Why is it that businesses who manufacture, sell, maintain and even many that consult on green want you to think going green means spending a lot of money on green technology or high efficiency energy-consuming equipment? Sadly, this only moves the needle a small amount, and the money you need is locked up in your inefficient buildings. Technology is a piece of the plan, but only one of the many tools, and often falls flat after the investments are made. The two most significant activities for taking your organization green are to Change How You Think and to Affect Real Behavioral Change. Once you instill order and direction, the ripple effect within your organization is exponential and unstoppable. And when you extend this ripple outside your organization and into the individuals and businesses in the community, it has the power to drive real change.
Have you ever sat at a traffic light with no power and marveled at the inefficiency and chaos a simple traffic light can prevent at a busy intersection? I have pondered this, usually in a symphony of honking horns with a chorus of expletives from adjacent vehicles, and marveled how three light bulbs and some basic logic can create so much efficiency of time. But as you look deeper, it is more than the colorful box that creates this efficiency. We have reasonable trust that the lights will be red in the opposite direction when ours is green and we have established some behavior patterns in the form of rules.
Just like the cars on the road, most of the organizations that I have been exposed to have many people heading in different directions with different information and goals. Often the goals are aligned, but different, and the information is partial. A passionate leader, executive support, and a smart plan with clear principles will be your traffic light to start moving your organization in the same direction…and turn that light green!