How You Can Help Shape Your Organization's ESG Strategy

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Organizational Culture   Strategy   Sustainability  

One of the things I hear a lot from project managers is that they don’t feel that they have any influence with the decision makers in their organization. They feel too far removed from that process, with too many management layers in between them.

While I understand that frustration, I believe that most of the barriers are mental. That is, they have more to do with what a PM feels that they can do (or can’t do) and the influence that they can have (or not have) than they do with the real situation.

In a few organizations where people told me that they felt this way, I’ve been able to talk to the leaders and pass on that feedback. Those leaders are generally frustrated because they want to hear from their staff—and they really want to hear from PMs who are not only business leaders, but who are at the leading edge of what is going to make the organization successful going forward.

Those leaders especially want to hear from their staff regarding the areas where they don’t have all the answers. And environmental, social and governance (ESG) is one of those areas. Organizations know that these are important areas, and that they can help drive business value—but they are uncertain on how to achieve the best performance. They need help. Many organizations try to engage staff in these conversations, generally with little success (there are …

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