There has been some great nuggets of knowledge, insights and experience shared in the last few months, reality TV even coming up trumps with sound advice on how to improve relationships and communication which definitely can be useful in business too. Business does involve the product or service but it is also mostly about the relationships. The term radical honesty has been used recently on a TV show by psychologists and when seen put into practice it truly does accelerate personal development and improves setting personal boundaries, intentions, then outcomes and meeting goals.
David Attenbrough has said on many occasions that sustainability is now a communication issue. FGA absolutely agrees but would also like to add that communication in relationships and project groups also could benefit from the radical honesty approach, which if applied well could support sustainable developments to accelerate. FGA’s CEO has been using this approach for some time now and went through executive coaching to support this skill to develop. A worthwhile investment.
What isn’t radical honest? Rudeness or complaints. What is it? Constructive feedback and accurately accounting for a situation or behaviour.
Diverse groups, with different personalities, styles and neurodiversity can be helpful if fully harnessed because new ideas, ways of working and opinions are shared and can also be an incubator for radical honesty.
As mentioned at ADE Green last week, sustainability is not just a finance/investment transition it also is tech, society, institution and economy transitions, all at once, and definitely involves psychology too.
FGA proposes that if we improve communication between people and are radically honest we’ll make better progress, more projects, more sharing and lead to better and quicker outcomes. Fail fast in some ways.
A business would benefit from investing in effective training. Personality tests can be helpful. The yellow, green, red or blue approach does help to know how to communicate effectively with each type of person. A red person needs short sharp bulleted info, a yellow person needs explaining and context etc. Some like to be asked and not told. The tests support a team to know each other well and improves communication and outcomes.
If communication and relationships training are used in the work place it can improve your ways of working, communication, political blockers, misunderstandings, micro aggressions, taking things personally, small fights, favouritism, them-and-us situations as discussed by speaker Mac Carthy at ADE Green also.
Mac Carthy dared leaders/people to say that you don’t care sometimes, but it also goes both ways, dare to also say you do. He also dared people to be honest about the fact that business comes down to the money, and making some.
Other forms of radical honesty could be:
- I want to make a decent living from sustainability work
- I don’t want to live off the grid
- I want to fly sometimes
- I want to eat meat (Chefchain.com said sometimes the most low carbon food isn’t always vegan)
- I don’t want to be shamed for not being vegan
There is a whole spectrum of radical honesty which could help us to see our gaps and work on those. The gaps are the work to do in sustainability. The global green technology and sustainability market size was valued at $ 13.76 billion in 2022 so it also is becoming profitable to be more sustainable and the gap work is being done. However, the total revenues for the oil and gas drilling sector came to approximately $4.3 trillion in 2023. The switch and gap is still large there.
One poignant quote said “Don’t be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality.” The same could be said for idealism and pragmatism in sustainability work. If you have a plan /a vision then you create a wish list and then getting there is a step-by-step, unpredictable and an unknown process. Another favourite quote says “Begin anyway”. Sometimes inspiration/inspirational mottos or rhetoric is also needed and we got a lot of inspiration ADE Green.
FGA is now 4 years old. Making a business from zero, making new work and a new business model is also a step-by-step process too.
We also should not be afraid to be intelligent, to speak philosophically or be a little bit deep. It’s needed as we are handling a crisis. As again Mac Carthy said we are handle a topic between wonderment and devastation. We should treat the topic seriously but we also need to be practical and pragmatic and to try not to get too overwhelmed by the work, those against the work or by facing criticism. This is when we need to build resilience and take things on the chin.
FGA are told that we are thought leaders and are different to other consultancy and that is why companies want to work with us, and we hope to inspire some change and new thinking along the way.
If you are interested in finding out more about radical honesty and how your business can gain from it then please contact info@flygreenalliance.org for a one-on-one consultancy chat. And please sign up to FGA’s Knowledge Hub waiting list.
