I was asked to prepare this questionnaire for a presentation I am to give in a couple of weeks’ time, so it seemed like a good reason also to post it here. It probably needs little further expectation.
Despite the fact that sustainability is growing as a competitive imperative, even those companies that would like to get started on this mission still bump into obstacles. This questionnaire is framed therefore to identify possible barriers to action on sustainability within your own organisation. It is not comprehensive and there are no prizes intended for right or wrong answers. It is merely intended as an aid to reflection and consideration of your own circumstances.
Using a scale of one to five, in which five is agree strongly and one is disagree strongly, to what degree do you agree with the following:
Vison and understanding of sustainability
In our organisation:
- Senior management has worked to develop a definition of sustainability that everyone can recognise and understand
- There is a shared understanding of sustainability that is applied every day in our work
- I am required and able to apply our sustainability policy daily in my own work
- Sustainability is recognised not as something that is just built into products but which is the result of the human processes and thinking engaged in work itself
- Sustainability is an issue for discussion
Leadership
Our organisation's leaders('):
- Apply a vision of sustainability to all of our company's work practices
- Speak of sustainability and demonstrate a commitment to it in practice
- Have overcome barriers to sustainability in the way our organisation is structured
- Commitment to sustainability is applied equally by all divisional decision makers
- Communicate their mission and strategic vision such that all who have to put them into practice are aware of them and able to do so
- Reject short-term thinking and over-simplification of complex problems
- Realised strategies - actual priorities and concerns - resemble closely those that were planned for
Competence-enhancing people-management strategies
Our organisation's people-management strategies ensure:
- Strategy is developed collaboratively by senior managers and workers
- The organisation works on, encourages and rewards commitment from its employees
- Training and development practices are effective in promoting new ways of thinking
- Performance and reward systems only promote behaviours that are consistent with sustainability
- Leadership in our organisation can be built on and developed from wherever it emerges
- The organisation only develops skills that support sustainability in operation
- The organisation only recruits the sort of people who will be able to improve on the practices of the past
Culture and politics
In our organisation's culture:
- Sustainability is a significant consideration
- Sustainability is thought to reflect the most appropriate form of management
- Sustainability initiatives are enhanced by the way power is used and decisions are made
- We are expected to make a commitment to operating sustainably
- Sustainability is seen as a shared priority across its divisional sub-cultures
- Teamwork and power sharing are both encouraged and rewarded
- The ways in which information is shared remove barriers to operating sustainably
- Individuals' lack of resistance to change facilitates work on new initiatives
- Our high-trust environment lifts all barriers to sustainable change
- Sustainability initiatives are enhanced as a result of workforce commitment
- Initiatives on sustainability benefit from the workers' trust in management's motives
Organisational learning
Our organisation's learning capacities:
- Are strengthened across the organisation by management's belief in the need for sustainable change
- Are aided by consistent management encouragement and support of individual initiative
- Are aided by the effective sharing of information
- Are considered of high priority and all initiatives are well executed
- Have not been affected in spite of past downsizing and outsourcing
- Have sustained no legacy damage from incidents in the past
The operating environment
Sustainability initiatives are supported by corporate head office:
- Making available the required resources
- Because they are perceived as being supportive of existing priorities and agendas
- Because it won't let longer-term investments be undermined by a short-term sales focus
- Because it sees change and innovation as legitimate undertakings
- Because it anticipates the possibility of competitor activity in this area
- Because it can calm customers' concerns that sustainability adds cost
- Because it is anticipating regulatory obligations on competitors in our industry to act on the environment
- Because pressure from its community is being anticipated and addressed
Workplace methods
In our workplace:
- Management practices empower and support workforce competence
- Past success has created a open-mindedness about the need for change
- Past failures on initiatives that depart from the mainstream have reinforced the need for new thinking
- Top-down management has been replaced by workplace consultation in pursuit of progress
- Change and innovation are viewed as essential to successful management
- Longer term improvement always trumps temptations for quick fixes
- Alternatives to existing programs are always considered as legitimate proposals
- Management's flexible approach favours sustainability as a preferred course of action
- A history of well-managed change initiatives removes a barrier to sustainability
- Management is selective about observing the advice and packages of external consultants
Resources and support
In our organisation:
- The perceived benefits of operating more sustainably enhance prospects for investment
- Sustainability programs are explored in detail when their costs and benefits are uncertain
- Its systems of work and supporting technologies and resources are capable of supporting sustainability management initiatives
- Time and resources are dedicated to lifting obstacles to sustainable operation
- Sustainability management is considered primary to its real work
- Our workplace's management style never has to call on bushfire-fighting capabilities
- Management is confident it has the resources and capabilities to implement any sustainability program
Get the conversation going. Pass this round your own workplace. See what reaction you get - it will be interesting at least.
