One of the reasons to be excited about 2019 is the increasing priority being placed on sustainability in business circles. More and more, sustainability is finding its way into even the most unlikely conversations, and corporations are increasingly embracing sustainability practices … this is great news!
As you likely already know, business sustainability has become synonymous with managing triple bottom line metrics: financial profits, social impact, and environmental stewardship. These themes tend to frame sustainability conversations in boardrooms, and these conversations are to be championed.
However, there is another perspective on sustainability that sometimes gets overlooked in the drive to embody business excellence. The one from the viewpoint of the individual entrepreneur.
This perspective on sustainability speaks to the broader definition of ‘sustain’, as follows:
transitive verb
1: to give support or relief to
2: to supply with sustenance : nourish
3: Keep up, prolong
This definition of ‘sustain’ inspires a different conversation. One with profound insights and discoveries that can transform how you, the entrepreneur, might choose to engage with your business going forward. It is a definition that brings to our attention sustainability practices for individuals. Real, live, honest-to-goodness people, who have very personal and very important needs to meet in order to sustain their own well-being and, ultimately, to tap into their possibilities.
With that perspective on sustainability in mind, I invite you to give consideration to the following questions:
In what ways does your business support you? How can it satisfy your needs, provide you with comforts and lift you to new heights even more?
In what ways does your business nourish you with stimulation and healthy challenges that excite you? How can it be designed to nourish you even more?
In what ways can your business evolve, adapt, and grow with you (and continue to inspire you) through time? What would make its future opportunities even more inspiring?
When you design your business to bring consistently more value to the market in a way that is aligned with your unique style and values, and that also enhances your key capabilities, you are more likely to build a business that sustains you, as the entrepreneur.
This is how entrepreneurs access, on demand, their own resilience, determination and unwavering commitment to excellence. They have built up a store of personal resources to draw on through their sustainability practices.
These sustainability practices, followed both inside and outside of your business, are critical to your success and sense of fulfillment.
There is no limit to what’s possible when you lead your team to follow through on those really important initiatives. Not because you’re desperate and absolutely have to get to them, but because your personal and corporate sustainability practices support, nourish, and inspire you and your team to prioritize and pursue invigorating challenges.
So, as you are discussing and designing your corporate sustainability practices for 2019, I encourage you to prioritize your uniquely individual needs, and invite sustainability practices that put you in a stronger position to build a business that embodies corporate sustainability, from the inside out.
To your Success, Differently!
- Michèle