Dear Katie (July 2014),
It’s your older self here, writing to you five years on as you wrap up the five year sustainability strategy you’ve just delivered. There are many things I want to say to you. But in summary, you will achieve far more than you thought was possible – and while colleagues come and go, you’ll have stuck around to see it out.
Trust your instincts. You’re sat there thinking that the only way to drive positive change is to move from multiple, unfocussed aims to fewer, long-term goals that are big and bold. You’d be right. You’ll feel uncomfortable and people will think you are bonkers – but don’t worry about having no idea how to achieve them. Get the business behind you and take a leap of faith. You’re right to go with your gut and assume you’ll find a way. Five years on, you’ll have achieved four out of the five sustainability goals - and ironically for the one goal you don’t manage to hit, you’ll have driven perhaps the most lasting positive change both inside and outside of the business despite not quite hitting the mark.
‘Doing few things really well’, will, in fact become your mantra. Moving away from 31 partnerships and 25 targets to just five long-term goals will give you focus and head room to deliver significant impact. In fact, you’ll want to do it again in a heartbeat. It will enable your team to become genuine subject matter experts, and the consistent messages will galvanise your colleagues and provide them with the confidence to engage customers. Some of your proudest moments will come from engaging customers with your cause in a setting familiar to them – like on a football pitch.
There are certain instances where you could have done things differently but all in all, you should be proud of what you’ve achieved. Long-term goals have meant that you could change direction when you needed to. It’s ok to realise you’re going down the wrong path as you go down the road with your charity partner. Openly re-set your direction and by tackling the right social issue you will achieve a far greater impact as a result. The stress (and slight embarrassment) will be worth it.
Things will not always go to plan but that’s ok. You’ll lose your way at times and that will be because you don’t have your ‘digital’ and ‘human’ principles at the heart of your work, but you will remember these principles and get things back on track. The outcome will be better if these are the constant thread running through everything you do. No matter how small – whether it’s an idea for a storytelling film, or a social impact project with your partners - you’ll find these principles come to define your approach to both ‘what’ the team do and ‘how’ you do it. Do not let anyone steer you away from your own consistency compass.
There will be late nights, time and energy poured into some of your goals – particularly where they’re reliant on partnerships. Shifting from 31 charities to one charity is something that will keep you awake at night– but nothing meaningful that genuinely transforms lives comes easily. Work that is so visible to the entire organisation and to the public brings pressure to deliver at pace and to keep a sense of momentum, as well as to live up to the reputation you and your team will have for creating an award-winning partnership which makes a significant social impact.
You’ll be glad, no relieved, that you put in all that the work upfront to select a charity partner aligned with your organisation’s strategy and brand values. You’ll bizarrely find yourself drawing parallel conclusions to your own marriage; getting to know each other is vital, along with establishing shared goals and clear, consistent communication.
No matter what, you will deliver the results you’re striving for. But it will be because of your relationship with the senior leadership team in both organisations. Partnerships without doubt will define your success – whether they be internal teams, agencies or sister companies. Learn to collaborate and leverage your partners’ skills. It’ll often be their energy and focus which means you’ll be able to bring others along with you. Adjusting to working styles and pace will bring frustration, but in order to accelerate change, you are definitely better to pull together in the right direction. Stick with it.
You won’t get all of the resource you ask for. Get over it and instead be driven by your bold vision, a strategic focus, and the small but mighty team you do have. And of course, do lots of thinking outside of the box. The best bit about your job will be being constructively disruptive at times and putting effort into building your networks inside and outside the business. Seeking and keeping independent views will be incredibly important; embrace an outside and honest view about how you and your team is performing – or not performing.
You’ll also deliver some great sustainability reports over this time too; the ‘how you do it’ always plays a part, don’t forget it’s not just ‘what you do’. Creating a report doesn’t have to be a lengthy or expensive process, like you’re currently finding. You’ll have a ‘eureka’ moment and create a squad selector tool (to accompany your report) that enables employees to understand their role in helping to reach the goals. Take people with you, but don’t underestimate how much time cultural and systemic transformation can take. You’ll learn that if you create ways to mobilise and enable people to deliver your vision, change happens much more effectively.
Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of your brand and its unique capabilities. Think back to the good old days when the Virgin Group had a well-used metaphor of ‘if your products could talk what would they say’. This mantra will go around in your head, as if its Adele’s 25 album stuck on repeat, and will guide a lot of the work you deliver over the next five years. It’s the premise that if you don’t know, you don’t care. You’ll create a unique scorecard methodology to examine, and then share the story behind your products that will play into this mantra. And of course, language matters. Apply the same thinking to how you talk about the goals; be jargon free and being clear to everyone is important from the outset.
Perhaps the most obvious but significant learning of all: wait for it… you’ve probably guessed it - is the role that digital can play in bringing about scalable positive change. You’ve already got a pretty good idea that digital is a force for good, but what you will find most interesting is to see how connectivity can truly help to achieve scale and reach in order to tackle some of the biggest social challenges facing the UK.
If you could see me now, as I sit here and write this letter to you, you won’t believe what’s going on. The UK (well, most of the world actually) is in lockdown, living through a global pandemic, and we’re all working from home and worrying about where we can buy toilet paper from. Virgin Media’s connectivity is supporting the NHS and front-line workers with their vital work, and helping us all to work from home, home-school children and stay entertained and connected to the people we love. You’ll be proud to play a small part in this.
You’ll look back and understand that positive change comes from bold moves, honest and transparent communications and hard graft (take holidays when you can!) Set out with a huge vision and never veer far from it, uniting your colleagues around a few hero goals. Today, the landscape has changed too. Sustainability is (finally!) going mainstream - most obvious in the growth of social and environmental activism. The rise of Extinction Rebellion (something you’ll hear lots about), international school climate strikes and trust in public figures like Greta Thunberg (you’ll never believe she’s only 14-years-old) and David Attenborough have provided public examples of awareness and action. Simply, more people than ever are pushing for meaningful change. This is great news and the news you’ve been waiting for.
You can also see this shift in the policy landscape, notably Phillip Hammond’s (he’ll be the former Chancellor of the Exchequer) proposed Green New Deal; the appointment of the UK’s first minister for Loneliness; and the declaration of a climate and environment emergency as Theresa May’s (yes, she’ll follow David Cameron as Prime Minister) chosen ‘final word.’ Businesses are now responding to these expectations in the form of net-zero targets, programmes to tackle social isolation, and a focus on issues like mental health and reducing single-used plastics. In fact, plastic bottles are so last year.
There’s now prominence on the global agenda, and not just in sustainability circles. The landscape is changing and one thing’s for sure – it’s an exciting time to be in a sustainability career.
All the best, Katie (July 2020)
Ps: congratulations on your little boy, yes you’re now a mum!