2 May 07 @ 1:58 pm
Making Green More Than the New Black
It’s everywhere you turn. Fortune names General Electric the most admired company, citing GE’s Ecomagination campaign. Arnold Schwarzenegger graces a recent Newsweek cover, touting California’s leadership in new environmental policy. And lest we forget Al Gore’s star turn in An Inconvenient Truth—the film that may have started it all—seeking to dispel misconceptions about global warming while chronicling the former vice president’s crusade for the environment.
More and more companies are getting on the greenwagon and the emerging discourse goes beyond corporate responsibility and box checking. No longer is “going green” just the right thing to do—some are saying it’s the smart thing to do, too. Thomas Friedman argues in a recent New York Times article that going green should be the centerpiece of U.S. foreign and economic policy, and GE says their efforts are “as economically advantageous as they are ecologically sound.”
Your firm could be next. We offer a few guidelines to consider as you contemplate your company’s efforts to go green and your approach to communication:
- Don’t call your company’s efforts a “program” or “project.” Programs and projects tend to have ends. Green is “in” and some might say it will be “out” before we know it. To avoid the “flavor of 2007” label, communicate permanence, not temporality.
- On that note, have a simple message that explains what your company is doing and why, and situate the message in a pre-existing, larger strategic context. Why and how will going green help your company achieve its strategic objectives? A compelling why will persuade the skeptics and eliminate any lingering “tree hugger” associations.
- Don’t spend an enormous amount of time with branding and flashy promotion. We can’t tell you how many efforts we’ve seen make a name for themselves, only to fail as a result of heightened employee expectations about the new thing from corporate that’s taking up so much space (and so many resources).
- Show that your efforts are real in leadership decisions and behavior. Is your CEO “serious about this,” yet still driving a gas guzzler? What investments can your company make in cleaning up operations or exploring environmentally friendly innovation? If there’s nothing that symbolically communicates leadership’s commitment other than the newly formed employee committee, then it’s all just talk.
- Hold employees accountable for their greenability. Yes, we’re serious. And if you’re serious, too, you’ll align your environmental strategy with your performance management and reward and recognition systems. Our experience tells us that most people will do what’s expected when they know what’s expected and the right type of consequences are following their performance (or non-performance).
posted in category(s): Coaching Points, Leadership Communication, Planning
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