Starting crucial conversations that create a paradigm shift: sustainability practice starts now
How do we actually move to a zero carbon world within the next decade?
A poem and a broken jacket zip. Two seemingly unconnected things that were propelled into my thinking this week.
First, a poem by Drew Dellinger called ‘Hieroglyphic Stairway’. In it he is struggling to sleep as his great-great grandchildren visit him in his dreams, asking him what he did when the planet broke down because of climate change. There is an immensely powerful line which asks:
“What did you do when you knew?”
Second, a good friend of mine was in a popular outdoor shop, also a valued hub for the outdoors community. He had taken a winter jacket in to be repaired by the manufacturer as the zip had broken. Unfortunately, the jacket could not be mended. The manufacturer in this case does not build zip repair into the life cycle of this (expensive) article of clothing. It is now unwearable, of course, as you can’t walk in sub-zero weather on a mountain with your zip undone.
What connects these two random things are the personal responses to narratives we all as human beings hear every day that are climate emergency related, what we tell ourselves, and then what we choose to do.
Whether we join the dots or not to the bigger picture that is climate breakdown when shopping or reading a poem, any decisions about what we will do/are doing about the most urgent and consequential issue humankind has ever faced, remain just the same. This is because it is US, the current generation, who as Cristiana Figueres says “will determine the kind of world we will live in and will bequeath to our children and to theirs”. So you and I are deciding the future of this world whether we do or don’t do anything.
What did you do when you knew?
Christiana (and Tom Rivett-Carnac) led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015 and their new book ‘The Future we Choose’ shows that with optimism and determination we can pave a way for a future sustainable earth. It requires a response from us all and I would argue doing nothing is a chosen response, even if an unconscious one, and that is not a sustainable one.
I am for one aiming to make a difference by changing my mind set and habits towards an optimistic path for a sustainable earth with more determination. My learning from my friend’s jacket example is that (as well as not submitting to a consumer led act such as buying a new coat), I can use opportunities to have better responses and hold opportunistic conversations too. As Susan Scott would say, ‘every conversation counts’.
I think, however, that bigger change will happen when collective communities of practice shift their mind set and responses together.
I’m talking paradigm shift
To go back to the outdoors shop for a moment, my friend chose, rather than walk out of the shop or complain or buy yet another jacket, to engage the shop owner in a meaningful conversation to the issues at hand and what could they do together to address this meaningfully. The outcome was a joint commitment that aims to kick start a call to action within his particular community of practice by initiating wider conversations. This will be achieved in some simple and powerful ways:
Using the printed word via industry-wide publications - writing articles and sharing practice with key messages.
Holding necessary (even if painful at times) conversations within the community of practice that have structure and outcomes and that address the climate emergency with key stakeholders.
This is eminently do-able and optimistic as it is focused on using humankind’s basic mode of understanding – spoken and written narrative – and is therefore available to everyone. You don’t know until you hold a conversation what the possibilities could be.
The idea is transferable to any ‘community of professional practice’ is it not? And any group, any stakeholder. And there is no need to wait for an industry leader or professional umbrella body to ‘take a lead’. We are all stakeholders in planet earth’s future.
What happened for my friend was he chose to speak up and he was prepared to hold himself and others to account in an optimistically and emotionally intelligent conversation about the biggest most challenging thing we are facing as humans. There’s an element of right people, right place, right time in it but, honestly, going back to Drew’s poem – we know already.
So if we as L and D, HR and OD professionals treasure our community of practice, for the connectedness we can bring through our work and many types of interventions, and the opportunities to communicate, learn and change, how do we make this paradigm shift happen? How do we harness the narrative?
Ask the ultimate question first
To ask the ultimate question again that we need to connect to: how do we actually move to a zero carbon world within the next decade?
We could hold valuable discourse - a national conversation - on the role of L and D/HR/OD in helping others to achieve zero carbon. Taking a look at the website of my own (valued) UK professional body and our new profession map to support the new world of work, there is no specific mention of climate emergency I can find. The placing of the profession to make greater impact through change in this new decade is helpful, of course, and by re-defining our business impact it opens the door to enabling us to “shape strategy and lead transformation within organisations across the world”. It’s all there, indirectly.
There are fellow practitioners out there doing many things right now - HR teams drawing up strategy based on climate emergency (well I hope they are!), coaching and climate change sessions (saw lots of tweets last week on this), wellbeing work in all its forms.
If we as a profession, a community of practice, are to focus on the things that (to quote CIPD’s excellent words) “create the most value for people and business” by “identifying and delivering on the people issues, opportunities and risks that will have the most impact on the performance and success of organisations”, then I say climate breakdown should be front and centre.
I agree that the ways of working for my profession involve being business focused, developing resilience and responsibility, inter alia. These things do create value. As professionals we play a crucial role in enabling transition and people change, so for me, the outcome of this has to lead to zero carbon living and working in this decade.
We can equally all just JFDI
I’m with my friend with the broken zip. I control of what I think and say and do. My response has an impact. I can choose to frame my thinking optimistically and start a conversation that prompts action on being zero carbon. I am hoping this is what I have just done.
#sustainablecommunitiesofpractice