Sustainable Organizations: The Hospi Prophecy

Sustainable success in organizations is shaped by the dedication of leaders and stakeholders to a shared vision, a clear sense of purpose or mission, guiding principles that set the culture, and an evolutionary strategy that connects beneficial practices and processes to meaningful outcomes in the midst of changing conditions. Thank you and drive safely everybody. Wait! We’re not finished yet. Actually, this fairly concise statement represents a lot of work integrating head and heart, experience and innovation, and stability and movement. Let’s break it down, or perhaps I should say let’s build it up beginning with the essential components noted above.

Vision portrays and inspires a beneficial future state. The most successful visioning practices employ a variety of methods that are stimulating both intellectually and emotionally to convey this viable or healthy future. An effective characterization tells a memorable story of a future foretold, in a word, a prophecy.

Mission identifies the specific direction of an organization’s energy and resources in terms of its role, participation, and contribution within its sphere of influence, referred to collectively as its stakeholder group. The perspective of “triple-line” holistic success, i.e., benefit to Community, Ecology, and Economy, expands the notion of stakeholders to include the venues and communities within which the organization’s presence is experienced.

Guiding Principles set the culture of an organization. Such principles activate the value system and operationalize the rules of engagement, so to speak. When appropriate, principles leverage the agreed upon values and norms to maximize the probability that people acting independently or inter-dependently will arrive at solutions that are both meaningful and acceptable within the mission and culture – even when their preferred methods of getting there vary. These methods, though different, will also reflect the guiding principles. For example, an effective principle emphasizing mutual benefit ensures that any decision or action that affects process or outcome diminishes nobody (internally or externally).

Strategic Evolution raises process improvement to a whole new level. Leaders understand strategy as the set of plans that advance an organization toward its goals. Some say that the term “strategic planning” is redundant, since planning infers strategy. However, experience suggests that strategy is not necessarily inherent in all plans. Perhaps the strategy is unclear or unshared. In some cases a contradiction between organizational strategy and personal strategy diverts success. Sustainable organizations express alignment and integration among vision, mission, guiding principles, and strategy in everything they do (organizational DNA). This is essential today, as shifts in business climate can occur quickly. Metaphorically speaking, a snake senses a change in environment and navigates accordingly such that the whole body – through to the tail – follows the head. An organization can be a responsive snake, when everyone throughout the body comprehends the relationships between their responsibilities and the organization’s vision. In terms of evolution, an organization can shed its skin when it begins losing its resilience, where the skin represents a counter-productive culture, a toxic physical environment, or an outdated business model.

Let’s bring the prophecy concept down to earth and consider its practical application. My own acronym of HOSPI represents the phrases, “Healthy Organizations” and “Sustainable Performance Improvement.” Hence, in my view, the most moving and memorable prophetic stories integrate healthfulness, sustainability, and continual performance improvement with an organization’s unifying mission, within the context of the imagined future. Let’s consider this more closely.

Healthy Organizations

As human beings the DNA blueprint embedded in every cell carries the intention to embody our healthy state. We express this state most effectively when we are able to balance continually how we live in the presence of both internal and external influences and events. Consistent with autonomic biological processes (e.g., sneezing), healthy individuals learn to recognize most imbalances before they become severe; they respond mindfully and restore equilibrium. For a response-able example, when tired we typically rest before exhaustion forces us to do so. Similarly, DNA is instilled at an organization’s core and personified throughout. An organization (root – organ/organism) remains effective and viable – i.e., becomes a living, functioning, and evolving entity – when its ability to respond becomes a natural remedy to imbalance or dis-ease, thereby expressing a state of healthfulness.

At varying scales, we experience imbalances or dis-eases, ranging from allergens entering our nasal passages to new colleagues joining our teams to business competitors penetrating our markets to greenhouse gases permeating our atmosphere (note the full circle return to breathing itself). Healthy organizations instill this process of dynamic equilibrium into both their mission and business models. Such ongoing responsiveness increases the likelihood that the easiest choices – the path of least resistance – are also the ones that facilitate smooth responsive shifts, thereby preventing extreme disruptive changes. Note that smooth does not imply slow and disruptive is not necessarily bad when integrated in the culture.

Sustainable Performance Improvement

In order to intentionally experience the kind of responsiveness described above, an organization must define meaningful indicators and monitor their data. The saying, measure what you treasure, is relevant here. Procedural systems consider the data along with predetermined decision criteria and activate to restore balance in some way. In combination with other indicators, complex interpretations may be made more easily and clearer shifts in strategy become easier.

Using a mechanical metaphor, a thermometer reads the temperature. A temperature control system, or thermostat, determines that a drop of 2 degrees calls for heat to restore balance between actual and desired temperatures. Other indicators, such as season, humidity, presence of people, etc. permit more complete assessment and more informed decision-making. For example, heating is unnecessary in the summer, rapid cooling may not reduce humidity sufficiently to mitigate mold growth, and an uninhabited space may not require the same thermostatic responses as an occupied space.

For the purpose of illustration, I would like to reiterate and reinforce the understanding of triple-line holistic success. The understanding is that beneficial intentions, strategies, and outcomes need to be integrated into all three spheres of engagement, i.e., Community, Ecology, and Economy, to represent truly sustainable performance improvement.

Let’s explore two scenarios that represent a stereotypical conventional business reaction contrasted with an holistic triple-line response. Please be mindful that these are just illustrations. In the simplified first scenario, success is characterized in financial terms of profitability. Imagine that increases in business costs reduce profitability. Conventional businesses react by increasing their fees to maintain the desired profit margin. Seems simple enough, however the outcome includes a leveling of profit followed by a significant decrease. Caught off guard the business reacts with urgency, decides to regroup and figure things out, and plans a short-term comeback strategy.

Let’s consider how the holistic scenario differs. In this integrative scenario, success is characterized as improved quality of life. Indicators and outcomes are defined holistically in terms of community, ecology, and economy. Since work is an aspect of life, let’s say that quality of life is assessed both within an organization and within the community. Okay, so organizational indicators include employee and customer satisfaction, indoor air quality, and profitability. At the community scale, resident satisfaction, environmental toxicity, and cost of living are selected as indicators of life quality. For deeper context, let’s also say that this organization has a culture that embraces common good and is mindful of the general climate of the region. Therefore they have been tracking local employment, resource availability, customer requests, and other meaningful issues in order to pay continuing attention within their sphere of influence.

Organization leaders begin to recognize with the help of trend analysis, surveys, etc., that their community is becoming fearful, shipping costs are jumping due to oil price increases, and unemployment is on the rise. Exercising response-ability, they assemble a pre-existing network of company managers, community leaders, business owners, utility companies, consultants, etc., with the purpose of considering systemic challenges and designing community-wide solutions that are both integrated and practical.

Through several mindfully facilitated strategy sessions, stakeholders share information regarding common needs, regional/local resources, and potential mutually supportive interrelationships. Here are several examples of the solutions that might be developed:

1) Community gatherings are initiated to let people know what will be going on

and how they may participate and benefit from various initiatives.
2) Community safety and sustainability are raised to priority levels.
3) Utility companies foresee huge expenses to increase capacity to the growing local infrastructure

and are willing to provide incentives to businesses/homeowners that employ distributed

alternative energy systems, such as solar panels. Money for education/training is also

included in the program.
4) All local food service businesses using cooking oils agree to collaborate in a new program that will
a) utilize oils that are safe, recyclable, and locally sourced
b) redirect costs of oil disposal to a start-up fund for a new recycling business

to utilize these oils for fuels in transportation, heating, and energy
c) create jobs to carry out the program
5) Advanced projects are integrated with higher education curricula to provide solutions.
6) Local organic farming initiatives are developed and supported.
7) Resource conservation programs are designed with behavior change strategies

to provide community education, reduce use and associated costs, and encourage

a conservation ethic.
8) A cooperative of grant-writers is created to seek funding sources, write proposals,

and acquire additional funding for a variety of projects identified in strategic sessions.
9) Training is provided for new jobs or enhancing existing jobs for contractors and others.
10) Best practice building methods and corresponding codes are required, along with education.
11) The local government reduces permit fees for such re-configurations.
12) Financial institutions arrange beneficial financing terms for everyone engaged in

a relevant program or project.
13) The community members are engaging in their own sustainable benefit.

The second scenario is certainly more complex than the oversimplified first. But imagine the first case multiplied by the number of organizations in a community. Also imagine how solutions for some create problems for others, thereby creating an ongoing cycle of challenges – not the kind of sustainability we’re seeking. It is understood that scenario two solutions may be difficult, politically charged, or viewed as un-competitive. That said, it seems to me that it is time to elevate the concept of collaborative advantage to top priority. All stakeholders can receive benefit going forward as mutual improvement is designed into the system. The result is healthy organizations experiencing sustainable performance improvement.

The HOSPI Prophecy

The HOSPI Prophecy portrays healthy, living organizations whose interdependent contributors share interests, realize mutual benefits, and adapt continuously and with response-ability to changing conditions. This holistic perspective of organizational sustainability aligns Community, Ecology, and Economy healthfully integrated for success. The question for all organizations may very well be “Are we ready to design a sustainable future together?”