The language experts from maslansky + partners take on the smartest, savviest, and sometimes stupidest messages in the market today. CEO Michael Maslansky and President Lee Carter bring their experience with words, communication, and behavioral science to the table — along with a colleague or client — and offer up a “lay of the language.” Their insight helps make sense of business, life, and culture, and proves over and over again that It’s Not What You Say, It’s What They Hear™.

Congratulations, you’ve set your sustainability goals! Now you actually have to achieve them. How do you make environmental sustainability work for your business? It all comes back to people. Selling in, rolling out, and scaling up real, functional sustainability programs requires understanding your employees. It requires a thoughtful business case, careful change management, and, of course, the right message. In this episode of HearSay, we’ll discuss how to implement environmental sustainability programs in a practical, profitable, and people-centric way with our two special guests from Daggerwing Group, Michelle Mahony and Tiana Ritchell. 

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Michael Maslansky:  

They said, what? Welcome to Hearsay, a podcast from the language strategists at Maslansky and Partners, where we give our take on the strategy behind the smartest, savviest, and stupidest messages in the market today, and what you can learn from them. Our philosophy is, it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear. And that’s why we call this hearsay. I’m Michael Maslansky, CEO of Maslansky and Partners, and author of a book called The Language of Trust. Today, we’ve got a really interesting episode. It’s a little bit different. We have spent a lot of time on the podcast talking about responsible business and ESG and different aspects of it in terms of how to engage and communicate with customers and consumers. This time, we’re gonna look inside at some of the challenges that companies are facing in taking these goals and making them a reality. And so the basic idea is that congratulations, you’ve set your sustainability goals as an organization, and that is just the beginning because now you have to achieve them. And what companies are finding is that the change effort is a pretty challenging one. It is like any change effort in an organization, but probably even more complicated. And so to dig into that, I’ve invited my colleague, Will Howard, who’s a fixture on the show, but we’re also bringing in two colleagues from Daggerwing Group, which is a fabulous change consultancy within the broader Omnicom Group. And they’re gonna talk about the work that they’ve been doing on how to operationalize sustainability inside the organization. Michelle Mahoney is the managing partner and president, and Tiana Richel is the associate principal, and both of them have worked extensively on ESG issues, and we’re gonna dig into how to make environmental sustainability a reality today.

Michelle Mahony:

Hello Michael. Thanks for having us.

Tiana Ritchell:

Hello. 

Michael Maslansky:

Well, it is great to have you here. I’d love actually to hear a little bit more for our listeners about Daggerwing. So everyone on the show knows who we are, but tell us a little bit about Daggerwing and where you focus and what makes you so special. 

Michelle Mahony:

Thanks so much for that opportunity, Michael. Daggerwing, as you mentioned, is a global change consultancy. And we focus on the people side of change because it is our fundamental belief that at the end of the day, it’s not organizations that change. It’s the people within them. So if you build the best strategy in the world, people won’t necessarily get behind it and come to it unless you focus on a bunch of different elements that help them get motivated to achieve your strategy. And that’s what we focus on very, very broadly. And as part of that, environmental sustainability requires great change. And so that’s a big area of a focus for us these days. 

Michael Maslansky: 

Absolutely. And so we thought it was really important to have Daggering on because we’ve been talking lately on the podcast a lot about ESG in general about environmental sustainability, more specifically, and we obviously focus on what to say. But as you just said, we know that just having the right thing to say is not going to get you all the way to the finish line, you’ve got to actually be able to implement. And so we’re going to talk about how those things are related. How we can close the kind of say do gap, make sure that it does not exist for companies. And in fact, really talk about something that I think is underrated for just how hard it is. And so you’ve rolled out a whole practice on this that’s really focused on helping companies operationalize sustainability. I’d love to hear a little bit more about like, what’s the problem that you’re seeing inside organizations right now? 

And what is it about it that is making it harder or different today than maybe it has been in the past? 

Michelle Mahony: 

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, as we all know, environmental sustainability, it’s everywhere globally. We see it outside of our windows with regards to climate change. And we do know that so many of the organizations that we’re working with have set very, very ambitious sustainability goals for their organizations. But as we’ve been having conversations around this over the last, I don’t know, two or three years, it became really clear that while organizations are really good at setting these audacious goals, it becomes another story and another kind of problem when they think about how they need to achieve them. So we had this sort of hypothesis that companies were struggling with this. And that hypothesis was affirmed just recently when we partnered with the Harvard Business Review to conduct a study around how successful and effective our companies in actually being on the right track to sustain these ambitious goals. And what we found overall is that companies are indeed struggling, our hypothesis is right. There’s about a quarter of companies tell us that they’re on their way to hitting their goals and they’re doing what they need to in their organizations to make that change stick. But that leaves about three quarters of organizations who are really, really struggling with it. And that’s when we really started to dig into some of the factors around that and what really needs to be addressed in order to make this real and make change stick. And we are just really passionate about it because it is such an important issue, not only for our clients, but for the world at large. 

Michael Maslansky: 

And so if you were going to, you know, as you talk about the fact that some are making progress, others are not, what, what are the big challenges that they’re facing? What is it that you’re helping them overcome? 

Michelle Mahony (06:15.591) 

Well, I think we can break it into sort of two different areas. And then, I mean, we’ll be spending this conversation digging into each. You know, the first part is just being able to articulate what the story, what the issue is within the organization and getting people at a greater extent aligned behind it. So it’s really the sort of selling it in and talking about it. That is a challenge for a number of reasons. One is just the sheer complexity of what needs to happen inside of companies in order to achieve these goals. It really is a different kind of change problem and we can get into that in a bit. And so as companies try to tell the story and keep it simple and in a way that people can understand and get behind and understand what they need to do differently, that is a real challenge. And I know that’s a challenge that you all are addressing, you know, every single day and we’ll dig into that. The second piece is, okay, now that you’ve got everybody aligned behind what we’re trying to achieve and what the story is, how do we actually make it happen? How do we roll this out? And again, it’s sheer complexity. It feels to organizations like they’re boiling the ocean. So we are here to help them break down the problem and focus and prioritize on the areas that they need to prioritize in order to hit these goals over time. So that’s really it from a broad perspective and we can start breaking it down and getting real about it in just a moment. 

Michael Maslansky:

That’s it, huh? Easy. Yeah, so I think it’s so interesting, you know, the first part of, so you’ve got a company that has had a group of people probably that has been charged with setting out or developing a set of commitments. You have those commitments, but just because you’ve agreed on those commitments doesn’t mean that everybody really understands what they entail, doesn’t understand necessarily what the benefits are going to be for the organization actually agreeing on the commitment is really just the first step of selling it. It’s not the not the finish line for selling it. Is that right? 

Tiana Ritchell: 

Yeah, that’s exactly right, Michael. I feel like Michelle touched on that first barrier, that first challenge, which is the selling it in. But then you have the second part, which is all around, how do you actually roll it out and make it stick broadly across the organization? So you have these commitments, but shifting from, listing them on a page, talking about them, but then actually moving into action and making them real is where a lot of organizations get stuck. 

There are so many ways you could approach it that they don’t really know where to start and how to go about it. And so I think when we get to the second part of our conversation today, we’ll really dig into that aspect. 

Michael Maslansky:

Super. So why don’t we start with the first part. So you’ve got these commitments, you’re starting the process of driving change inside your organization. It looks like it’s gonna be probably harder than maybe the sustainability committee thought or whoever it is that who is creating that? And what kind of pressures are they under to sell this in once they’ve made those commitments? 

Michelle Mahony: 

Yeah, well, I think you sort of captured the first problem with the selling in and that is up until, I think fairly recently, this work has lived within these sort of siloed organizations within companies that are, as you said, sustainability committee or those few people that are really leading the charge. And their challenge right now is to get that kind of buy-in and alignment. And the first step is really getting it that alignment among the C-suite and your senior leaders. Because if they’re not aligned and understand what the problem is and what they need to do to address it, it’s not going to happen through the rest of the organization. So part of that challenge is, well, as we know, senior leaders are incredibly busy. They have a million things on their plate. It’s a very challenging time. There’s tons of change always going on. So first of all, it’s even getting their mind share. And second of all, it’s really proving the value, the business value for these leaders in focusing and addressing these sustainability issues. Instead of thinking about it as, oh geez, this is just something we gotta do. It is about shifting that mindset from something that they have to do and need to do to something that is important to focus on to remain competitive in their industry and in their marketplace. So part of it is showing that value in the story and getting senior people bought in there. So companies right now are really being asked to quantify what the value and impact is of spending all this time and energy required to achieve these goals. And it’s understandable because it takes a ton of time, energy, investment, and money. And so it’s interesting, we are seeing companies even shift the conversation not only to, okay, what’s the value of doing this, but what are the risks of not doing this and not focusing on it. Not only in terms of sort of getting behind competitors who are focusing on these issues that are coming to the forefront but also the risk from in public perception. What are your consumers going to think about you if you’re not focusing on these things? So it’s, I think, balancing the value and impact of doing it and the risk of not doing it. That is where a lot of our clients are grappling right now.

Michael Maslansky:

It sounds like when these commitments are made, or the fact that a company comes out with these commitments, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of the senior leadership in the company has bought into the commitment itself, is that right? 

Michelle Mahony:

That is correct, or they buy it in at a very high level. And it’s like mom and apple pie, it’s like, sure, I believe in this, but this doesn’t really change how I operate the business, right? And again, it’s understandable, they have a lot of things to worry about. The second thing is that I think part of the problem is also being really clear about what are our goals that we all agree on and our priorities, because leaders have very different perspectives and different views depending on where they’re sitting. So part of it is to make sure that you’re creating a shared sense of accountability and commitment. And by the way, creating some incentives for those leaders to do so is no small thing. And we find from the Harvard Business Review study, that companies who are more successful and ahead of the game here, provide actual financial incentives for leaders to help achieve those goals. And boy, that really changes behavior quickly when you do that. 

Michael Maslansky:

So Will, I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the way that these issues need to be framed up to be effective and that historically, if you look at the messaging that companies have used around environmental sustainability, specifically in ESG more broadly, it’s been a very kind of values oriented approach. We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do. Will, just from what Michelle is saying, it sounds like this message has to be much more business focused, much more focused on. 

Will Howard:

Yeah. And I mean, I think I hear a couple of things in what Michelle’s saying. The first is there’s an issue when you talk about a sustainability committee, which is a dedicated team that for many organizations may have existed for a long time, for in some cases, maybe a more recent addition in response to pressure in either case, it is often a group that is somewhat self-selected in as people who care about this stuff, professionally and passionately. And there’s an initial hurdle when you think about selling this in and making a business case for it, there is the chance of either at best kind of just a little bit of missing or not realizing that they had to sell it in because it’s self-evident to them that it’s the right thing to do. And at worst, an actual feeling of frustration or resentment towards the organization that they’re being asked to make a business case for something that they view as intrinsically right. So the first is the mindset shift as this team of realizing that even if you care about this, the other people at your organization don’t de facto care about it or don’t de facto see it as the right thing to do the way you do. And you need to approach this as an exercise in persuasion, an exercise that involves empathizing with that audience and trying to find a way to articulate to them why they should care and why they should get behind it, even if, if you’re bought in from the start. And then when you do that, when you buy into that, then comes the step of trying to think of the way of how do you frame this through the lens of how this is going to benefit the business. And honestly, we’ve actually seen a lot of the same principles apply with kind of customer communication and consumer communication. If you’re talking outside the organization broadly. We’ve seen there’s a lot of value in articulating this through the lens of business value, but I think a lot of it comes back to what Michelle said. We think about it in terms of factors or risks and opportunities. How can you articulate what opportunities this is going to allow you to pursue? Whether that’s greater efficiency, greater diversity of customer base, greater savings over the long term, or how do you talk about it in terms of risks to the business, like losing out on a sustainable source of raw materials or potential supply chain issues or potential PR issues, how do you frame it through the lens of why this is going to be a good thing for your business and not just something that you’re kind of being obligated or pressured. 

Michael Maslansky:

And Michelle, Tiana, how much of a leap do you find that is for the sustainability executives to kind of shift their focus from, you know, doing this because it’s the right thing to do to doing it because it’s the right thing for the business. 

Tiana Ritchell:

Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I think for those sitting within the sustainability space, it is a bit of a shift, but it’s not that great of a shift. I think the bigger leap is helping them bring everyone else in the business to that frame of reference as well. And we’ve talked to some of our clients around like, how do you put it in the sphere of something like product marketing or innovation in that space? I think that has been a really interesting way to look at it. So if you look at the changes that you’re making within your business to achieve your sustainability goals and put it in the frame of reference of, you’re doing it just like you would for a product innovation. Some things might not work, but some things are gonna give you great returns and help you make a lot of strides and progress. That enables people to feel a little bit better about experimenting and putting their resources behind this. Because Michelle and Will, you mentioned it earlier, right? So sometimes these goals are coming from the center of the business or a very specific team. And it takes a while for those sitting in others areas of the business to get behind it and to feel okay spending their budget on it, making decisions based on it. And they do go back to, well, you’re saying it’s the right thing to do. Why is it right for my brand or my business? And so I think helping them see it as this greater opportunity enables them to be able to make those decisions. 

Michael Maslansky:

Yeah. And so maybe for sustainability executives who are going through this for the first time, this may give them a little solace that if they’re wondering why it’s so hard to sell it in after they thought they sold it in, that they’re not alone. This is something that has to happen at every organization. 

Tiana Ritchell:

Absolutely. 

Will Howard:

Yeah. And I would say they’re not alone in that every other department and every other initiative a company undertakes, it also has to do this. Right. And so I think there’s an interesting way to think about this, where for somebody who’s worked in the sustainability space or someone who’s approaching this, it may feel like an additional barrier, or it may feel frustrating that you have to sell this in, or you have to make the business case for it. I view it as a mark of the fact that I think now more than ever, ESG truly has a seat at the table. In terms of running a business, it is not just CSR doing good or way off to the side as this separate consideration. It really is a core part of the decision making, but in order to be treated that way and in order to kind of move in that world, it has to start operating through this lens of making that case to the business and selling itself just like, I love the way you framed that Tiana. Like it’s just like selling a product. It’s just like any sort of other innovation or initiative the company undertakes, you have to make it through that business lens. 

Michael Maslansky:

Okay, so now let’s go to the second part of this. Let’s say you’ve now done a good job and the organization understands that there are business benefits to doing this, business risks to not doing it. And they say, all right, so we’ve got this big commitment, now what do we do? What happens next? 

Michelle Mahony:

OK, this is also another hard part. It’s the how do you do it. And Tiana and I were just at a big international conference two weeks ago. And this is what everybody’s talking about is like, OK, we’ve got people aligned. People are psyched about this. The cheerleaders are there. They’re ready to go. They don’t know what to do now. And we found from the Harvard Business Review study that 60% of the 500 or so sustainabilities that we asked said that implementing environmental sustainability goals requires a fundamentally different approach than other change approaches or other initiatives. And we really see this as a true paradigm shift in how companies need to do business going forward. And that is everything from how do we make day-to-day decisions and how do we shift this into conversations that leaders are having with their teams every single day. Not just on Earth Day, but how are you launching a project to market? How do we need to shift our financial models? How do we need to shift our organizational culture? How do we need to focus on improving skills and learning among our employee population? So it really infiltrates everything. And so that’s what makes this so hard. And that’s what makes this feel a little bit overwhelming for people, or a lot overwhelming, I should say, Where do we even begin? And I can shift it over to my partner in crime here, Tiana, who can also just talk about some of the details, but just providing kind of the overview, and then we can start to dig in here. 

Tiana Ritchell:

Yeah, I think Michelle, you kind of hit the nail on the head there. Where do we even begin? Because there are so many ways to start approaching this. And I think it even starts with what are you focusing on? Where are you focusing your efforts? And we saw in that study you mentioned that focus and clarity are huge and starting to get off on the wrong on the right foot, right? So we had a client that started with 70 plus commitments and then narrowed it down to 10 and then now we’re prioritizing three because there’s so much that you want to do in this space but to make real tangible progress you need to narrow your focus to a few things you can do well. And so I think that is one of the first things to do is just prioritize. Where are you gonna put your efforts? Where are you gonna put your energy and your resources to make meaningful progress? Then once you have those priorities, how do you break it down so that others in the business can help you get there? And I think there are two ways that you can break it down. First in terms of just the complexity. Michelle talked about that conference we were at. If I were at that conference a couple of years ago, I think 75% of what was said would probably just go over my head because we did not know as much as we do today about this space. And so if you think about that, from the perspective of an everyday employee who maybe has an interest, maybe doesn’t, getting them on board and helping them help you achieve your commitments, you need to first break that complexity down and simplify for them. What is the work we’re doing? Why are we doing it? Why does it matter to our business and to you beyond it being the right thing to do, which is I think where a lot of sustainability focused teams start. So I think that’s the first thing, is just really breaking down that complexity for folks across the organization. And then I think the second thing is helping them understand what actions they need to take in a way that is customized to them. So another one of our clients that we’re working with, they had this great big plan, all these three commitments that they were prioritizing, but then as they put pen to paper, they realized each part of their business contributed unique to actually achieving the goals that they set. And so one team need to focus on one commitment and another team need to focus on another commitment and how they did that was incredibly different. And so I think beyond breaking it down for people to understand what it means and what it means for them, you need to break it down so they understand what actions they can take to actually move the needle. We’ve been talking a lot about how do we create these customized change plans for people to have this roadmap of what they need to go do to achieve these different goals and results that they’re looking for. 

Michael Maslansky:

It’s so well said. And one of the things that we focus on a lot here is, how do you get buy-in? How do you effectively change people’s minds or get them to take action? And I talk a lot about the four Ps, but I’m gonna talk about three of them here, because you’ve hit on them. We talk about making the ask plausible. So focus and clarity is really about making it feel like it’s something that you can achieve that is credible. Making it plain spoken, which is about taking the jargon and de-complexifying it to find simple language that people can actually understand, and making it personal, really connecting it to their job, to what’s in it for them. And so you’re talking about these kind of tactical approaches to making this change happen. It just aligns so closely with so much of what we see when we’re trying to drive behavior change, drive perception change in a lot of the work that we do. So I think that that’s really powerful. I’d love to hear like what you think, you’re aware of the roadblocks or the barriers in actually doing that. 

Tiana Ritchell: 

How we think about it, there are a few things that we’ve been really focusing on. So the people side of things, the process side of things, and then those enablers, right? So like data, technology, things of that nature. And so I think as you look at each of those spheres, there are probably different barriers that folks are coming into contact with. So on the people side of things, I think it’s resources and then skills and knowledge. So in some organizations, they just don’t have the resources dedicated to doing this. And so they need to find a way to either expand people’s jobs or add jobs, which then connects back to convincing people why we’re investing in this work. So I think getting the people on the ground to actually do it. And then once you have those people in place, making sure that they have the knowledge or the skills to go and do it. We were talking with a number of sustainability experts not that long ago around that topic, around learning and knowledge building and developing these skills. And I think there’s a bit of a tension between how much do we talk about sustainability as a whole and give them that background to be invested to go do it. And then how much of the time should we spend really breaking it down role by role in terms of what they need to do. And I think that’s an interesting challenge that folks need to balance within the organization because I think that baseline knowledge is important but what is more important and what you need to spend more of your time on is really equipping maybe it’s just the 30% of individuals across your business who need to do something different to be able to do that. So I think that’s sort of the people side of things that is enabled by the process which is sort of that second pillar that we’re thinking how are we baking it into processes? Because if it’s not part of how your business operates, it’s really easy to deprioritize. So think about it last. And so we’ve seen a lot of success in organizations that really fold their sustainability goals into just how they do business every day. And so whether that’s, you know, your monthly meetings where you assess how your brand or your business is doing, if you’re looking at that, through the lens of your sustainability goals as well, it’s going to be prioritized, you’re gonna be thinking about it. And so I think through that process point is sort of the second pillar. And then the third one is a bit of a catchall, but so is enabling factors, right? So things like finance and data and technology, those things that are sometimes left to the end, but make such a difference in how quickly you can make progress. So bringing your finance partner in and thinking through what’s a model that works for your team to make sure that you’re not viewing it as I’m making trade-offs, right? I’m prioritizing one thing and I’m having to lose on the business side. Data around where am I actually getting metrics? Through that HBR study, another key challenge that popped up was how do I measure this? It’s so different, I don’t really know where to start and your data team can help you there. And then technology as well. How do we have the technology, get the technology to make this work for us, and then how do we bake it into the technology that already exists. So those are sort of the three pillars that I think we’re seeing some barriers and obstacles come up through. 

Will Howard:

I have one question that almost, I’m really intrigued by the, you talked about the process of going from 72 to 10 to three. And I think the 72 commitments problem is one that probably a lot of organizations can empathize with, which is once you open the floodgates and you say, we’re going to start thinking about broader factors, people are going to start bringing forward more and more factors and all of them are going to sound, yeah, that is important. That is often an emotional goal. Like that’s how can I be in a position where I have to play favorites or I have to pick between we’re going to focus on this, not this, or we’re going to do this first. Can you talk to me a little bit about what the, what some of the filters are that you use or what some of the conversations were like that helped you move from 72 to 10 and then to prioritize within those 10? 

Tiana Ritchell:

Yeah, I think that is a great question. We do some prioritization across lots of different projects. But I think this one is one where you can use some of those same filters, but then go a level deeper. So what is feasible for your team to do? And then where can you make the greatest impact? Those are sort of two criteria that we look at when we look at any prioritization. And so in doing some of this work with one of our clients who again went from 70 plus to 10 to three. The 10, they got to a little bit easier, but getting from 10 to three is where it was a little bit more difficult. What are the three that actually matter the most? And depending on who you talk to, that’s gonna be a little bit different. And so what they looked at for the three they ended up choosing is, where can we make, where do we have quick wins? Where can we make progress pretty quickly? And so that helped them choose one of their commitments. They were seeing a lot of traction there and said, Maybe we can get ahead on this really quickly and then sort of check the box there and shift to another one. So that was one way they looked at it. Another one they looked at was what’s gonna be most impactful for them? What is the most talked about thing in this space right now that where we can make progress and help other organizations do the same. And so that’s where GHG really became a huge topic for them. That’s a lot of talk happening. 

Michael Maslansky:

I’m sorry, Tana, what’s GHG? I’m just a regular employee in a company and I don’t understand jargon. 

Tiana Ritchell:

Yes, I’m falling into it myself. Greenhouse gas emissions. So, you know, a big, big topic for a lot of organizations but no one has quite cracked the code yet there. And so they said, let’s put a lot of our efforts here because once we figure out what that looks like, then we can just, we can move ahead and we can share some of that knowledge with our partners in the space who are also struggling. 

So that was another one. And then the third one was around what is gonna be most interesting or impactful to our partners? And so that’s where they looked internally but externally as well. So for a food and bev company, they think about the farmers they’re working with, their customers, their consumers, what’s mattering to them, what are they talking about? And that’s where they started to think about their third, which was around regenerative agriculture, which is so important to the farmers.

Michelle Mahony:

I do think a point that Will just made is really important, and I want to make sure that we are capturing that. And that is how do we tap into the emotional passion and energy of people who, a great number of whom have a lot of natural energy around that. We do not want to squash that energy. And what we want to do is harness it. And that is a real critical six enabler for this. is if we can tap into the natural energy of so much of the employee population, especially people in Gen Z, and get them to be thinking and focusing their energy, let’s say, on our three big topics, which are so broad and so wide that anyone who has energy can find things to focus on. Then that just accelerates the momentum. And that is another finding we found from the Harvard Business Review study is the quicker you can tap into the broad base for that energy, the more it will accelerate your efforts. So we want to give people something to do, in the employee population. And that also speaks to the kind of cultural change that’s required for that and feeds into it. Because as Tiana mentioned before, learning, experimenting, trying and failing fast and learning from those failures to feed into progress going forward are really, really important cultural attributes to have. I would argue there are important cultural attributes just to have in a time of constant change anyway. But the more we can tap into and feed that momentum, the better. 

Michael Maslansky:

So let me ask you kind of the flip of that, because as you deal with this change within an organization, it’s happening in the context of a very polarized country that we’re operating in increasingly globally as well. And what we see a lot is that while you’ve got an intensely supportive, a group of intensely supportive individuals, particularly among Gen Z, often at corporate headquarters, the further that you go out away from corporate headquarters, the further that you go into kind of red states often is the case, on different areas of ESG, particularly on the S, we see that there’s a lot of disagreement about what should be done and why. Do you see that when it comes to the environmental side of things and how do you kind of navigate that? 

Michelle Mahony: 

Yeah, absolutely living in the United States of America, especially that is endemic in any company and speaks to the need to move away from this sort of, or not focus wholly on this sort of values based approach to it. And Tiana, I know you have a great example of this exact thing from the work that you’ve done with the food and beverage companies. So maybe you can talk about how they’ve navigated that. 

Tiana Ritchell: 

Yeah, absolutely. I think in any organization that is global, that is quite large, that has both salaried and then more of those production manufacturing individuals as well, you need to think about how are we telling this story of the actions that we’re doing in a way that makes sense for everyone. And so as we embarked on that journey, that was the first thing we even talked about of how do we share the why behind this in a way that’s gonna resonate for everyone. And it was not about talking about, this is good for our planet. This is the right thing to do. It was shifting away and reframing it as, this is critical to how our business operates. And if we don’t take these steps, will our business exist? Will you have what you need to do your job? And so that was a big shift that they made and how they tell the story and talk about this work. And then, as we talked about the say and then the do, and the do part of it actually tying it to their job and the decisions they’re making of how reframing it is gonna make it easier for them to be successful in their work. 

Will Howard: 

Yeah. I mean, so much of this lines up with a lot of the consumer and customer research we’ve been doing and talking about recently where it’s really making sure that when you’re talking about this, you’re not talking about, you’re not sitting someone down and saying that you’re going to change their job because of an acronym like ESG. It’s sitting them down and telling them that, you’re making decisions in the best interest of a business, you’re trying to run a responsible business, you’re trying to consider long-term factors that kind of going to determine contributes to success. You make them feel part of something that is important to the success of the business overall, instead of making it feel like they are being asked to change in compliance with someone else’s subjective moral agenda about what their job should be like. And I think it’s significantly more empowering and significantly less annoying. 

Michelle Mahony:

Yes, less annoying is a crucial goal for all of this work. 

Michael Maslansky:

Well, I mean, it seems like in a lot of ways, for this to work, the broad base of the population, at least, needs to understand that this is central to business and that it becomes embedded in their job just like any other. In this way, maybe it’s like other change efforts because it’s got to be embedded in their job like any other type of change. 

Tiana Ritchell:

Absolutely, I think that is something that is critical to this working is that it doesn’t, it is not viewed as an initiative or a campaign or to Michelle’s point earlier, something we do in April because that’s the time of year we focus on it. It is something that is just how we operate each and every day to be a successful business. 

Michael Maslansky:

So I have one other question, Michelle, you actually raised the question of, or you raised the point that this is different, that in the survey you found that people say that this is different from other change efforts. And I guess I’m interested in both why, why that is, but also for people who may be listening, who have other kinds of change efforts, what is the same and what lessons can they take for any change effort from the things that we’ve talked about. 

Michelle Mahony:

Well, I think we’ve touched on many of the reasons. One is just the sheer complexity of this kind of change and the far reaching impacts it has on every part of the organization. As Tiana mentioned, from mindsets and attitudes and the cultural attributes of the organization to financial planning, manufacturing, supply chain processes in organizations as well. And so that makes it pretty far reaching and pretty challenging. I think the third element of this is that this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. This is, I can honestly say, the most complex change strategy I’ve ever worked on in my career. And it’s because you sort of have the horizontal change strategy that goes across the organization of we all need to be sort of in lockstep in this change, which is very typical of a change strategy. But then there’s the need, as Tiana alluded to, to go deep into different constituencies and stakeholders and meet them where and really design customized strategies for them. So that’s part of what makes this all a bit harder. The things that stay the same, principles that can be applied, I think that you just alluded to in some ways in the conversation, one I think is articulating what stays the same as well as what’s changing. So that’s really part of bringing people along and getting them to be part of the change rather than, as Will just alluded to, something that’s happening to them from on high. So getting everybody involved is very important. Prioritization in any change is very important and making sure we’re focusing on the things that we can move the needle on, rather than spreading that energy into 72 different commitments. So prioritization is always important. And then, getting leaders on board, aligned, and ready to take action is the third thing that’s important in any kind of change that they in turn then can galvanize the rest of the troops behind it. That’s just absolutely crucial and would be an area that we recommend starting with, from the get-go. 

Michael Maslansky:

Wow, so much good stuff in here. As we bring this to an end, I’d love, you know, if you’re thinking about kind of the one piece of advice that you’d give, you know, a leader of sustainability, they’ve got their commitments approved, what’s the, what’s kind of the one thing that you’d love them to think about as they embark on this phase of changing the organization? 

Michelle Mahony:

I just want to give a lot of love first of all to our sustainability colleagues and leaders out there. Their job is so hard and it feels so big and they are so committed. And what we hear a lot from them and just thinking even about the conference that Tian and I went to last week is there’s just a high degree of exhaustion among these folks because they work so hard and they’re there for something so important and wanting to see the impact. So I think my first piece of advice would be give yourself a little grace. And my second is build that coalition. And so that it isn’t just about you and your small team, that you are really spreading that accountability and responsibility throughout the rest of the organization. But because without that, you’re just sort of a lone voice in the wilderness. So that’s where I would focus my energy if I were starting this work from the beginning. 

Michael Maslansky:

Awesome. Tiana. 

Tiana Ritchell:

I think the one thing I’d add is to just start doing it. I think so many people get stuck in the spiral of what are we doing? What are the right things to focus on that people are afraid to start making any steps, start taking any action? I think just experimenting and seeing what works and going from there is a small step that will start driving. 

Michael Maslansky:

Awesome. Well, Tiana, Michelle, Will, thank you for this great conversation. Thanks to everybody for listening. And for more language insights and to be in the loop on all the other fun stuff we’re doing, please follow us on LinkedIn at maslansky and partners. That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more episodes of HearSay, because when it comes to truly effective communication, it’s not what you say. It’s what they hear.