Article #7 : The mindset and capability for net zero readiness

What I’ve been presenting in a series of articles around a video I shaped on ‘Navigating a journey to Net Zero’ isn’t easy.?I’ve set out a visual narrative of a path to get there and made comment as I’ve gone on the seven themes set out in the UK government’s Net Zero strategy of October 2021.

I’ve set out in my sixth article some of the many individual possibilities that may, or may not, be part of the solutions that are found on the way, and used the to illustrate the complexity of the multi-party system that must “seamlessly” come together to drive change.?

It’s not simple to start, but it’s absolutely wrong not to…

One could be left either thinking that I’ve over simplified the complexities to be overcome, and / or that I don’t have a scooby-doo of how to start working that out.?In some ways I will acknowledge that this scale of the task is vast.?And yet I, like so many others have made changes to my lifestyle to start inching towards progressive change.?Therefore, and perhaps, the only failing is that I am not moving far enough, fast enough.

So, in picking the title picture for this article I went to the end point, the vision of hyperloops and high-transit, of drone based logistics, and weird and wonderful airborne machines.

The last three years since 2020 have taught us that projecting into the future is an invitation to be wrong.?The fragility on the earth seems only to be matched by the fragility of pandemic, financial challenges and geopolitical disruptors – all of which take time and effort for decision makers and funders to compute and work through.?

There is no single vision for the future though different governments, and indeed one well known (Texan) electric motor vehicle manufacturer, have sought to set out how they think the commitments could be met…

What I do know, is that we must start…?to not start, to not invest now will only leave even more to be done in an even shorter window of opportunity.

The mindset – holding firm to what is true, stretching towards a goal, running the gauntlet

I have held a rolling five-to-ten-year vision and plan in my head and in various doodlings since my early twenties.?It is an absolute truth that many things in my plans failed to materialise as I perceived they would, started out and got knocked backwards, or were forced to be part of a re-envisaged route up my mountain of life.?And yet, I can also look at those lists and thinking and be proud that I held firm to things I wanted to be, that I absolutely stretched myself *at times to be broken* and that I kept my head facing forwards to the end of the gauntlet I was running.

Once we commit, individually and collectively to the Net Zero obligation we must hold firm to it – for the sakes of those generations to come.

Releasing change – requires us to engage and enable others, to create and resolve to new behaviours and to develop change leadership.

This is mindset… and we must create that and share it.?

This is the mindset that compelled the doodle that I’ve spent these articles describing.?It will not be (it is not) right… yet it is largely not wrong either… ?It is created to be a conversation starter, a tool to engage and to support decisions.

We must create a collaborative space for conversation – those conversations in the near term are likely to align, but those (just as the picture becomes futuristic) will become more fluid into the future.

But that’s ok… indeed it’s essential.?We must come together to create debate, challenge and then agreement…?I believe that the decisions must blend the multiple dimensions of time to deliver change, probability of success, cost and value created, and interdependencies to other net zero themes.

It is vital that a mindset is created, and a narrative maintained, that builds trust, established the shared imperative I wrote about in the first article, and that supports the bold decisions needed to try and explore the many avenues needed to release change.

The capabilities – thankfully we all have a part to play – and playing to our strengths we must

This is not (just) the most complex chess game or conundrum to solve.?This is not (only) a mega Gannt chart or a systems thinking diagram.

There is no piece of ChatGPT to solve this.?And if even there were - such is the dynamic complexity of this problem, programme, project, obligation - everyone has a part to play to play.?

We need skills and expertise across the board, in each of the relevant domains – the digital experts, engineers, scientists, policymakers, leaders, investors, etc. It should include all (and only) the capabilities needed to achieve our end goal – the end justifies the means.

But here, the whole is more than the sum of the parts – we cannot just add together the individual elements and areas I talked about in this series of articles. It needs also expertise that sits above them, that tie this system of systems together – to integrate them. This starts with everyone of us and the domain-specific experts who must be mindful and have an understanding of, and ability to communicate with, those in the wider environment that surrounds us and how to translate our work into other areas.

This driving element of change needs a beating heart, the real programme and portfolio management of the whole, the design authority (with capital A “Authority”) to analyse and calculate the benefits and value of choices to be… and then to have the collective agreement that decisions will then be made an acted upon.

We must imagine the future, and the steps to create a resilient plan… the practice of repeated, readiness…

The journey to net zero will be without its mistakes, its failed innovations, its slow burners and its quick wins.?All are important… and the full breadth of capabilities described above (and more) will need to come together.

With doubt and innovation required in the transition to net zero we must not pretend that a one time planning process will conceive the perfect solution – many stories are told of the multiple efforts to create change, be that the Dyson vacuum cleaner, space exploration, or the journey of world class athletes.

If the end goal is a transition plan that is resilient, then the process to get there will require two more R’s.?Those of repetition and readiness… We must use the capabilities available to us, with a mindset committed to challenging the process, prioritisation and opportunities to release change.

These actions must create a continuous cycle of evaluating readiness for the short and long term actions necessary to achieve the goal, followed by a repetition of the review and prioritisation of the actions, followed by a testing of the resilience that they establish or create to meet the objectives of the goal.

Activities, a system and the goal…

In this way, the journey to a goal, in this case, of the transition to net zero… become not about the goal in and of itself, and rather of the steps that can be made, the system in which those actions are taken.

The cycles of iteration describe the system, the inner Venn diagram are the activities within the system that make progress, and the direction of travel is set by the goal itself.

In using this approach, cycles can (and must) be repeated at pace, to release public funding for innovation in a timely and controlled manner, to release the blockers of change and to celebrate the steps – small and large – that support the system as it navigates the journey to net zero.

A series of articles

In the series of articles that follow this one, I set out to present the visual narrative, and the contributions that are made over seven themes set out by the UK government’s Net Zero Strategy.

UK government’s?Net Zero Strategy.

Video :?navigating a journey to zero

Article #1 :?a description of the journey over time

Article #2 :?a description of the journey over time

Article?#3 : the first three movers… national infrastructure : power, fuel and hydrogen, and industry

Article?#4 : the middle two… within our gift : heat and buildings, and transport

Article?#5 : the final two… the world we live in : natural resources, waste and fluoride gases, and greenhouse gas removal

Article?#6 : a complex system of systems

Article?#7 : the mindset and capability for net zero readiness

Article?#8 : so what’s missing?