Posts tagged ‘csr’
Communication Lessons from a Global EHS Manager
By Jim Spahr
Global Environmental Manager
Solae LLC
As a college student in the early 90’s I thought I was in good shape as a communicator. I was pretty social for an engineer (nerd) and I wasn’t afraid to get up and speak in front of a large group. So, when I started my first job as an environmental engineer at a paper mill in the Deep South, I never expected communicating would be a problem. I was wrong. And I would learn some valuable lessons about cross-cultural communications.
First of all there was the language barrier. Yes they were speaking English but with that wonderful southern drawl. I love a southern accent but there’s a big difference between talking football and discussing a complex manufacturing process. I had to keep asking people to repeat themselves. Add to that the cultural differences and I was quickly developing a reputation as “that rude Yankee who don’t hear so well”. Luckily I gained a mentor who was both an engineer and a fellow northern transplant. Through him I learned the importance of learning the local culture, utilizing local resources and adapting for success.
My mentor explained the importance of small talk in the South. When you need data or information from someone you don’t dash off an email with: “Please provide x, y and z, by next Friday”. You walk down the hall to their office and you start off by asking them about their kid’s Little League team or how they hit the ball on the golf course last weekend. I was accustomed to the norms of the metro northeast; “Tell me what you need, tell me when you need it and I’ll get to you.” I could imagine how this new approach would have gone over when I was a co-op working in Pittsburgh.
Me: “Hi Bill, how’s your day going.”
Bill: “Peachy.”
Me: “How’s your son’s baseball team doing? Did they win on Saturday?”
Bill: “Why are you here and what the heck do you want?!?”
Yet it worked like a charm at the paper mill and although, as a Yankee, you can never be accepted as a true Southerner, at least I was considered a nice Yankee. I even starting using “y’all” every once in while.
Later in my career when I was tasked with supporting the construction and startup of a manufacturing plant in India this lesson in learning the culture would pay dividends. Before the project got underway I used the Internet to research Indian history, culture and business etiquette. I spoke with my Indian colleagues about the similarities and differences. I even boned up on the national sport, Cricket, and followed the performance of the local team. All of this paid off as I was able to develop good working relationships with the local staff and I avoided most of the pitfalls that tripped up some of my American colleagues on the project.
Now, as a Global Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) leader, I’m tasked with implementing corporate policies across multiple cultures. The lessons that I learned through my earlier experiences led me to three keys for success in working across cultures.
- Good translations: Google Translate might work well when you’re trying to decipher an email but don’t count on it for important documents. If you’re lucky, you may have an internal resource who is fluent in English and the local language but even this is risky. For important documents, always use a reputable translation service. They have multiple layers of verification to ensure your translations are accurate and complete. As an additional safeguard, even when I use a translation service, I always have an internal native speaker of the target language review the translated materials.
- Use local resources: While it’s important to do your homework, no amount of internet research can replace the insight to be gained from developing relationships within your business. Regions within a country and even business cultures from plant to plant can vary widely. Having a network of trusted colleagues across all locations will help you avoid mistakes. A good network can help you test ideas, develop local plans and facilitate projects.
- Adapt to the local culture: Different does not mean wrong. When working across cultures, a one-size-fits-all approach is a recipe for failure. Balancing the need for a consistent approach to EHS programs with the realities of local differences is critical to the success of your program. When developing global polices, standards and initiatives, I always try to leave as much flexibility as possible without compromising the imperatives of employee safety and environmental stewardship.
Utilizing these three keys to success is not always easy. This approach requires that you work with each region or site to develop their site-specific implementation plans. It also places greater importance on verification through internal auditing. But if you put in the effort the rewards will be many. Sites will take owner ship of their EHS systems. You will see faster adaptation to revised or new initiatives. Flexibility allows sites to develop creative best practices that can be shared across the organization. And in the long run you will see continuous improvement in your EHS performance.
At times it’s been difficult, but as I’ve gained experience and learned from my mistakes I‘ve come to treasure working in different cultures. It has enriched my personal life and has made me more effective as an EHS professional. I hope that when you encounter similar opportunities you will embrace them with open arms and an open mind.
Jim Spahr is an Operations EHS leader with 19 years of experience working across borders and across cultures to improve safety, health and environmental outcomes. His main areas of interest and expertise are Management Systems, Sustainability and International EHS Management. His passions are skiing, backpacking and spending time with his family (not necessarily in that order). You can reach him at jspahr@solae.com and connect with him at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jspahr
For more of Jim’s cross-cultural communication resources, please visit the Emerging Leaders group in NAEM’s online community.
Seeing Beyond the Sustainability Horizon: From Best Practices to Next Practices
Samantha Putt del Pino
As we turn our sights toward our upcoming sustainability conference in Atlanta, we sat down this week with keynote speaker Samantha Putt del Pino, Co-Director of Business Engagement in Climate and Technology at the World Resources Institute, to discuss her perspective on where sustainable business is heading.
GT: How would you describe the state of corporate sustainability, worldwide?
SPP: It’s hard to think about global business homogeneously. There is a wide range of environmental performance, even among those companies that ascribe to sustainability principles. On one hand, sustainability isn’t nearly as engrained into core business practice as we would like it to be. Some companies have not set themselves a very high bar for what it means to be sustainable. These are the companies that see sustainability as more of a niche issue, something that can help with public relations or to engage select customers.
But on the other hand, I think we are starting to see something interesting among leading companies, and that is the shift from using sustainability as short-term defense to using it for long-term offense. These companies see sustainability as essential to their long-term competitiveness. For example, some companies are aggressively investing in sustainable products and services and are seeing their revenues grow. Many have set revenue targets reflecting expectations of future growth. We also are seeing some companies factor sustainability into their mergers and acquisitions strategy, making decisions that can improve the company’s capacity to fulfill its sustainability objectives over the longer term.
GT: The World Resources Institute (WRI) is working on a new research project focused on the “Next Practices” in sustainability management. Why are best practices no longer the gold standard?
SPP: In today’s fast-changing, competitive landscape, we see an urgent need to innovate beyond best practices. Best practices are still important: Companies have made, and can continue to make, significant improvements in their environmental performance by pursuing best practices. However, companies can do more to understand how big trends, such as climate change or water scarcity create new risks and opportunities, and will shape the markets of tomorrow. Companies that proactively implement smart strategies today can gain an edge, both in terms of preparedness and in terms of accelerating progress, towards a sustainable future.
GT: What are some of the future forward issues U.S. companies should begin learning about (if not planning for) today?
SPP: There are several challenges companies face when looking for the next big sustainability issue. First, there’s no crystal ball. So, how do you anticipate future needs without trying to predict the future? Second, too often the “hot topic” of the day will shift with the political winds. How can you make a case for long-term sustainability issues if your colleagues are scrambling to address issues that come and go on a quarterly basis? And third, issues must be understood in terms very specific to each company. How do you engage your colleagues to understand big changes in the context of your company’s specific strengths and weaknesses?
These are the types of questions we are working to answer with partner companies in WRI’s Next Practice Collaborative. Many partners have told us they want to understand what other sustainability leaders see as issues of rising priority, such as water risk, life-cycle sustainability impacts, or ecosystem degradation. Oftentimes, the issue itself (like climate change) may not be new, but a new, more transformative approach is required.
WRI and its partners are working on a tool kit to help companies sort through the possibilities and connect these opportunities and threats with their core competencies. That can go a long way to making the case for action on issues on the horizon, or for tackling an existing issue with renewed innovation.
GT: Based on your knowledge of how corporate sustainability comes to fruition, what role do you think the individual leader can play in driving progress within an organization?
SPP: The most successful corporate sustainability professionals act as catalysts. They facilitate collaboration and generate excitement inside and outside the organization. They are the ones who can make a really good case to the company’s leadership for investments in bold sustainability strategies. This means making a solid business case and showing how investments create big opportunities or address big risks to the company.
Samantha Putt del Pino is co-director of Business Engagement in Climate and Technology at the World Resources Institute. As part of the Next Practice Collaborative, she works with companies to foster the transformative approaches needed to quickly close the gap between today’s best practice and the pace and scale of the climate challenge. She previously led WRI’s U.S. Climate Business Group, a cross-sector network of 36 Fortune 500 companies that developed strategies for companies to thrive in a carbon-constrained economy including building internal support for corporate climate change strategies, exploring emission reduction opportunities and technologies, and navigating the dynamic climate policy landscape. She will share insights on the state of sustainable business at NAEM’s 2012 Sustainability Management Conference on March 7-8 in Atlanta.
NAEM Board of Directors: What project are you most excited about working on this year?
As part of NAEM’s 2012 Member Appreciation Week, we sat down with members of the NAEM Board of Directors to chat about trends in environment, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability management. Featuring Kelvin Roth of AMCOL International Corp.; Sandy Nessing of American Electric Power Co. Inc.; Pat Perry of CVS Caremark; and John Reichling of CDM Smith.
Sustainability Strategy and Long-term Performance
Kimberly Gladman
At the NAEM conference in Fort Lauderdale last May, I spoke about recent academic research on the link between corporate responsibility—in particular, positive environmental policies—and stock price performance. (For a review of the studies I talked about, see my paper, “Ten Things to Know about Responsible Investing.” ) I promised NAEM staff that I’d stay in touch and keep them updated when I heard of additional research that might be of interest to the membership. A paper just out from Harvard Business School definitely fits the bill.
In “The Impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behavior and Performance,” Professors Bob Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim began by identifying companies that disclosed a set of environmental and social policies in 2003-2005. They then conducted over 200 interviews with corporate executives to ascertain which companies had already begun to implement these policies internally in 1993.
Once they had a set of 90 early adopters, they created a matched sample of companies that had few sustainability policies, but were otherwise similar to the first group in terms of size, sector, growth stage and capital structure. Comparing shareholder returns for the two groups, they found that the high-sustainability group outperformed its low-sustainability peers by an annualized 2.3 percent on an equal-weighted basis,between 1993 and 2011.
The authors also demonstrated, based on a statistical analysis of keywords in analyst calls, that high-sustainability companies are more likely to discuss long-term trends and non-financial matters with investors. They study ownership and show that high-sustainability companies attract longer-term investors with more concentrated holdings. They also show that high sustainability companies also are more likely to have a board oversight of sustainability, to incorporate sustainability metrics into executive compensation, and to disclose non-financial performance. (The full study can be found at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1964011).
While the study’s performance numbers may be welcomed by corporate environment, health and safety (EHS) managers as evidence that sustainability pays, it would be interesting to know the relationship between a company’s survival rate and its sustainability activities. For example, does management of social and environmental issues acts as a kind of insurance policy, making a company more likely to be around long-term?
NAEM members would probably have valuable opinions on this question. They would also be able to offer useful perspectives on one of the study’s key follow-up questions: What ensures that companies stay the long-term course in terms of sustainability culture? Why do some companies’ programs fall apart if a key manager leaves, while other firms seem to have environmental consciousness baked into their “DNA”? These questions are just part of the lively discussion this paper is provoking.
What do you think?
Dr. Kimberly Gladman is the Director of Research and Risk Analytics at GMI, a leading provider of corporate governance, accounting, environmental and social research and ratings. Before joining GMI’s predecessor, The Corporate Library, in 2008, Dr. Gladman managed a team of associates researching global corporations at Domini Social Investments, a prominent socially responsible investment fund manager. She also served as Lead SRI Analyst for Domini’s European equity fund, and spent several years participating in the firm’s shareholder advocacy on social, environmental, and governance issues.
She began her career in academia, focused on interdisciplinary research and teaching. She earned a B.A. from Yale University in 1990, and a Ph.D. from New York University in 2001. Dr. Gladman also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Can engaged employees transform the U.S. economy?
Alex Pollock
Now that the world population has surpassed the seven billion marker, the “sustainability” word is getting lots of play once again. The call-to-action bugles are again warning us of a pending global catastrophe. What could suddenly create “worldwide peace, global well-being and extraordinary advancement in human development?”
In a new book, “The Coming Jobs War,” author Jim Clifton says a solution is the appearance of a whopping 1.8 billion “good” jobs. These are jobs that provide at least 30 hours of work per week and a steady pay check. Clifton believes that the country that can best achieve job growth coupled with GDP growth will be the dominant world force.
Can the United States be this global force?
Clifton believes the explosion of entrepreneurship that GDP growth requires won’t happen here until the country doubles its number of “engaged” employees: those who are using their talents every day, yielding great results, emotionally committed and are working consistently with high energy and enthusiasm.
This number currently stands at 28 percent nationally. Going from 30 million to 60 million engaged workers will “change the face of America more than any leadership institution, trillions of stimulus dollars, or any law or policy imaginable,” Clifton argues.
But as long as “one in five U.S. managers are “dangerously lousy,” these “high-energy workplaces” will elude us, Clifton says. “Fire all lousy managers today” is an imperative, he argues, because nothing fixes bad managers: not coaching, competency training, incentives or warnings. In his experience “bad managers never get better.”
What’s your reaction to his analysis? Clearly there is an opportunity for each of us is to contribute to the creation of these attractive “high energy workplaces” where we willingly give our best every day. We just can’t just afford to be a passive observer on this one.
