Bringing Sustainability to the Front Line: Deployment, Integration, and Alignment

• Author: William R. Blackburn
• Pages: 257-279

Chapter 8

Bringing Sustainability to the Front Line:

Deployment, Integration, and Alignment

“Many people regard execution as detail work that’s beneath the dig-

nity of a business leader. That’s wrong. To the contrary, it’s a leader’s

most important job.”1

—Larry Bossidy

Why Things Don’t Get Done

Teenagersknow that it’s one thing to say you will clean up your bedroom;

it’s another thing to actually do it. As the famous 18th-century Scottish

poet Robert Burns noted: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go

awry.”2Unfortunately, when that happens, when plans are not properly

executed, unpleasant consequences often follow,not the least of which is

disappointing those around you—parents if you are the teenager; superi-

ors, subordinates, and stakeholders if you are a company employee.

Execution is what gives life to ideas like an SOS. Getting things done

takes people, organizations, ideas, and plans—but that’s not all. When it

comes to a system like an SOS, execution won’t be complete until the

system becomes part of the culture of the organization—a way of doing

business, part of its life-blood rather than a separate appendage that is the

exclusive domain of a particular department or function. People in all

corners of the company must accept the system as their own and know

their role in implementing it. This gives the system a critical mass of sup-

port which keeps it alive for the long term, through good times and bad,

and regardless of changes in leadership or other personnel.

Unfortunately, this broad ownership often fails to materialize with

many company initiatives. One reason it may fail is because no one effec-

tively deployed the initiative into the ranks of employees and integrated

it into the company’s existing tools, processes, procedures, programs,

and values. It also may fail because efforts have not been aligned across

the organization and people haven’t been convinced to pull together.

Without this alignment, the power of the leader’s message and her ability

to effect cultural change are significantly diminished. As with executing

other company visions, in order to successfully execute our vision for

sustainability,to properly implement an SOS, we need deployment, inte-

257

gration, and alignment—the actions for planting sustainability deep and

wide throughout the organization.

Business teams often devote considerable effort to plan the develop-

ment of some new program, policy, or tool but give little thought to the

rollout. They celebrate the completion of the work product, then make a

posting on the company’s website or in a manual and consider the job

done. When companywide adherence to the policy or use of the tool is

poor, they shake their heads in wonder. They blame noncompliant em-

ployees for shirking their duties without considering that most of the

fault may lie closer to home. No one bothers to tally the wasteful losses

from poor deployment, integration, and alignment—how much delay is

caused in achieving conformance, how much work is wasted in audits,

explanations, and other follow-up. Often this is chalked up to “the way

business is done.” And with the next rollout, the waste and delay are

perpetuated. Careful planning of deployment, integration, and align-

ment can save much of that waste and grief. Let us see what those mea-

sures entail.

Deployment: Rollout Tools and Field Implementation

Deployment is about spreading some practice, procedure, program, or

tool across an organization. Typicallydeployment comes in two stages:

1. Developing and testing rollout tools: planning and preparing

those communication and training aids and tactics needed to roll

out the initiative (see Figure 8.1 for examples of common de-

ployment tools); and

2. Field implementation: using the tools in the field to convey

understanding, responsibility, and accountability to others.

Each stage warrants careful consideration.

258 THE SUSTAINABILITY HANDBOOK