Shaping a culture of change-makers: how to inspire employee action

Humans are the ones impacted by sustainability, and it’s humans who have the power to drive change.

In organizations, we often have a small handful of people who devote their time to sustainability – but we want to challenge every business leader to ask the question, “What if every person in an organization can connect their unique skills to solving sustainability challenges?”.

So, how do you shape a culture that gives individuals the agency to create sustainable impact?

Shaping a culture of change-makers is an ongoing process. The reality is, every organization has people with the capacity and passion to be involved in taking sustainable action. It’s up to the leaders to make this possible.

We are at a tipping point. Sustainable action needs to cross the Rubicon from corporate objective to “everyone’s responsibility”. It’s a non-negotiable that collective responsibility is the only way we can make positive progress.

However, the problem with stopping there is that the call to arms remains too big, too intangible, and too overwhelming for employees. How can you start using the levers you already have to empower your employees and build that culture of change-makers?

Take time to connect purpose and sustainability to individual roles

Organizational purpose has to be broad enough to apply to every individual in an organization. If its specificity precludes a single person, then it cannot serve its purpose.

In making it broad, you also need to be proactive in helping your people connect those big ideas to their individual roles. Practically speaking, give your people time to digest the bigger picture. Then guide them through the process of just picking one action they can feasibly commit to. Start small and scale up. Tackle the overwhelm. If people feel able to do one small thing successfully, they’re far more likely to do even more in the future.

Help everyone to understand both why it’s important, and how they can make a difference.

Empower everyone to see sustainability as a lens

Everyone is an expert in their own field, but sustainability action needs to move beyond the preserve of designated experts in an organization.

Using sustainability as a lens through which every individual can apply their expertise is a powerful way to start making it everyone’s responsibility and part of everyone’s role.

As a starting point, meet people where they’re at. You might already have a decision-making checklist or a scorecard for employees. Why not add a line item that asks, “What impact will this have on our sustainable goals?”. Be even more specific if you can. Get your employees to help you find that question that’ll shift their thinking.

Harnessing our collective intelligence and expertise will lead to greater impact.

Unpack the barriers to change

Communications have an indisputable role in behavior change, but, they can only do so much. The most powerful thing you can do as a leader is to make the pathway to positive change as hassle-free as possible. In as much as you can, give your change-makers – the people who are enthusiastic and impassioned already – a free and unobstructed run at making a positive impact.

Practically, that means talking to your people. Find out what’s stopping them from acting. Really listen, and don’t build a solution based on any assumptions. Equally, don’t be surprised if a lot of the responses are things like “I just don’t have time”. If that’s the response, then figure out what’s taking up time. Find out how you can meet them where they’re already at rather than expecting them to look up and take note of something new. Something in addition to their already stretched day-to-day. Neutralize the cognitive load, don’t add to it.

Most barriers link back to culture or perception and can be worked through – so don’t let this deter you.

So, what next?

If we could leave all leaders with a few key takeaways for shaping a culture of change-makers, it would be these:
— Drop your ego to empower the success of others, and always listen first.
— Share openly and honestly about the challenges of being a change-maker.
— Find your community of change-makers for inspiration and collective problem solving, as well as a source of support and resilience.

Responding to the sustainability challenges of our time will take all of us. Business is a powerful engine for innovation and is uniquely placed to deliver change at scale. What’s the one thing you can do to make sustainable action part of everyone’s role?

For this reason, Brandpie is proud to sponsor the Global Good Awards Employee Engagement and Wellbeing category. Because at the heart of accelerating sustainable action is shaping a culture of change-makers and the actions of people who make up organizations.

To give leaders the tools to create and build long-term sustainable value, we created the Brandpie sustainable leadership playbook, Levers for change: Accelerating sustainable action. This playbook is the result of one year’s worth of sustainable leadership dialogue with over 150 business leaders. It contains a series of levers for change, questions to ask and leadership traits to embody – read it here.

If you are leading sustainability, culture or engagement in your organization and would be interested in joining one of our responsible leadership discussions on shaping a culture of change makers, please get in touch.