing those threatened Needs. For such purpose you need to understand where it stems from and deal with it appropriately. CASE© not only allows you to strip down any interpersonal conflict to one or more of those only four Basic Needs, but has also described the same four Basic Needs for any organization. This wider view enables the leaders of an organization to implement CASE© not only in case of a conflict that is already there and needs transformation, but also as a Decision Making tool in order to prevent the insurgence of conflict and manage Sustainability strategically in any decision making process.

Finally, CASE© for Sustainable Ledership is not only a method, or a framework, for conflict transformation or decision making. Since it changes the point of view of the organization’s leadership on the galaxy of its stakeholders, it brings about a radical, though progressive, change in the leadership and management style of the company at any level. That’s one of the reasons why it is especially suited as an organizational development model, and for companies that wish to become more innovative, more competitive through the development of the human potential that’s latent in their stakeholders’ galaxy. Here some results of implementation of CASE© that make for a sound business CASE©:

• You make SAVINGS on RESOURCES while utilizing them 100 percent
• You become a magnet for the BEST TALENTS around
• You achieve the most disrupting and continuous INNOVATION of product AND process
• You reduce the RISK either for reputation, environmental or safety risk
• You increase the ENGAGEMENT of collaborators and foster strategic PARTNERSHIPS
• You increase the LOYALTY of your stakeholders (internal and external)

I know it seems a lot. But many experiences around the world, even outside the CASE© experience, tell us that practicing sustainability brings about many advantages and business research centres around the Globe have begun tracing the excellent results that coroporates are harvesting by implementing radical and embedded sustainability. What does The CASE© add to that? I think it’s the human touch, which comes from thorough research in human nature, neuroscience and behavioral science that are at its foundation. Sustainable Leadership, i.e. the goal for which The CASE© was created, is a way to strengthen the organization’s strategic leadership while unleashing the human potential of all of the company’s stakeholders, which is immense and extremely consistent with the organization’s objectives by definition. In the globally competitive business world of today, the strain that people and organizational structures have to bear with is too often disproportionate to the benefits. This generates stress, burnout, conflict and, paradoxically, the widespread inefficiency that any objective observer can see in almost all the big business organizations.

CASE© brings about both strategic perspective and practical solutions that make the company competitive by improving its working climate, liberating the creative and innovative potential of the internal stakeholders while fostering open and stronger partnerships with the external ones. With a Leadership adopting The CASE© approach:

• LEADERSHIP and capacity of ENGAGEMENT are reinforced
• OBJECTIVES are clarified, focused and shared much better
• COMMUNICATION in the organization becomes smooth and effective
• COLLABORATION and effective TEAMWORK become natural
• DECISION MAKING becomes easy and effective
• Every stakeholder becomes a constructive PARTNER

In a nutshell, Sustainable Leadership is what makes sustainability – i.e. managing the organization’s responsibilities for Environmental Stewardship, Social Well Being and Economic Prosperity over the long term – a natural and smooth operational behaviour for the organization through a profound comprehension of the value that’s in addressing the Needs of all of the stakeholders in a balanced, responsible way. Like I put it in the title of one of my latest books: It’s Good Business to do Good with Business!