#018: How to maximise your business impact in 2024

Over the course of this year, I have seen many businesses pick up the sustainability mantle.?

Business leaders who recognised that their businesses could be used as a force for good to tackle the climate crisis and address inequality, maximising their positive impact while minimising the negative.?

However, I’ve also spent time with these business leaders and felt their sense of overwhelm. Not having all the answers – no one does, by the way! – is daunting and often lonely.?

On top of that, impact, sustainability, ESG… call it what you will, is often being seen as an ‘add on’, something to do on top of everything else the business does. But the reality is that the change is much more fundamental. The solution goes to the very heart of what a business does and how it does it.?

For example, having an inclusive and diverse culture in a business that makes profit from selling products made from single use plastic doesn’t cut it. Similarly, a business making rugs from recycled plastic while using slave labour doesn’t either.?

Both WHAT you do AND HOW you do it have to be aligned with the 4Ps – purpose, people, planet and profit.?

And that isn’t easy.? ?

In my last newsletter of 2023, I’ve explored the theme “how to maximise your impact in 2024”.

3 short tips?

1. Integrate impact into everything you do?

For change to be sustainable, maximising your impact must become a way of life. ??

The good news is… there’s no need for a separate plan. ?? ?

Consider impact in everything you do. For example, if you are looking to introduce a new product, consider how the product is going to be manufactured – can carbon emissions be reduced during the manufacturing process? Or can recycled materials be used??

2. Set fewer SMART objectives for the year, but stick to them?

Sit down as a leadership team and agree the 5-7 objectives for the year that form your integrated plan – the big goals you need to achieve together. Write them down and communicate them to everyone in the business.?

Agree on how you are going to hold each other and yourself accountable for delivery throughout the year. How frequently are you going to check in on progress? What meeting are you going to use to do this? How will you unblock issues??

Stick to the objectives and the mechanisms you put in place.?

This is the hardest thing to do – it requires discipline to stay focused all the way to the end.?

But it’s also the most impactful. Success breeds success. When it comes to addressing the sense of overwhelm, focusing on fewer things and doing them really well achieves results.??

Starting lots of things does not. All it does is create busyness and ‘busy fools’.?

3. Surround yourself with other businesses on the same journey?

To address the sense of loneliness and lack of answers, spend time with other businesses and business leaders on the same journey. Peer-to-peer learning and support are some of the best ways to gain perspective and fast track your results by learning from what others have done – what not to do as much as ‘what to do’.?

Cross-sector communities are growing fast, and industries are organising themselves around this agenda. It’s a time for collaboration, not competition.?

2 things I have liked:?

1. Making change stick?

This infographic nicely sums up why change always takes longer than we want it to. Change isn’t something you can ‘do to’ the people in your business. It’s all about behaviours, role modelling and changing habits through institutionalising best practices.?

2. Oblivian staring Olivia Colman?

An impactful video raising awareness of what our pension money is funding.??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeZwnnOkrvw?

1 Call-To-Action?

It’s the perfect time to celebrate your collective successes and milestones and it’s important to carry this positivity and momentum into 2024, setting the tone for continued growth and success.?

As we near the end of 2023, encourage your team to reflect on their proudest accomplishments within the business throughout the year. Gather their insights and achievements and incorporate this feedback into your end-of-year staff communications.

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Enjoy the newsletter? Forward it to a friend. It only takes 10 seconds and I’d really appreciate it. Thank you. ??

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