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[Case Study] Turning Cost Savings into Climate Action: A Sustainability Success Story

20/3/2024

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Sustainability initiatives often face a hurdle: cost concerns. Many believe decarbonisation is simply too expensive. But what if we re-framed the conversation?

This case study showcases how a seemingly daunting cost-cutting target became a springboard for a successful sustainability initiative. Here's how a headquarter's request for a 200 million US dollar savings in energy cost became a catalyst for positive change.

Sustainability and cost savings can be a powerful combination!

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[Case Study] - How to build a strong culture foundation when scaling up fast

8/3/2024

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There are mentorship programs and mentorship programs... Sometimes you walk into the client's office and you feel a different culture - a strong, positive dedication to deliver great results. How can you maintain and improve this culture while scaling up fast?

VISEO - the Positive Digital Makers - launched a mentorship program exactly with this in mind: selecting and enabling a group of custodians for the VISEO way of working. And I am very grateful to have an instrumental role in this endeavour, initiating the change in the Asia-Pacific region.

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"This Endeavour has Proven to be Priceless"

5/3/2024

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There is for me one key goal when facilitating workshops: I want to inspire people to start with their change. Last week, I facilitated a leadership development program and got these humbling testimonials from the participants. What can be better than that?

Maybe, when you do what you love, great results will happen. I feel it is the passion, dedication, creativity and the ability to show full consideration to the participants that I bring to my work that makes these workshops a success.
​​I want to express my heartfelt appreciation for initiating this [leadership] training program.
This endeavour has proven to be priceless, offering a fulfilling learning journey.

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Cross-organisational Collaboration - Are you delivering maximal value?

20/2/2024

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For years now, I have been helping teams and organisations to collaborate better - either within teams or across teams; either within larger organisations or beyond company borders. Enabling these teams to give their best.

When did I start with this topic? The first time I dived into this theme was with my master thesis. At that time I was comparing and evaluating various forms of how companies collaborate. After a (very!) long time I have read my thesis again and was surprised and amused how accurate the content is today.

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Why are People & Culture Topics Important? They are saving you money!

6/2/2024

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Often I hear that strategic human resources topics are nice-to-have. Traditional managers share with me that they focus on money first and these 'soft' topics are coming later.

We at Hive17 agree that delivering value to customers is a key activity within any organisation ("the train"). And every organisation also needs to ensure that that delivery is as effective as possible ("the tracks"). This is why we believe that enabling teams to give their best is so important. And let's explain this in money terms.

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How to unleash potential? Ditch top-down leadership

30/1/2024

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For years, people have known me as an advocate for flat organisational structures, delegation of control and decision-making, and for removing traditional hierarchies. In a recent conversation I have shared two key reasons why ditching traditional, top-down leadership styles can give you huge benefits.

Most of us are aware that being a directive and micro-managing boss creates frustration, establishes bottlenecks, and hinders collaboration within your teams. With a supportive, engaging leadership style you aim to create more transparency which allows information to flow bottom-up and which enables fast decision-making. And, there are two more reasons I want to share here:

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Leadership is the Driving Force for Success - Here are the 7 Trends for 2024

24/1/2024

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How are you making sure your organisation is dedicated to the same direction, stays strongly engaged to move forward and your teams are striving to give their best? Great leadership is without doubt the (not so) secret recipe to lasting success. It creates the resilience to go through uncertain times and enables the necessary transformations.

What do you need to lookout for in 20204?

Swiss leadership institute IMD shared earlier this month how they predict the trends for this year. Let me share them here with you.
  • Agility - the year of 2024 might only become more uncertain and volatile; as a leader you want to enable your teams to grow in this environment and get stronger; this can be achieved with the right mindsets and the right way of working.
  • Beginners mind - they call it apocalyptic leadership which translates into being open minded for new perspectives; this requires a radical shift away from traditional leadership styles and an understanding that the company success is based on the entire ecosystem and the value everyone contributes.
  • Dual transformation - here the term ambidexterity is put in the mix which points to the suggestion that organisations need to look at dual transformation strategies; how do you ensure that the current business stays successful while an equal focus is put on the future business models?
  • Experimentation - change is coming, looking back will not lead to the right decisions; though, the future is unknown and might appear daunting; the right tactics and routines in experimenting will lead to learning and value creation.
  • Automation - since over a hundred years, productivity gains have been driven by machines; today artificial intelligence will drive another boost; how do we guide our teams to create synergy and excellence in the intersection between humans and machines?
  • Mental health - employees at the brink of a burnout are not only less productive; they tend to make wrong decisions and are influencing the mood of the peers around them; establishing a positive environment will boost motivation, productivity and excellence.
  • Purpose-driven - our jobs represent a major element of our lives; mundane, meaningless work will impact everyone's life balance and limit your people's motivation and engagement; creating a organisation vision that goes beyond profit will lead to higher value creation, improved effectiveness, better alignment and long-term success.

How will you drive change in your organisation?


Source: Seven leadership trends to focus on in 2024
How fragile is your leadership style? Get your Antifragility Score today.
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Collect the drive from your teams - Organisational Energy

16/1/2024

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This year might become a tough year and there might not be much we can do about it - especially about the external and geopolitical aspects. What we can focus on as a leader is to equip the organisation and enable our teams to give their best. And one special aspect is Energy!

Organisational Energy is what I want to talk about today. How often do we feel that work is draining our energy? That the efforts within an organisation are clashing; that people are lethargic and inert. And as a leader we simply wish that we are able to give our teams a spark.

I recently came across the work of Heike Bruch and it is refreshing to see peers that are sharing the same vision and passion for energy, positivity, and enabling Drive within our work ecosystem. Here are some of her thoughts on the topic:
  • Bond people behind an opportunity or a challenge; this can be a project or a new strategy which people are sharing, have contributed to and which allows to channel their energy towards the same direction. I like to call this the Leitbild (a guiding imagination of the future state).
  • Build confidence; show people that their contribution counts, that any opinion and action is valuable and that we are on joint learning journey. I like to call this Consideration.
  • Avoid the acceleration trap; as a leader we have the tendency, when the momentum starts that we are pushing down the lever; this negative pressure actually leads to lower productivity because people feel disempowered. I like to call this Delegation of Control.
  • Systemic approach to focus; focus on the key elements that make your project / strategy a success; and remove the distractions. I like to base this focus on Objectives & Key Results.
  • Focus on your own energy first; this is the classic duality of change: as a leader you can only convince your team about the new way of working if you start first and become a role model.

As with many things with effective teams, the collective energy is larger then the sum of the individuals. When we align this energy we can create synergy that triples or tenfolds the efforts. As a team we can then ride that wave and easily overcome barriers. We can collectively become antifragile.

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Source: TEDxZurich - Heike Bruch on How to Manage Organizational Energy
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The Perils of ESG Reporting - Lessons Learnt from Operational Excellence

9/1/2024

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When we look back at 2023 it was the year of ESG Reporting. The great thing about it is that companies started to take the topic of sustainability seriously and allocated resources to do something about it. And for any sustainability journey, understanding the baseline is important. Though, as Robin Hicks recently pointed out, companies are confused with the selection of standards, information and opinions. For example, calculating a company's carbon can take 2-4 years!

In my experience, this is frustrating and boring. Which leads to dissatisfied shareholders and employees as a lot of effort is put into something that does not generate results. With this we are fuelling resistance that costs energy and reduces productivity. That is why many well-intended sustainability journeys end and are axed.

Can we simply not do carbon accounting? No. Does it need to be this cumbersome? No. And here my experience in operational excellence is really helpful. An area where you focus on creating more value with the resource you have based on data and analysis. Let's apply this to ESG improvements as well. Here are some thoughts:
  • Start your carbon accounting (and other sustainability reporting activities) in dedicated areas; first something simple to test your approach; then continue in areas that can create highest improvements.
  • Translate the data intelligence into improvement action; the goal for ESG reporting is creating positive environmental and societal impact and this should guide our efforts.
  • Formulate a sustainability strategy that is relevant for your industry, market and company culture; this will be the North Star to guide short-term and long-term decision making.
  • Celebrate the results and achievements and let them drive the next effort.
  • Embed ESG reporting into a broader transformation program that aims to enable every employee to become a climate ambassador; the goal is to drive new behaviour and mindsets and steer to a new culture.
  • Reflect how your sustainability change journey can follow the values of honesty, courage, frugality, and synergy (more here).

What are in your eyes the key ingredients for a successful sustainability journey?

Reference: Eco-Business CSO Survey, Robin Hicks, Jan 2023
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How to create bonding top leadership teams? An unexpected role model

4/1/2024

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A New Year has started and fresh inspirations are coming in. At Hive17 we focus on facilitating effective teams, and that is particularly important on the top (also check our recent CxO Team post). Just yesterday, the Embassy of Switzerland in Singapore shared a post about the Swiss Federal Presidency and the Swiss Federal Council. An example I like to share as it is a high-level model for a self-organising team.

CxO Teams are in similar situations; they have broad and deep responsibilities; they have the tendency to focus the majority of their time on their own department; they tend to work less as one team. The Swiss government puts a structure in place to counter these tendencies. A structure that any company can learn from and become more effective in delivering change.

Here are some suggestions to look out for:
  • Create common, shared goals that all team members commit to
  • Establish job rotation so that every CxO team member has exposure and experience in all the functions and business units across the organisation
  • Define shared initiatives that are accomplished as a joint effort across multiple departments; they strengthen the cross-departmental understanding, collaboration and alignment
  • Build strong personal bonds among all the team members that are based on fellowship, win-win, and consideration
  • And you might want to consider the CEO's position as the key person to drive transformation and acting as the glue to bring all the different parts of the organisation together under one vision and one direction

How do you build a more effective and self-organised CxO team?

Source: Swiss Federal Presidency, LinkedIn
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What attitude delivers lasting success? Win-win!

20/12/2023

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The end of the year is coming and I got asked, if you would give one piece of advise, what would it be? In my experience dealing with leaderships, one foundational attitude I discovered is Win-Win.

In our work life we come across various situations: developing a product, negotiate with a client, hire an employee, resolve conflict, onboard a supplier, provide feedback, conduct meetings, and simply solve a problem. When you observe yourself in these situations, how often do you want to win, how often do you want the other party to lose? Or you might simply not care if you lose. All these attitudes have in common that they are not effective. For success, we need to practice a win-win attitude.

When I help people to obtain this new approach, I usually share Green & Clean by Stephen Covey - a fun and inspiring introduction to the topic. And there are so many great quotes which I would like to share here:
  • "you boss yourself" / "you judge yourself"
  • "the moment you [take back control], you kill the goose; you kill effectiveness and go for efficiency"
  • "reaffirm you purpose: raise boys, not grass"
  • "what was heard, he hasn't done one single thing" / "what is hard is moving up the level of initiative"
  • "you cannot hold people responsible for results, if you supervise their methods"
  • "it takes time to set up the [win-win agreement and reaffirm it" / "keep believing in the people"

How will you approach win-win in your next negotiation?
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How to make target setting impactful?

5/12/2023

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“Only 41% of CEOs believe employees’ behaviours are mostly aligned with company’s values and direction.” This statement from PwC's annual CEO survey means that about 60% of the employees are not fully aligning their productivity with the company's priorities. As a result, efforts are wasted in the wrong direction. Further, according to Hive17's surveys, about a third of the managers underestimate the importance of goal setting for motivation.

How are you going about setting targets for 2024 to create maximum impact for your business?

Hive17 successfully implemented vision to action programs since over six years, driving change for new strategies and large-scale initiatives. At it's core is a interactive approach that translates your strategy into actions in people's daily work. What we deliver is:
  • clarity on what actions will advance our strategic goals
  • intrinsic motivation based on alignment and engagement

​Our programs focus on principles, structures, tools and behaviours to enable everyone in the entire organisation to give their best.

How do you plan to create more impact for 2024?


Source: Leading in the new reality, PwC's 26th Annual Global CEO Survey - Asia Pacific, January 2023
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Enabling Teams to Give Their Best - It starts at the Top

29/11/2023

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Enabling teams to give their best - When I approach CEOs with this topic, they almost always think this is important for the teams reporting to them. Yes, the operations team needs to work more effectively. That business unit needs a boost in productivity. In the organisation, the different functions need to work closer together across the silos. While these are important areas for improvement, we forget one important team.

What about that team on the top? The CxOs forming a team together with the CEO. How important is it that they are a highly effective team?

In my experience, when this group of people are not enabled to give their best, it will slow down the entire organisation. Here are some of my observations:
  • The air is cold on the top and often the team members on the top feel that they are in competition rather than collaboration with their peers; no mistakes allowed
  • Based on this they have to rely on themselves and their own judgement to make decisions and are not able to rely on the broader wisdom of their peers
  • The strained collaboration on the top is setting a standard for poor collaboration on other levels in the organisation; this results in silo mentality and a culture that does not allow experimentation
  • Further, I observe that there is very few laughter and joy on the top level; a positivity and lightness is missing; two elements that are vital for intrinsic motivation and unleashing people's full potential

What can we do as CEOs to build stronger bonds, create a solid team that is effective and is setting the right platform for a great company culture? Here are some simple steps:
  1. Focus on shared goals that go a) beyond financial targets and b) requires involvement of all the CxO members.
  2. Engage your peers in a frequent dialogue and practice joint decision making; the result should be a shared leadership, while maintaining clear roles & accountability.
  3. Define working and collaboration principles that you would to aspire to be adopted across the entire organisation; and be mindful to practice them yourselves.
  4. Spend time together outside of the work context; get to know each other; like any other highly effective team.

Where do you see the barriers to effectiveness in your team? When will you schedule your next CxO lunch?
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What do we need for the Sustainability Revolution? Our Communities

24/11/2023

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"Hope is not enough: turning vision into climate action!" This was one of the themes of the second Green Tech Festival held in Singapore. And for concrete and lasting action, I believe we need two essential ingredients: innovation & culture. This was a theme that weaved throughout the presentations and panels at the conference.

One example that stood out for me was the Hot Heart - a project with the purpose of decarbonising the district heating system in the Finnish capital. One the one hand, the technical solution is innovative in a way that it integrates the energy storage component when harvesting renewable energy for keeping the citizens warm.

On the other hand, the transformed the technocractic solution with an experience for its community: establishing a all-year tropical island right in front of the city gates. Why is this important? In this way  you bring the technology closer to the people, allow them to interact and benefit from the solution - in a very direct way. This will accelerate acceptance and inspire new innovation.

We at Hive17 believe that driving a sustainability culture in your organisation will drastically increase the adoption of climate action and in turn your efforts in substantial triple-bottom-line benefits.

How will your start your internal movement?

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Learn more about The Hot Heart.
Learn more about Hive17's sustainability solutions
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Corporate Democracy? Innovation plus People plus Results!

15/11/2023

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Most companies are stuck in their corporate patterns: large overhead costs and bureaucratic burdens; a focus on short-term results; an inert workforce following a handful of leaders; exposure to bias and unfairness. We sort of know it is wrong, but we don't have the means to change to the better.

Except for one company! Very few people heard of the company Gore (mainly famous for its Gore-Tex fabrics) which churns out 3 billion USD of revenue with 9'000 employees worldwide. Gore has a very different management philosophy: no hierarchy, family feeling, CEO is selected via a poll, etc. The fundamental belief at Gore is that individuals know what's right for the company and success comes from collaboration in small teams; "we are all in the same boat". Followed by the guiding principles of freedom, fairness, commitment, transparency.

On my side, I love to share the story of Gore in order to inspire and show, it is possible to lead differently. Enabling leaders to think out of the box and facilitate change. Here are a few of the elements that define the leadership innovation at Gore:
  1. Commitment, instead of assignment - focus on the Why and the understanding; touch people passion
  2. Motivate the right behaviour - no complicated criteria, and embrace simple voting; enable ownership (shares) in the company
  3. 10% working time to find fellows working on new ideas
  4. Success comes from ensuring the culture is healthy and supporting innovation ('enabling teams to give their best')
  5. Scaling is easy because Gore has a distributed management system; authority is pushed to the operating teams
  6. At the core is culture! This drives the right behaviour in distributed, self-organising teams

Reading through this story, I see Hive17's Human Operating System confirmed: we need to start with a shared direction; then creativity comes up with solutions; experimentation allows to polish these ideas; and solid relationships motivate and allow fast decision-making.

How do you enable your teams to give their best?


Source: ​Innovation Democracy: W.L. Gore's Original Management Model
Photo Credit: Charlie Bibby, FT
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The Future is Coming Closer - With Airships

28/9/2023

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One year ago, I shared an amazing book on my reading list about how we need to embrace and shape our future in light of Climate Change (read here). One theme I picked up were airships. Flying around with jet engines (powered by fossil fuel or otherwise) might not be enough to clean our Earth's atmosphere. We might need to change away from them.

And here we go - the exciting news this month was a new project by Bertrand Picard to circumvent the globe in an airship. These can stay in the air for months on end, generate energy autonomously, and can be spacious and comfortable (for the longer journey from A to B).

​And, Euro Airships are not the only ones working on Airships. Flying Whales (thank you for sharing, Jeremy) are using the floating monsters to transport heavy goods over long distances. The question is: how much would you appreciate a 3-day journey from Singapore to Zurich? In the end, this requires a bit of planning and can be very pleasurable.

How can we direct more funding and finances into this future of long-range transport?

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Sources
solar and hydrogen-powered aircraft will fly around the world for 20 days without stopping; designboom, Sep 2023
Flying Whales
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Effective Continuous Improvement leads to 15% Efficiency Gains

26/9/2023

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Are you looking for ways to boost your productivity and control your costs? The Hive17 Human Operating System is designed to enable teams to give their best and one of the key elements is innovation.

At Hive17 we often observe that medium-sized organisations have limited resources and may be stuck in traditional ways of thinking. Hive17 can help you to overcome these barriers and build a culture for effective continuous improvement within your organisation. Here is how this might work.

Let's say that you are looking to improve your efficiency in your operations. We would start with the right mindset and approach to identify creative ideas. This requires a deep understanding of the problem by involving the right people and enabling everyone to express and appreciate new ideas - as many as possible.

After that, we would test these ideas using a scientific approach to stimulate trial & learning. We will help you to set up a clear hypothesis, collecting the right data, and analysing the results carefully with an open and curious mind.

As a result, you can expect to see within a few months a 15% cost reduction and productivity gain. The new culture will also enable you drive quality and create a future-proof business that is able to thrive in any market.
Learn more how Hive17 can be your innovation sparring partner!
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How Fragile are Your Leadership Skills?

14/9/2023

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What are the two most important and sought after leadership skills in Asia? Based on the research of GloCoach, they identified the two following skills:
  • Team Leadership - how are you enabling your teams to give their best
  • Communicate with credibility - how are you building trust and win-win within your ecosystem

From our practice at Hive17 we can only underline the value of these two leadership skills in order to bring positive change within your organisation. And we observe that many leaders struggle to apply these skills on a consistent basis.

How fragile are your leadership skills? How well do you understand the qualities to successfully lead a team? And, how confident are you to implement these leadership skills in your daily work?

Here is the solution: Hive17's Antifragility Score is assessing your teams leadership qualities with a unique focus on teams and how to enable them to give their best. This assessment includes:
  • Current leadership blindspots of your team
  • 60 questions in a 15-20 minutes survey
  • Individual reports
  • Debrief within your team
  • Suggestions for development content
  • Best repeated every 3 months with trend graphs

Accelerate the engagement in your team which leads to improved innovation, productivity and retention. Your individual antifragility score is for free!
Start Your Assessment
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Key for Project Success? Effective Team Collaboration

12/9/2023

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Every year, my Alma Mater brings about 70 students from St.Gallen to Singapore for an exchange semester - undoubtedly an unforgettable and important experience. As part of their program, they conduct a consulting project with their peers at SMU. Over the years, we observed one key ingredient for successful projects: effective collaboration within the teams.

This year I had the honour again to introduce how to form effective teams in a short period of time. I feel it is always so insightful and a great learning experience for me to work together with students. Absorbing their curiosity and insightful point of view. Here are the key steps we covered in the 90 minutes session.

Start with a win-win attitude. When we are entering a meeting, negotiating or selling our products, how often do you observe that one party wants the opponent to lose out? We can only achieve maximum synergy if we consider the win of the other party and have the courage to stand for our win as well.

Effective teamwork happens when we enable all team members to give their best. This requires clear, common goals, shared leadership, a desire to deliver high quality, quick decision-making, and a high level of energy. And let's not forget that the work environment strengthens the mutual trust.

Shared values are the basis of team principles. These will provide guidance on how the team wants to work together and also establishes boundaries. The team principles also include ways how we get to know each other better and build social connections.

Conflict will arise and effective teams are not good at avoiding conflict - they are good at conflict management. First step: deflate emotions. When we are super excited or very angry - in any case, we won't be able to think rationally and create solutions that resolve the conflict.

What are your key ingredients for effective teams?
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Let's Make Work More Human - With AI

7/9/2023

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This might be one of my rare posts about AI. Yesterday, I was invited by our partner GloCoach to an event to talk about "AI and Organisational Success". Here were some of the proposed questions: Will AI replace our workforce? Or rather, when will AI replace our workforce? And the questions then continued: how will AI replace people? With whom will they be collaborating?

The discussion elaborated that, as any other tech tool, AI will support us humans. The algorithms will fulfil tasks which we are struggling with, for example big data analysis. The automation will allow us to offload mundane and repetitive tasks and to focus on the more value-creating tasks. We humans will (should) always be in control and make the decisions.

Automation - as it has been shown in the past with the agricultural, industrial revolutions and photography - will allow us to scale and to provide solutions to 10'000 times more people than we were able before automation. As was discussed during the event, this means that high-level coaching solutions can be provided to a much much wider audience, while the current coachees might still prefer (and able to afford) to be coached by a human (augmented by AI).

Here is another idea that came up during the conversations I want to share here. How can we improve business processes with AI? Here we are often in a dilemma... On the one hand, we want to have consistent processes because this will allow efficiency. On the other hand, we are faced with exceptions that don't follow the norm and we need to 'bend' these rules. I am a proponent to switch from 'rules' to 'principles', because principles allow you to understand the underlying reason why we do things and provide us with flexibility which enables us to focus on effectiveness. AI can help here to combine on the one hand the underlying rules of a process with on the other hand specific data about the individual person or item that goes through that process. As a result, we are able to scale individualised iterations of the business process that are more accurate and are at the same time efficient and effective. Examples are individual leave application procedures, 3-D printed items, last-mile package delivery, etc.

Where do you see the future of artificial intelligence in your life?
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Foundation to Deliver Excellent Customer Value - The Human Operating System

29/8/2023

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The purpose of any organisation is to successfully deliver value to their customers. The range of customers might be wide and the definition of value and success might greatly vary. Though, in essence that is it. And rightfully, companies are focusing their efforts on selling, producing and delivering their products and solutions.

Recently, there have been new questions and barriers appearing in leadership circles. "I need all my employees to focus in one direction."; "It feels like that internal silos are preventing us from delivering to our clients."; "We need values and a culture that is exciting to work in." All these statements point to a need for increased focus on the delivery of that customer value. We need an effective foundation for our way of working. That is basically the infrastructure to run our operations; or the Human Operating System.

The goal of the human operating system is to create an environment that enables teams to give their best. It is about alignment, transparency, change management, motivation, psychological safety and fun. Imagine a flotilla of small boats that independently sail towards a common direction. How these are operated and are connected describes this operating system.

Here are some of the key components for this human operating system:
  • A meaningful purpose, values and common targets that align and motivate
  • Tools & processes to co-innovate with various stakeholders
  • Mindsets & routines that enable continuous experimentation and learning
  • Team principles that facilitate synergy, conflict resolution and collaboration

Let's arrange a meeting to find out how Hive17 Consulting can further improve your way of working!
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Key Words for Sustainability - Honesty, Frugality, Courage, Synergy

25/8/2023

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This week we had another great Sustainability event in Singapore - organised by Lufthansa Group. While the airline industry overall is struggling to curb carbon emissions, it is great to see that one important player is striving forward on their sustainability journey. Maybe the most prominent technology is AeroShark - a nature-inspired film that is reducing the friction and drag of a plane's fuselage.

The event brought together industry experts into different panels that discussed sustainability also beyond the airline industry. For a while now, I have been pondering about key words that describe sustainability journeys. During this event, I have put more thought into these descriptors which guide us on a solid path towards a better planet and society.

Honesty - past incidents of greenwashing have shown that solid reporting is essential in order to gather internal and external support for the ESG journey. We need to create more transparency and credibility, so that we can strengthen our reputation towards consumers, regulators and talents. Lufthansa has illustrated their effort and dedication to report on a long list of standards.

Frugality - frugality means the careful use of resources and this is strongly related to reducing our consumption of energy, raw materials and natural landscapes. Operational efficiency is not only a driver to reduce cost, in most cases these solutions also have a net positive effect on the environment. The AeroShark film, better transport routing and switching to more efficient drive trains are some great examples.

Courage - risk is a large driver in corporate decision making and often, this is holding back crucial investment decisions. Bold new strategies into an uncertain future requires courage - and we need environments that are enabling more risk taking. One great example was Jungheinrich where the board decided five years ago to fully embark on their sustainability journey; this courage has paid off very well for them.

Synergy - sustainability journeys demand stronger collaboration between the silos within an organisation and beyond their company borders. This collaboration is facilitated with common goals and a belief that together we can achieve more. It was also highlighted that academia and industry need to work much closer and share insights. Together we are stronger.

The journey towards a greener and fairer planet can be daunting. These four underlying principles can act as a guide towards more successful sustainability transformations. Which drivers do you suggest to add?
Learn more about Hive17's Sustainability Solutions
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Aiming for Sustainability is not Good Enough - We Need Courage

23/8/2023

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When talking about sustainability, there are a few important terms that come to my mind: honesty, courage, frugality, etc. Today, I want to talk about courage.

The former Unilever CEO Paul Polman shared a number of insights in this interview and I want to highlight two quotes which are well linked together:
  • "How can a company profit from solving the world’s problems, not from creating them?"
  • “If a goal is not making you uncomfortable, it’s not aggressive enough.”

Basically, we need to shift our mindset to "win-win" - currently we are stuck in win-loose. This new attitude means the planet wins, our global community wins, and we as companies win.

In order to achieve this, our operations and products need to become restorative, reparative and regenerative. This is what we as net positive leaders are required to do.

What is the biggest barrier? It is not technology, finances or capabilities. The biggest barrier is courage. What are Paul's suggestions?
  1. Take responsibility for that total impact in the world; also the bad side of business
  2. Operate for long-term benefits of business and society; actually, optimising the return for all stakeholders
  3. As societal leaders, drive broader system changes
  4. Be purpose driven, cherish partnerships, be multi-generational, show a high level of compassion or empathy, act with humanity and humility
  5. Understand the importance of doing this in all parts of your business models, in all brands, in all operations; and the activities need to be consistent

Yes, this sounds huge; it is huge. Still, the best time to make your first step in this direction is today. One step at the time.

What is your first step?

Source: Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman Says Aiming for Sustainability Isn’t Good Enough—The Goal Is Much Higher, Harvard Business Review, November 2019
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How do You Enable the Translation from Vision to Action?

1/8/2023

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Our current times are full of change and a solid strategy is necessary to give the organisation direction and alignment to create lasting success. Furthermore, a meaningful and clear vision is driving motivation and is a strong ingredient for making decisions. Yet, many companies struggle to bring their vision to the ground. Employees are saturated with changing strategies and often don't see how the new directions are impacting their daily work.

"Only 41% believe current employee behaviours are mostly aligned to company values and direction." - 26th Annual Global CEO Survey - Asia Pacific | PwC | January 2023 (link)

Often, new strategies come with flashy posters, inspiring townhalls and a set of top-down KPIs. And then the rest of the organisation is left to create success. And in 59% of the cases, it doesn't happen. We need to go beyond that. How can we best engage to translate vision into action?

In my experience, there are three key areas:
  1. Facilitate the process that people understand how their daily work is bringing the new strategy forward.
  2. Enable that this process is happening through the different hierarchical levels and a thread is visible from the frontline to the overall vision.
  3. Strengthen the frequent reviews and reflection with solid routines, so that we know if we are on the right track.

In the process of setting and propagating targets, it is also important that we provide the wider context and that this is a collaborative bottom-up process. Let the people define their own targets and how to review them. As a leader, your role is to provide guidance and support.

At Hive17 Consulting, we have been running 'Vision to Action' workshops for over six years with great success. They are establishing an environment where target setting and reviews are building strong alignment, direction and motivation.
Check out our programs
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"If I had a Magic Wand, I Wish People would Value Our Planet"

28/7/2023

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This week the EuroCham has organised a great event about "How to Transform Manufacturing to Meet Net Zero?" with a very vivid and insightful panel. One highlight I want to share is the answer to the question: what would you wish if you had a magic wand?

"If I had a magic wand, I would bring people back to value our planet! Create that feeling of appreciation for what we are receiving from Earth. I wish that people would see the value they are getting out of nature. It is time to pay back." Very powerful words and I can only strongly support this wish.

The event was linked with an introduction and visit of the production site of Asia Pacific Brewery, and the company is very strong with their impact related activities. The organisation is passionate about their 'brewing a better world' campaign and clearly working along the triple bottom line of planet-people-profits.

Let's continue to strengthen the awareness that sustainability is a huge business opportunity. We as individuals, as organisations and as societies can greatly benefit.
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    Tim

    Tim is a change practitioner in the area of innovation and excellence. He is working with teams to accelerate innovation, collaboration and agility.

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