Leading through Uncertainty

Chris Peterson: Hello, and welcome to Activating Sustainability, the Anthesis podcast. I’m your host, Chris Peterson. Today’s discussion is all about leading through uncertainty and in this moment.

On this episode, we’re speaking with Ben Wielgus, Head of Sustainability and Informa, and a dedicated sustainability professional working to make value creation for multiple stakeholders, something that business’ wants to and can deliver. Ben is speaking today as a thought leader in the sustainability space, and the opinions he shares are his, and not necessarily those of Informa.

Along with Ben, we’ve got Ben Haman joining us who’s an executive director in Antithesis Group’s Leadership and Change team, and was one of the lead authors on the recent Leading Through Uncertainty research.

Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for doing this.

Ben Wielgus: Oh, you’re very welcome. It’s good to meet you all.

Ben Hayman: Thanks for having us.

Chris: Maybe to get us started, given the depths of both of your experiences, how are you seeing and thinking about the current moment of sustainability?

Ben Wielgus: Yeah, I was thinking about this in advance, and the truth is, I think we all think sustainability’s in crisis at the moment, but I don’t think it’s the crisis we think it is. And, I’m increasingly thinking it’s of our own making. So sustainability’s always been challenging and, like a lot of trends, we had our moment in the sun over the last few years, and all of a sudden the situation’s changed.

And persuading people to do things that are sustainable as proving more difficult. You know, we’re not just doing it for the moral reasons that we were a few years ago. We’re actually having to justify it and build a business case again. But this is exactly what we went through back in 2008, during the last financial crisis when we moved from CSR – let’s give money to charities because it’s a good thing to do – to sustainability because it makes our business viable in the long run. And I think we just have to, get back into our discipline of explain to people why sustainability is so great for business and for the world.

Ben Hayman: Yeah. I feel the same way. I think in the industry can get lost in our own narratives around sustainability, and they might be positive or they might be negative. And anyone who’s attended a sustainability conference over the last five years will probably have left feeling frustrated that they’ve either heard it all before or there aren’t enough in the way of solutions or, new ideas, but actually a lot of progress is being made. And I think there’s some areas of the way that we’ve set out businesses that are now you can’t go backwards and despite, sort of prevailing narratives around, the challenges around change, particularly in North America and, particularly with difficult, economic conditions. I think there is a momentum behind the sustainability agenda that has become really sort of positive and powerful and we shouldn’t forget that. I also think at the same time that there’s frustration, I feel the frustration that we are not pushing on enough with enough confidence, enough energy, enough positivity, enough aggression sometimes to actually create the change that we want to see in the world. Because as the people who are experts in the discipline, I think it falls on us to set the bar for what good enough looks like. And I think there’s a danger that we slip into “compliance mode” as we are more heavily regulated or that there’s more requirements for reporting rather than in “pioneering mode” where we are actually looking to set about creating and maintaining that positive change. So I think there’s, for me it’s two sides there. Yes, there’s positivity in momentum, and we shouldn’t forget that but I think we also shouldn’t conversely rest on our laurels and we should push harder.

Ben Wielgus:  That positive momentum is really key, I think, because we tend to focus on the things we haven’t done yet. And the press loves to focus on the few companies that are stepping back because it’s a good scandal and it’s unprecedented to step back on sustainability. But by and large, I think the majority of companies are still moving on because it makes economic sense.

If renewable power is the cheapest power on the planet, of course we’re going to buy that and invest in that. So I think we’ve got to stop kicking ourselves and worrying about the stuff that isn’t happening and focus on how do we actually go forward.

Ben Hayman: I think while there is momentum, making sure that we then understand how to use that positive energy, but also the facts around the change that we’re experiencing and, and that other people in organisations that we work in understand and relate, to the idea of positive change through sustainability in ways that they, that will connect with their agendas as well and not just sort of say, oh, aren’t we fantastic? Isn’t that, you know, isn’t it wonderful that sustainability is moving on and progressing at such speed, or with such consistency?

Let’s make it as relevant as possible to different stakeholders as well.

Chris Peterson: Maybe, there’s a couple of pieces I’d love to unpack within that. So, one is the sense of compliance versus pioneering that Ben Hayman you mentioned, right? And I think the CSRD experience has been an interesting chapter in the sustainability story over the last little bit.

And so maybe Ben, could you reflect a little bit on how you’ve seen that within the space?

Ben Wielgus: You said the magic acronym there didn’t you; CSRD. We’ve almost done this to ourselves. The challenges we’re facing are somewhat self-inflicted as a profession because we really wanted to measure everything and we love a bit of regulation because in theory it makes our job easier because we’ve got a stick now we can go and hit people with, and it got us lots of attention.

But what’s happened, I think, is that we’ve become so focused on, measurement and compliance we’ve forgotten to do the stuff that inspires people to change. and a lot of what we’re trying to do, as a team, as colleagues, is figure out what do we have to measure and how rigorously do we have to measure it?

And then let’s put every ounce of energy we’ve got beyond that into making the change and tell people about that, because that’s what’s gonna make my colleagues and my peers step up and go, actually, that’s cool. I wanna be part of that. I wanna be part of that change. I wanna make my product better. I wanna help my customers have a better experience. Not that we’ve been able to measure something to the incredible detail that the CSRD pushes us towards.

And, to be honest, I’m hated in the organisation sometimes when I turn up and talk about CSRD, but if I talk about a cool new product that we’re doing on sustainability or how we’ve helped a client solve a problem, I think that’s really exciting and, I don’t wanna say we’re gonna get back to basics ’cause so many people, basics is reporting, but we need to stop ourselves hiding in that safe space of reporting and instead go back onto the frontiers as Ben, you talked about, and put ourselves at risk of, being, pushed back on. Because what we’re doing is trying to persuade people of a different way of doing things rather than making them do the compliance thing.

Ben Hayman: I think to build on that as well, Ben, I think we’ve become so focused on CSRD and other, kind of regulatory requirements. We forget what the. Broader business really cares about. And, you know, plugging into those metrics I think is really, really important as well. And we can’t ignore, compliance. And we can’t ignore what good practise and measurement looks like and reporting looks like. But we also need to get our heads up and go, well, what, do people across the organisation, what do my colleagues care about? What are they measuring? What are the business obsessing over? What are the shareholders or stakeholders within the business really focusing on right now, and how can we contribute to that story, or at least integrate, our offer into that story as well. Because we can, I mean, more often than not we can, it’s just, that we’re sort of looking down and in rather than up and out.

It was one of the points that came out of the study that we’ve done recently around leading and uncertainty that the kind of imperative, or requirement for sustainability leaders to align the agenda with the broader business agenda otherwise, you’d get or you get bucketed somewhere, which isn’t, part of core business and core performance success, which is really, really important.

Chris Peterson: Really keen to dig in in terms of like how do we get past this as we go forward. But just before we do, there’s one other piece that Ben, you had shared when we had a chance to connect previously about kind of the exhaustion in the field at the moment that I thought was really insightful and valuable context and kind of getting the facts on the table as we think about where we go from here.

Ben Wielgus: Yeah, I think you caught me in a vulnerable moment when we were talking about that. So, I think this is true, one of the great things about what we’ve been through as a sustainability profession the last few years is that we have been front and centre. We were the flavor of the day, we’ve got, you know, over two or three years, people were really excited about what sustainability could deliver because everyone wants to come to work knowing they made the world a better place. And it links with the wider purpose conversation as well. You know, people want to feel like what they’re doing has meaning and not creating harm on a day-to-day basis.

 So sustainability was famous for a while. We got extra resources. We were trying to do big projects. We had the bravery to that. We hired more people, but we also got new regulations, new frameworks. The expectations were more internal audit and external audit started showing up, like the wave of change and growth that came over us meant that we had to grow as professionals. I’ve never worked so hard in my life and many of my peers have worked even harder than that. And I think we’re tired. And I think now that the resistance is there again, I don’t know how the people listening are feeling, but I think sometimes it’s quite hard to get up, go out and put yourself at personal risk and risk of looking like a fool and try and persuade people to change.

Whereas it’s quite easy when you tired in to sit at the computer and open up an Excel sheet or whatever reporting platform you use and just, just check some data and see if we can refine the data a bit because that’s safe. No one’s gonna come and bother me. No one’s gonna shout at me, no one’s gonna call me a fool or a hippie tree hugger, or a sheeple, or whatever else.

But I also realised that in doing that, we’re not doing the stuff that sustains and gives us energy back. So, we’re staying in a safe space that doesn’t drain our energy, but we’re also not doing the stuff that drives and thrives so many of the profession. And so what I’m very conscious of is this is an inflection point for the sustainability world where maybe we drop some of the workload because we’re not quite as under the public eye as we used to be. But we choose to go with the stuff that gives us the energy to go and make change in the world rather than hiding in that safe space of reporting and compliance because that’s not gonna solve the problems we’ve got in the crisis that we’re facing.

I think we need to reflect on, we had an amazing few years, we’ve all grown, but we’ve had very little time to invest in ourselves and think about what is it that will keep us going over the next 10 years of change.

Chris Peterson: Yeah I love that insight ’cause that aligns with so much of what Ben Hayman and I and our peers and colleagues are hearing across the space, but articulate in such a valuable way. So I’m gonna shift us to how do we inspire change within the organisations? How do we build this momentum?

And, as you both think about kind of big picture, what are some of the things that you’re finding working today, or Ben, as you think about that challenge, how do you shift gears and find that next kind of bucket of energy to keep moving.

Ben Wielgus: There’s so many things I could talk about here. I think some of it is, remembering that sustainability, a bit like the medical profession and a few others, we do have a tendency towards martyrdom.

We will work extra long, we’ll work extra hard. Chris, just before we started the call, you were saying how you’d been involved in a development project in Africa, and it’s possible to throw every hour of every day into that and skip meals and give that to the people that you meet, but then you are not able to do the work that you do.

So that idea of, just being aware that you need to look after yourself and recharge is key. I think we’ve gotta recognise we’ve gotta do the, the basic job we’ve gotta do around reporting compliance, indices, measurement, and we have to do that well, but being honest with ourselves that maybe there’s some places we can just duct tape it together and move on.

You know, there’s certain metrics that I just don’t feel are gonna make a strategic difference to the business. And if we’re required to measure them, let’s do it to the minimum level of quality we need to. And if we don’t have to measure it, let’s not measure it. But for me, the stuff that really flips the narrative rather than that self-care and sales, uh, safe space stuff, is find the allies out there who can really work with us.

And, we’ve had great experience with our five years working with Ben, with your team, with Given and Anthesis and we come out of those sessions energised because we can find the way forward. And then I think if, for me, if I don’t get out in the business and talk to the people in the business on a really regular basis and find the stories that they’re proud of around what they’re doing on sustainability responsibility. I just, I sort of lose momentum myself, so I know I’ve gotta get out there.

It’s quite hard to do. It’s expensive, you know, it takes time. But when you’re out there, you hear all of the amazing things that people are doing and think, well, how do I share that with others? How do I catalyse that so that it’s not me haranguing people, but we’re going out there as storytellers and champions of the great stuff people are already doing and helping them do that.

And we said a few times in our team is, is how do we help people be the human beings at work they wanna be, because as I said, They want to actually walk away from that at the end of the day and be proud of what they’re doing.

Ben, I mean, we work together a fair amount. I mean, how do you keep your energy levels going? ’cause you are working with a lot of people trying to inspire them to do more.

Ben Hayman: That’s a really interesting one because I think for us as consultants and advisors and partners, as well, I think, well, personally, I get a lot of my energy from that variety. I think that’s just the way my brain works. It’s, you know, I enjoy working with you and your team, and I enjoy having to toggle to switch to another challenge in another type of industry and another type of team.

So, I certainly get a lot of personal energy from that like requirement for dexterity. And the other thing that I think provides energy is learning. So you learn something new, you achieve something personally, which is the sort of it, it could be the accumulation of knowledge, but ideally the accumulation and then use of that knowledge.

And I think that is massively rewarding and that provides energy. So as a consultant or advisor or partner, that is a very useful kind of reciprocal relationship that we have with our clients. We advise and we provide, guidance based on our experience and our analysis of the situation. But, we also get well, again, I can’t speak for all of my colleagues, but on peers, but I get a lot of energy from the interactions that I have with you and your team and my other clients as well. And it’s, very positive because, as you say, there are lots of people in the space who are genuinely nice, hugely insightful, massively experienced and really interesting and, very ambitious as well. So I think once you are on a program of work, you get a lot of collective energy from that experience. I think where energy dissipates slightly is where you then have to try and put that change into practise.

And you see, the stuff that pulls you down is where you get into the quagmire of the bureaucracy of the organisation that you are facing. Or suddenly something gets slammed down, a door gets slammed in your face that you thought was open, and the agenda shifts within an organisation, and suddenly the work that you’re doing becomes a report that exists on the shelf rather than a set of, actions that exist in a plan.

And that, yeah, that’s hard, that feels hard to take. And, and more than losing energy it creates frustration, and I think the danger there is that frustration turns to detachment. And if you become increasingly and continually frustrated, I think you start to think, well, what’s the point?

You know, what is it that I’m actually doing? What is the change that I’m creating? Because no one gets into this industry just to tick box boxes or stay comfortable for a couple of years. Everyone’s here because they want to create change, and we know that it’s important that that change happens quickly.

So I think everyone’s restless for that. So, I think anything that stifles that or puts a lid on that can create yeah, frustration and ultimately detachment.

Ben Wielgus: I’m chuckling away because with a few notable exceptions, I think our profession is exceptionally bad at recognising our achievements. Because we’re always looking at, oh, there’s another problem we’ve gotta fix, or we haven’t done it perfectly or there’s still people who need help. And actually whenever I gather my team together, which we’ve been lucky enough to do once a year, is to bring the whole team together, we do an exercise at the start where we reflect on how things have moved on in a year and how much we’ve achieved, and it’s always shocking. There’ll be a hundred, 150, 200 post-its on the wall of stuff we’ve achieved and I’m sure that’s the only tip of the iceberg. And it’s not just my team that does that, it’s the whole organisation that’s been incentivize and you can sit back now after three or four or five years and go ‘wow, actually we are in such a better place than we were’ because although we’re always focused on changing solutions, we’ve seen 50 or 80% reduction in waste in carbon. We’ve seen hundreds of thousands of people connected, but we sort of forget that because we’re always looking at the next bit.

And I think, again, I think that’s a source of resilience for me. I have to do that and I have to find that I bring that to the team and I help them see that as well. ’cause when you’re in the depths of the spreadsheet, it’s a problem.

We can all come up with these lofty plans, but that bit, that magic of transforming the plan, maybe even deciding which bits the plan you don’t do yet, but these are the open doors. And that’s actually how I got my job, was I was able to demonstrate that I’d taken a 31 point strategic plan, I dunno how you can have 31 points in a strategic plan, and we actually went round a business and we implemented it in 30 different operating divisions by picking the two or three bits that each will do and celebrating the 10 or 15 bits of that plan they had already done. And we try and do that now. If I might go back though, I think you also touched on something else, and this is gonna make me sound terribly arrogant, but bear with me.

Um, in talking to my boss, one of the things I try and get him to realise is I think sustainability professionals, particularly those who’ve been here a while, we have to be not a jack of all trades and master of none, but almost a master of all trades or what you might call, I think a polyglot or a renaissance man or renaissance woman. Because I can’t think of many professions where in a day you’ll go from talking about building energy management to talking about diversity, to dealing with your budget, to then doing some people management to then talk about politics and working in 30 different countries in any given week. With different phone calls and having to be able to do an incredibly robust order double spreadsheet whilst being able to write an incredibly engaging piece of comms whilst being able to present in a leadership team meeting and then go out and inspire a group of facilities managers. That need to be chameleonic is both one of the things that gives the business absolute joy, absolute interest, because we’re constantly engaging with people from all sorts of backgrounds, but it is utterly exhausting. Like you’re going to really royally mess up in doing that.

And if I get through a week where I haven’t royally screwed up or royally embarrassed myself once, I count that a fairly successful week. But also maybe I’ve not put myself out there as much as I need to, to try and get in there and engage and change. So I sort of find that the variety’s great. But it’s also a double edged sword. But it’s the stuff that if you get it right, it can be really engaging.

Ben Hayman: There’s an interesting thing in there as well, Ben, about your role within your team because you are a leader within your team, so people are looking at you for inspiration, and they want you to to be inspired as a pioneer. So actually they want to see you putting yourself out there and taking risks and doing things, but also you are going to need to embody consistency and surety and give them comfort that you’re doing the right thing.

So how do you manage that tension? Because we all have different hats that we wear within the context of the profession.

Ben Wielgus: I think as any leader, you need to run the gamut between someone who creates and champions a vision, someone who fosters collaboration, somebody who takes the blame when things go wrong,

’cause it’s always you who’s, who’s next on the line. You have to be an authoritarian sometimes. And I think one of the hardest things to me, but one of the things that’s most important to acknowledge as a sustainability leader is in our team, probably once a month I’ll find myself saying it’s okay to not know what we’re doing because nobody’s ever done this before. We’re the largest, at Informa, we’re the largest organiser of events in the world. And nobody’s done most of what we’re trying to do at the moment. So I constantly feel like there’s a risk of imposter syndrome. In fact, I talked to our chairman about this quite a while ago, and they can’t believe that there’s a sense of imposter syndrome because sustainable professionals are experts, but we’re experts at figuring out how to solve problems that haven’t been solved yet.

So helping the team be comfortable with that level of uncertainty is key. Helping them find the solutions to it and the method of finding that solution. And being comfortable with a degree of ambiguity in that we don’t necessarily know what CSRD is gonna look like.

So how do we put ourselves in the best position? We don’t really know how our suppliers are gonna respond to initiatives. So how do we test that water? And so how do we give my team the confidence to trust in themselves that they do know what they’re doing, and to know where to go when they need the sense check rather than just plowing on a head. And as it’s difficult, but it’s actually one of the things that gives me the most pleasure is seeing some incredible young professionals in sustainability and maybe not so young these days as well, Absolutely step up. There’s one person who’s been with us since an intern and, and she’s been promoted four times and another person who joined us through an acquisition who radically changed the way we do things and now has been promoted twice as well.

And it’s enormously rewarding. Our job as leaders is to create the conditions where they thrive and we’re successful through their success. You know I always prefer as a leader not to go into the board or into the excom and say, look at what I’ve done. In fact, I feel deeply uncomfortable when the CEO talks about ‘Ben’s sustainability team’ it’s the company’s approach to sustainability and what thousands of people are doing. But I do love being able to show off when someone in my team has done an amazing job, because that’s them stepping to be their best performing selves. Sounds really cheesy. Sorry.

Chris Peterson: No, it’s amazing and it’s so inspiring. And Ben Hamman to your earlier point. We get so much inspiration from being able to see what our partners are doing within the space and creating those types of like safe spaces and enabling conditions for that kind of success of the team is so fascinating.

Ben Hammond, I know you just participated in a recent research study looking at that kind of leading through uncertainty and there were a number of strategies that came through that, and I’m curious kind of reflecting on Ben’s comments and what you saw within that, are there some that kind of jump out to you?

Ben Hayman: Yeah, definitely. I mean, the ‘Leading in Uncertainty’ report that we’ve just created was based on a research study of employees in UK organisations. And we were largely asking them questions about the qualities and attributes that they were looking for in leaders in difficult and challenging times. And we were particularly looking through the lens of purpose and sustainability. And when we ask the question, “what are the key attributes or qualities of leaders in navigating difficult times?” The answers were really clear and also massively simple. Which is what I really liked about them because, it gives any leader a very short checklist of things that they should be doing every day and, an easy way to control against either sort of laziness or sloppiness or, distraction because we’re all distracted by multiple things at any time.

And the top three qualities that people were looking for in their leaders were clear communication. So that was number one by some considerable margin.

So clarity, in what you were telling, people, and how you were showing up? And again, I think it’s easy to forget. How important communication is when you are focused on the doing or the delivering or the complying or the conversations that you should be having with your stakeholders.

Clear communication to the people that you’re leading, and not just seeing your team as the people that you’re leading, but if you’re in a position like Ben, is that the whole of the organization. So how do we communicate effectively with a really diverse, dispersed group, as well? So it is a challenge. It’s an easy thing. again, easy thing to say, difficult thing to do.

So clear communication was one. Then the second was, positive energy. Which I really love as well, going back to our earlier conversation, because what we’re doing is tiring and what we’re doing doesn’t always feel positive. Ans certainly the conditions that we are working into and the insight that we have around, the state that the world is in now, whether it’s socially or environmentally, can feel really draining.

But positivity is absolutely key, for leadership and people are looking to their leaders to provide them with some of that energy that we talked about to go again, you know, to push harder to be the pioneers. So we have to work out ways, of topping up the tankers leaders and, remember that when we walk into the room, or when we join the call, or when we stand up in front of a crowd, that people are looking at us, they’re looking at our demeanor, they’re looking at how we show up. They’re listening for clues,cas to how, they should be behaving or how they should be perceiving the level of success that we’re experiencing. And that positive energy is absolutely critical in leading through uncertainty.

And then the third, which was very gratifying was having clarity and consistency around your purpose. So this might not be a solid articulation of every individual’s purpose or every organisational purpose, but being consistent about what it is that you believe in, and your long-term agenda. And the way you might achieve that long-term agenda may change and, that’s by virtue of necessity, and it often is the case that we have to adapt, in order to achieve our goals. But being clear and consistent in your purpose was really, really important to people. Again, I say that’s gratifying because this is an area of work I focus on a lot, like organisational purpose and just the sort of the why or the North Star and, sometimes that idea is diminished slightly because it doesn’t focus on your immediate quarterly reporting and your, you know, the financial concerns and the political realities that you’re operating into.

But what we heard from employees was that it is really important in leaders, that’s what drives the long-term. followership. We talk a lot about followership, so preconditions for being a good leader, you need to remember that you are looking to inspire a group of people to follow you. That’s the point. And, you need to, enable that and think about that. So positivity, good communication, but also that clarity and consistency around your purpose. I’ve got some more information on the kind of actions that you can take to achieve those, but for me, it’s just a really great tick list. To think about how you show up. So, am I communicating clearly? Am I showing up with positivity am I staying consistent and to my purpose, as a leader and on behalf of the organisation that I work for? That’s simple stuff.

Ben Wielgus: It was a really interesting report to read actually ’cause you can almost as a leader, go through it and audit yourself against it, you know, how do I feel about that? And for me it was quite provocative reading that because those three things on one level are really easy, and another level, they’re incredibly difficult at the same time, but you got clear communication. By the time you reach a leadership position, you should be clear, you should be able to articulate. But doing that in the heat of the moment and consistently at all times, giving people the stability during unstable times – and the words that resonate with me across was authenticity. You know, like how do you show up every time knowing you’re a leader that people can trust because you’ve gotta guide them through uncertain times. I think there’s, there’s an integrity to it. You know, if you are gonna have to change your targets or if you’ve missed a target, be really clear why.

What’s the decision there? And sometimes it might just be you got screwed over, but a lot of times it’s actually we’re needed to balance people, profit and planet. Sometimes planet doesn’t always win out. And there’s an old word I think, which needs to come back into fashion, which is the idea and concept of honour, and honouring the stakeholders that you work with and honouring your team that you are here to help support them be great rather than try and kind of self-aggrandise yourself.

And I think that’s when you hear clear communication, it’s not about being able to put a PowerPoint slide together. It’s about always showing up in the right way. I think that comes with energy because if you’re being your authentic self, of course it’s gonna have energy.

The vision some ways is, is the hardest because it’s that difference between what you as a leader want to achieve and what the organisation and the world can accept. And I think we are entering a little bit of a difficult time right now ’cause a lot of people had 2025 targets and 2025 strategies. Some we’ve hit, some we’ve missed. And what does that pivot look like? are we gonna be able to build on it? Given the ‘25 targets, many organisations had work crazy ambitious.

They were never gonna be achieved, but they were good things to aim for. And how do you do that without feeling like it’s a retraction? And even if you’re trying to be clearer in your targets, because things like science-based targets, you are moving goalposts. How do you not make it look like you’ve stepped away from a target just because you’ve had to articulate it more clearly.

So I think those three things you talked about are going be essential over the next 12, 18, 24 months as so many organisations. Have to grapple with the promises they made and the reality they’re living with.

Chris Peterson: One quick reflection I’ll share just from a North American context, that’s been really interesting, has been kind of the dramatic shift in DEI. And by getting to work with a number of procurement departments, etc. and it’s been fascinating to see the organisations that are so clear on their values and that this actually provided an opportunity for them to really demonstrate that commitment, outside of necessarily the communication or the PowerPoints, as you were saying, Ben, but really in terms of, engaging with those organisations, you could hear a big difference with those organisations that said, our values are not shifting at all. Our actions will remain the same. The way we talk about it externally may vary. But like that confidence in the organisation and that authenticity came through really clearly. And so it’s fascinating to see how that translates throughout the organisation. And really interesting to reflect on this both as a challenge, but as an incredible opportunity to demonstrate that those are our core values, right?

Or these are the things we believe in and this is our purpose. outside of the external drivers, and so it really is that kind of opportunity to prove those commitments when the going gets tough, as you said.

Ben Hayman: I think, you know, there’s an old ad adage about integrity being what you do when nobody’s watching, but I think in this case, it’s what you do when everyone’s watching, you know? So it’s how do you deliver, that clarity and purpose and the integrity and the quality of your values when there’s greater scrutiny on what it is you are actually doing, and not just scrutiny, some of the time you’re gonna be breaking the law unless you’re careful. So you have to be, over conscious of that without losing sight of why it is you here and why it is your people are here as well.

Ben Wielgus: I think I’m worried about the green hushing, where they’re doing this anyway, they’re just doing it below the radar because I think that creates a sense of retreat where maybe none exists. And I think ultimately we’ve got to hope that culture and human beings will prevail.

But sometimes it’s quite difficult to be human beings on a quarterly profits targets. And that’s ultimately what I think sustainability and DEI have been trying to do is help us all be decent people in sometimes structures that don’t necessarily create that long-term thinking.

Chris Peterson: So curious, as both of you look ahead to the next kind of 6 to 12 months, what are some of the priorities or tactics that you’re thinking about putting in place to execute on some of these ambitions and approaches?

Ben Wielgus: A lot of stuff and I think maybe lessons for myself, which should probably come out throughout this conversation is the first thing is you need to sustain yourself as a leader. You know, how do I make sure that I’ve got the energy and the resilience to show up for my people? I think there is an element of, being confident in trying to stick to your guns and your principles, but recognise where you might need to bend. And ultimately, I think we’re gonna have to make some really tough choices about where we put our, personal and corporate energies and resources. And I’m a massive believer in, what I’ve often called the MacGyver approach or just duct taping stuff together so that it keeps going while you focus on the stuff you really need to change.

And for me, there’s one strategic program that I want to, in five years time, know if I do nothing else with my life the next five years, that’s the thing I wanna look back on and say I gave it everything I could because it’ll make the biggest legacy difference. I think as soon as I know what that North star is where I wanna put my time into, I can be comfortable with everything else. But I also know it’s a five year goal, so I’ve gotta have the, the team and the energy and create the excitement for everybody else ’cause you can’t get there by yourself ‘ cause you will have a meltdown. So I think that all kind of links back to what you said, Ben, with being really clear with myself and with others on what we need to do and turn up with the energy to have that positivity where people know that it’s gonna be all right at the end of it.

Ben Hayman: Well as, a, kind of partner and a guide for, multiple different types of businesses at different stages in their journey towards sustainable performance. I think my job in the next, few years should be enabling people to take that reset moment that, that Ben’s described.

Enabling people to see the successes that they’ve achieved, but also challenging them to push further and go harder and move faster. And I think that’s difficult as an advisor because I’ve always been schooled in really understanding my client’s business, providing pragmatic approaches to ensure that we can actually get stuff done and however small it is, we can incrementally create sort of positive change and understanding both the culture and the operation that we’re, working into. But I’d love to challenge myself and to challenge my, colleagues, within Anthesis to, push our clients harder, to enable them to feel the confidence, and courage of their convictions, which we know obviously exist,

and give them more resources to, sort of fight the good fight. Because I think Our clients, Ben and others, don’t need us to be, yes people. We could be provocateurs, we could be challengers, we could be people who provide our clients with more energy and courage and support. And I’d love to make that happen more for the people that I work with. I think that’s a personal challenge, as well as one that I will, encourage my peers to think about as, because that’s, the role we need to play in the world, right?

It’s not just getting the job done, doing the simple stuff well, picking the low hanging fruit. I think we’ve got to see ourselves as the people who are going be partnering with the pioneers within industry, within businesses, who are going to be making, the big change and doing the hard things really, really well.

So, that requires extra reserves of energy and it requires us to be better at pushing harder. Which is sometimes difficult, you know, that’s not an easy thing to do. The only other thing which I think is really important is the idea of a broader base of education, that we can provide – all of us can provide in the sustainability industry for people across our businesses so that they are both inspired to act, and to get involved, but also have base levels of understanding of some of the things that we are talking about, so it is less othering. It doesn’t feel like something that exists somewhere else in the business. It feels like something that is relevant to, what I do, whoever I am, wherever I work.

Chris Peterson: Yeah, amazing. We’d love to get just a final word of wisdom from each of you as we look ahead or reflecting on this conversation or others you’ve had within this space.

Ben Hayman: a final word of wisdom. Well, I think the final word is just to remember to do the simple things really well if you’re a leader within sustainability. And we should all consider ourselves to be leaders in this space because we need more followers. So, I think our role naturally has to be leaders whatever we do, whatever our job title. Communicate well, show up with energy, and understand your purpose, and stay consistent. I think it’s really, really important that we repeat and repeat the good things that we could be doing rather than invent and invent the new things that we could be doing.

So let’s, do those three things well, I think it’ll make a difference.

Chris Peterson: Love it. And then Ben, final word to you.

Ben Wielgus: Yeah, well after 25 years in sustainability, long enough that I had a full head of hair when I started in the profession, I think I’ve learned too late the importance of looking after yourself so that you can show up for others and help them be the leaders that can be in the future. And I think you do that through keeping, telling the stories of all the successes that other people are having. And being very authentic in, the fact that you want to lead people towards that.

Chris Peterson: Well, thank you both so much for all the time. Insight. Really appreciate it so much to take out of this conversation. So thank you again.

Ben Wielgus: Thank you.

Ben Hayman: Thanks Chris.

Chris Peterson: And thank you all for listening. We’ll include links to the report, Ben Haman referenced ‘Leading Through Uncertainty’ in the Meeting notes and is available on our anthesisgroup.com website where you’ll also find past episodes and lots of valuable resources.

Thanks again and take care.