10 steps to change

I ran a session for a government client on sustainability last week, my recommendations were: 

1. Look up. We need to acknowledge the scale of the challenge ahead of us open-eyed and open-hearted, and know that no matter how tough things look, doing the best we can go is still the best thing to do.

2. Change starts with us, not others. We must step beyond our fears and frailties to champion the ideas and actions that precede transformation 

3. Step beyond boundaries. Delivering on the Acts, the Principles, and the action that’s needed depends on aiming for outcomes that are bigger than any one organisation can deliver alone.

4. Wild goals count.Setting R.10 outcomes creates the breakthrough thinking that helps teams and organisations step beyond the limits of incremental improvement. 

5. Less bad is not good. Aim for the outcomes that nature would ask for as a client: zero pollution, full recycling, replenishment of ecosystems

6. Be varied. Nature’s ecosystems thrive on diversity, and our own approaches must too; we must re-learn to bring people with different skill and knowledge sets from different sectors and places into the room with us when set out to solve wicked and complex challenges.

7. Business learns faster. Work with the best of business to create place-based programmes with scale and ambition.

8. Let go of failure. We can find ways to banish failure from our language and replace it with courage, experimentation and learning. As Edison knew, finding the things that don’t work is progress providing we learn and do things differently next time.

9. Learn our way to change. Weave 300 hours of impact learning into every Welsh child’s learning so that before they enter the world of work, they already have the confidence and skills on how to make change happen.

10. Work differently. Walk in the park when your meeting is one on one. Develop the weak connections that make new links possible.

Reflections:

Your teams get this more than you might think. Leadership is essential, and this means that leaders and managers must be the first to step beyond their comfort zones.