How do I obtain buy-in from senior management?
It’s the query I hear time and again from these in senior positions inside ESG. Many say they’re met with resistance or indifference from each board members and different C-suite execs as they push for change. This stands in the best way of progress and might breed each frustration and a way of disempowerment.
Main on ESG with out authority is without doubt one of the most vital expertise that sustainability leaders can domesticate, one that mixes glorious communication, empathy and — in lots of circumstances — endurance. As author and activist Adrienne Maree Brown places it, you possibly can solely transfer on the velocity of belief.
In trying to exert affect over anybody, it’s important to begin with constructing their belief in you and convincing them that what you’re making an attempt to realize has the group’s business pursuits at coronary heart.
That doesn’t occur in a single day.
As a substitute, it requires a deliberate, strategic method, which begins with constructing that basis of belief.
Listed below are 4 issues to recollect as you attempt to advance your individual ESG affect.
1. Don’t ramp up threat to power a response
Resist any temptation to magnify the actual or potential threat to board members and senior management as a solution to gasoline motion.
All too typically, greenwashing can occur inside a company, says Megan Maltenfort, vp of ESG at Cardinal Well being. Talking at our most latest Influence Leaders Lab occasion, she was referring to an inclination for some sustainability groups to amplify the danger of inaction. However this technique backfires and undermines belief in the long run. As a substitute, she explains that “we have to make it clear that our agenda to do good for the world goes hand-in-hand with doing good for the enterprise.” That begins with honesty.
Focus any messaging round threat, too. Distill it right down to solely what is important for senior management groups to know. These are extremely busy individuals with a number of competing priorities — make it simple for them to know precisely what you’re asking and why.
2. Keep open to suggestions
As a sustainability chief, you’re chatting with the board and C-suite as their inside skilled on ESG. Believe in that experience — however be humble sufficient on the identical time. If somebody has made it to that degree of a company, they’ll even have useful insights. It’s vital to contemplate others’ viewpoints. Keep open to their suggestions and goal for a dialogue on sustainability, moderately than a diatribe.
That is the mindset Maltenfort adopts at Cardinal Well being. “Once I’m sitting in entrance of a board of administrators, lots of whom have been CEOs of different corporations and have unbelievable resumes, I come again to the truth that I do know the fabric I’m sharing higher than anyone else there,” she says. “However I am additionally going to simply accept that I do not know every part. I’m going to be open to their questions, open to their corrections. And if I do not know a solution, I’ll be sincere about that, as nicely.”
3. Lay the breadcrumbs
Standing in entrance of board members on Day 1 and asking for a hefty funding in sustainability isn’t prone to generate the response you’re in search of.
As a substitute, lay the groundwork by beginning with schooling.
At Cardinal Well being, Maltenfort has spent two years educating the management group and the board about ESG with out making a serious ask. She took a special method. “I’ve very purposefully, deliberately spent these two years educating them and laying the breadcrumbs for why ESG issues in order that they will turn out to be champions of this work and really feel snug lending their assist when it’s wanted,” she explains.
Place any ask as an act of service to the broader enterprise targets, moderately than solely a solution to advance the ESG agenda.
As a part of this course of, assist senior leaders make concrete connections between ESG and the broader enterprise in order that they’re primed to know the explanations for funding additional down the road. Don’t assume they will make these connections themselves. Throughout this studying part, it’s your job as “trainer” to make these specific.
Maltenfort offers an instance wherein a vp of data expertise at Cardinal Well being proactively reached out to her to flag an upcoming regulation on sustainability reporting. She took the chance to thank the VP and clarify that the brand new environmental knowledge reporting system that his group helped implement would assist the enterprise in assembly these reporting necessities. “I needed to take the additional step to make that connection and remind him how vital his group’s collaboration was,” she says.
4. Maintain the ask affordable
When it does come time to make the ask of the board or C-suite, guarantee it’s totally vetted and affordable, given the sources of the enterprise.
At Cardinal Well being, the enterprise has carried out a two-step governance construction for ESG. This permits Maltenfort to filter any request previous a primary tier governance committee previous to taking it to the very best ranges of the group. This course of offers Maltenfort’s group the chance to sense test for potential questions or issues.
Place any ask as an act of service to the broader enterprise targets, moderately than solely a solution to advance the ESG agenda. Body it as a solution to facilitate or assist these organizational priorities. That might imply it’s a approach to enhance customer support, keep compliant with upcoming rules (and due to this fact keep away from monetary penalties) or align with the considerations of traders and different stakeholders.
This technique goes again to laying that groundwork. As clients, staff and others ask for extra sustainability-related data. Maltenfort shares examples of those requests with senior management in order that they will draw a straight line between funding in ESG and assembly altering expectations out there.
Lastly, benchmark any ask in opposition to the steps being taken by a company’s closest competitors. It’s business greatest observe to remain aligned along with your largest rivals. Use the necessity to maintain tempo on sustainability as a solution to get consideration from the board and C-suite.
Generally, it’d really feel such as you’re banging your head in opposition to a brick wall when making an attempt to safe buy-in from the highest rungs of your group. However don’t surrender.
I like the analogy from Jim Hartzfeld, head of sustainability at Brambles (take a look at his sensible TED speak right here). He says that everyone has a door that they’re prepared and open to stroll by means of in relation to sustainability. However there may very well be 100 completely different doorways relying on the individual. It’s your job to search out the precise door and entice them by means of it.
Ditch all of your preconceived notions, recommends Maltenfort. “Deal with all people like they’ve the power and willingness to know the worth of ESG. In my expertise, you possibly can at all times discover the precise door.”
Shannon Houde is an ICF-certified government coach and expertise strategist with greater than 20 years of expertise as a trusted adviser to evolving change leaders from administrators to CEOs.
