The need for better communication in environmental leadership.
From my work as a leadership consultant, I have found the lack of real dialogue about environmental issues to be deeply problematic. Without important questions being asked and aired, discussed and debated, it’s difficult to move forwards in a way that serves everyone.
The US presidential election provides an example of the results of poor dialogue. Instead of peaceful, pluralistic political debate between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we witnessed a vicious and, at times, vulgar exchange. Both candidates failed to capture the heart and soul of America, and the real issues were lost amid toxic tough talk.
As a dialogue specialist, this came as no surprise. Working with leadership teams across the globe, I have seen time and time again how people struggle to talk about the big issues. As David Bohm, the quantum physicist, who later in life developed some powerful insights about human interaction, observed:
‘In our modern culture, men and women are able to interact with one another in many ways: they can sing, dance and play together with little difficulty but their ability to talk together about subjects that matter deeply to them seems invariably to lead to dispute, division and often to violence.’
Given how difficult it can be to talk together about tough issues, what can be done to enable better dialogue?
Most importantly, leaders need to attend to not only the words that are spoken but to their tone. The quality of the dialogue is key. It helps to be aware not just of how we talk, but the environment in which the conversation takes place. Our tone of voice matters, as does how receptive and honest we are.
Recently I was approached by the new chief executive of a large environmental campaign group who was looking for support to improve dialogue in her organisation. She wanted to hold a two-day retreat to begin to create a shared vision between a newly expanded leadership team and address major organisational issues by focusing on the bigger global picture.
Through individual telephone conversations prior to the meeting with each of the 20 team members, spread across five continents, it became clear that the organisation’s message had become confused and diffused with so many other environmental agencies now finding their voice. They needed a unifying vision about where they were going as an organisation to represent the sustainability agenda in a way that was unique to them.
The overall ambition was to become a world class NGO and to lead the global conversation about environmental issues. The immediate challenge, however, was to create the conditions for a conversation among the leadership team about how to rebuild and activate their vision. To enable dialogue, three actions were taken:
- Having a ‘generative image’ - an ornamental elephant was brought into the centre of the circle of chairs each time a difficult issue was raised. To reduce the likelihood of having a polite but limited exchange, keeping the ‘elephant in the room’ visible helped the team to stay with the dialogue and surface the real issues.
- Creating a map of the different stakeholders – the team identified the seven key organisations in their ecosystem, including donors, businesses and other NGOs, and discussed how each of these perceived them. The key relationships to focus on soon became clear, which later enabled priorities to be agreed quickly and easily.
- Listening to the whole - the team took time to talk to one another at the start of the two days before getting down to more business-focused matters. This enabled team members to get to know one another as fellow human beings, not just as names in roles. When the dialogue became more challenging, there were high levels of respect, as each person had already found their voice and been listened to.
At the end of the meeting, a list of agreed actions was drawn up, with an agreed leader for each. In their closing comments, team members reflected on how the links between them had been strengthened, how their vision had been clarified and how they were now speaking with one voice, all as a result of their ability to speak to one another.
Sarah Rozenthuler co-leads a skills-building programme Leading Systemic Dialogue: Unlocking Collective Intelligence at St Ethelburga’s Centre, London, 22-23 March. This programme is for those who want to develop skills to co-create lasting transformative change.
