Partnerships in Sustainability

Takeaways from the masters thesis journey of Rishabh and Jeremy - A parallel to how collaboration works within the realm of sustainability.

Same Same but Different

Rishabh and I both were students of the same Masters program, and attended almost all the same classes and even attended the exact same universities for each of the two years of the Masters. Both our sustainability philosophies were getting molded simultaneously, and we started noticing that our approaches to sustainability overlapped quite a bit. Now that was all the same, but the ways we both worked, learned and ideated were completely different.

Rishabh is more of a concrete foundational thinker who has got one of the sharpest eyes for detail. He is what one would define as a practical polisher - he needs things to make complete sense and then can fine-tune the living daylights out of anything in the best possible way.

Gideon on the other hand is more of an abstract cerebral thinker who explores ideas and constantly looks at the big picture. I was not in the habit of peering too much into details, I preferred discussing potential ideas rather than focusing on the current situations.

Now when you see these two character profiles, you might be wondering, this would seem like a deadly combination - either we'd be dead cause we couldn't agree on anything or deadly because we would become a force to reckon with. I am glad to say it was the latter, because as we started working on our thesis what we both soon realized is that we our working styles were very complementary. I always use this expression when people ask me to explain how it was working together - I was like the big paintbrush that can cover a lot of area, and Rishabh was the small paintbrush that would ensure that everything is perfect. My ability to pump out content/ideas and Rishabhs ability to tune the content exactly was what made us efficient. So I did not need to worry about about polishing my ideas, because Rishabh would cover that.

So what was the idea that I wanted to get at with this little snippet - Sustainability is not gonna happen alone, this is established and I have covered this in previous articles. But when looking at collaboration, there is no point of collaborating for the sake of collaborating, I believe time needs to be taken to understand what each collaborating party can bring to the table. Taking time to understand how each party thinks, works and behaves goes a long way in evaluating the potential success of the collaboration. Taking time to truly understand the different aspects of each party can make it easier to find natural synergies rather than forcing it.

You Win, I Win, We Win

Now Rishabh and me had this thing called a DEGREE to get, and this thesis project was standing in our way. This was equally important for the both of us, and we knew that none of us could be the reason the other could not do well in this. Our lives kinda sorta depended on this to an extent (apologies for the slight over dramatization). Which is why when we initially set out with the project we both had a discussion and set clear expectations of how well we would like to come out at the end of this thesis. But because we both knew how important it was, anytime one of us would feel like we are losing motivation, the other was always there to help recalibrate and get things back on track.

Now when it comes to collaborating with sustainability, all too often there are varying levels of importance placed on sustainability initiatives and measures by the different stakeholders involved. I am not saying that its going to be easy to get everyone to care about something as much as you do, but that should not stop you from trying. In cases where stakeholders are not valuing it as much as you, instead of trying to shove things down peoples throats, maybe more time should be given to trying to understand what is the reason they think/feel the way they do and then open the floor to discuss and see if you can get them to where you are or find a reasonable middle ground. Unless you get someone to see the value themselves, it will be super hard to get points across.

Reward to move Forward

One thing Rishabh and I were very very very good at was finding ways to reward ourselves for whatever we did. If we had a good productive day of work, we would reward ourselves with a good 3 hours (minimum) or so of playing FIFA on the Playstation. Are we proud of the fact that we spent a lot of hours playing FIFA (more than we would like to disclose)? Not necessarily, but we don't regret it either. This was because we realized we needed something to motivate us, and since we both loved playing FIFA and were super competitive, it served as good motivation to get good work done for the day.

We are humans at the end of the day, and we have our limits. We need to be able to see and track progress, and also who doesn't like getting rewarded or appreciated. The thing with sustainability initiatives, things get set way too far in the future, or too short to really see any change actually happen. But from what I have understood with the realm of sustainability, it is a sweet balance that comes from truly engaging in this dance we do with sustainability. Understanding the importance of having a long term vision with sustainability, with appropriate short term checkpoints leading up to the long term vision. Many times people get this balance wrong, and that's why sustainability initiatives could also fail. Although what I am saying might seem like common sense, I have started to realize sometimes its fine just to remind people as well.