Advocating for Human-Oriented Sustainability Standards: OD Journey at Stanford University Medical Center — IX
[Continued from “Working with an Intensive Care Unit: OD Experiments at Stanford University Medical Center-VIII”…]
The essential idea behind a fractal framework is that as individuals we are invested with tremendous power to influence and make large changes through small actions. The software I developed and which was subsequently piloted at Stanford was designed to allow individuals to alter small habitual patterns at the level of emotions and perceptions, so that processing capacity could be freed, and something more powerful could emerge in its place. This idea is appealing to many, because it puts back power into one’s own hands.
In fact a reporter from Forbes, Nicole Skibola, began following my work when she came across some presentations and a paper I had written while at the CSR Advisory firm, BSR, on Fractal Dynamics & CSR. She contacted me when I was at Stanford, and ended up writing a piece about my work with fractals that appeared in Forbes some years ago, Mindfulness as a Tool for Organizational & Social Change.
Subsequently I co-authored (under the name of Aurosoorya, a research firm I founded) a report with Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), “Advancing Sustainability: HR’s Role” predicated on the same underlying fractal framework, and represented Stanford University Medical Center at the Society for Standards Professionals annual conference. I spoke about The Sustainability Fractal (picture at the top) that connects human orientations to consumerism and individual-level decision-making to large global phenomena such as Climate Change.
The SHRM report covered the work we were doing at Stanford University Medical Center (SUMC), which I reproduce in the Todd Prigge’s (the Director or Organizational Development) own words (page 44–45 on SHRM report):
“I have always felt that what happens at the top of an organization creates what happens at the middle of the organization and at the frontlines of an organization. I have begun to implement a program to change small patterns at the individual levels, which I believe will have huge impacts on all aspects of hospital operation.
Change programs are often initiated at the policy level. Such top-down orchestration is important, but it does not always work. To make change sustainable, regardless of the type of change, it would be most effective to supplement top-down change with actual shifts in attitudes, behaviors and even perceptions. This is what I am focusing on at SUMC.
To make it happen, we have initiated a series of organizational interventions and courses that focus on shifting individual point of view from the physical to the vital and mental (re: Connecting Inner Power with Global Change: The Fractal Ladder). Such interventions and courses focus on team-building, conducting crucial conversations, conflict resolution and coaching, among others. These are critical in shifting individual behavior. The ‘physical’ refers to old, established ways of doing things that have often outlived their utility but continue to be followed because of force of habit. The ‘vital’ refers to a lot of experiment, often led by feeling and emotion, and is critical as an organization tries to break away from established ways of doing things. The ‘mental’ refers to well-thought-out and holistic ideas that, in fact, must become the engine for decision-making, as opposed to habit or emotion. To build sustainable organizations, it is essential that employees begin to operate at the mental level. But equally, the well-thought-out ideas have to be supported by the vital — the emotion and feeling — and the physical — the past capital and infrastructure that are the result of the organization’s historical success.
Stanford University Medical Center can exercise a lot of influence in creating a more socially and environmentally responsible health care arena. In many cases, hospitals’ approach to social responsibility is to provide indigent care to those who do not have insurance or those in need. The cost of doing so is significant; however, there is much more that can be done. Being at the center of an extensive network of supplier companies that touch a lot of industries — pharmaceuticals, hi-tech, medical equipment, to mention a few — SUMC can alter its buying patterns to encourage suppliers, and their suppliers, to actively manage their environmental and social footprints.
In reality though, this is a non-trivial change, and it requires an OD intervention to make it happen. Typically, a policy can be written, but that is only an interim measure. What needs to happen is that vital or emotional thinking needs to be supplanted by thinking and decision-making that is truly more holistic. Decisions need to be driven by a sense of value and the right thing to be done in the larger scheme of things. This means that the ‘vital’ way has to yield to the ‘mental’ way. This shift from the physical to the vital and eventually to the mental is critical in establishing self-progressing sustainability in organizations. Sustainability by edict or by writing codes of conduct may be the first step, but it can never be the last. For organizations to become truly sustainable, the sustainable way of thinking has to be embedded into their way of thinking. Clearly, this requires a lot of effort and is not a short-term solution. However, it is the solution that is needed, and OD can play a key part in making this happen.
HR/OD has been on the fringes of the sustainability movement for too long. Yet, it holds a critical part in the running of organizations and is actively connected with all parts of an organization. True sustainability requires interlinking of many different parts of an organization. Procurement, manufacturing/operations, marketing, policy, to mention a few functions, have to be singing off the same page when it comes to creating and supporting sustainable products and services. This is where HR can play a key role — in helping organizations break silos, see the big picture and remember that when making decisions. But as I said, this cannot happen through edict. Employees have to really feel and know the difference. When opposition arises, employees have to know that they can call in reason, even idealism, and not just succumb to the bias or anger of a decision-maker, even if that person is their boss. The creation of this kind of culture that facilitates this kind of shift in decision-making is what OD can and must do. It is what we are doing here at SUMC.”
[To be Continued…]
