Lina Taylor, OLY

See the crisis as a chrysalis - immediately focus the team’s attention on how is this an opportunity for transformation and get into action.

Are you speaking TO your audience or WITH your audience? This is the very first thing you should consider. Set an intention to instantly connect WITH your audience and be curious about what matters to them.

It’s usually a case of too many distractions standing in the way but the distractions I am referring to are defined as: anything that’s not within your control today! If you take this lens and ask: what are we spending time thinking about that is not within our control today, and commit to eliminating that, then progress will come much faster.

Stakeholder mapping is the visual representation of individuals, groups, and organizations that are affected by your organization's operations. To ensure you include everything that's relevant in this step, consider asking "What resources are these stakeholders depended on in the short- and long-term?" By identifying their critical resources, you can see if you might be missing something that at first may not seem related to your organization directly but would definitely have an impact on your key stakeholders and therefore affect your overall sustainability strategy.

Before you start defining your sustainability vision and values, invest time to understand the community pain-points. It will do you no good to create a sustainability vision that seems like a pie-in-the-sky to the community; therefore, seek to understand first. What are people thinking about? What are their needs, and how are they being met or not met? Addressing which needs would have an immediate positive effect? When you start thinking from the community POV, it can give you insights into what areas of sustainability you should focus your attention on first. The best way to engage your community is to connect with what truly matters to the people there.

Asking the right types of questions can demonstrate your value in ways that few statements can. This is especially true in the sustainability field because no one there has all of the answers - there's constant innovation and out-of-the-box thinking is a source of accelerated progress. Here are some examples: - Show that you are thinking holistically by asking an open ended question connected to the business strategy of the company. - Inquire about the ways in which management approaches decisions that may have more of a long-term value creation vs. short-term gains. - Ask about the ways in which culture change around sustainability initiatives are supported in the company.