Transition requires choices: embrace bottom-up initiatives

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Directors put sustainability high on the agenda, but the organization is struggling to get moving. 'The problem is not a lack of ambition, but the gap between intention and implementation.'

Every organization that wants to take sustainability seriously knows the pattern: the boardroom endorses the urgency and formulates ambitions, but further down the organization it remains silent. Not because people don't see the importance, but because giving direction is different from actually implementing.

The illusion of clarity
In many boardrooms, sustainability and resilience are regular topics of conversation. But the question is: what does that mean in concrete terms for priorities, decision-making and behaviour? As long as this is not made explicit, there is room for interpretation – and therefore for delay.

'There are three big stoppers for change: lack of direction and clarity, lack of capabilities and lack of motivation,' says Professor Karen Maas of the Impact Center Rotterdam. 'As long as there is no eye for that, it will remain just words and little will change.'

Administrators often overestimate how well their message lands, Maas knows. What is experienced as clear in the boardroom can feel like non-committal in the workplace. Especially if objectives are not translated into concrete choices, or there are no consequences associated with unsustainable behaviour.

Where the real priority lies
‘Almost 25 years of research shows time and again that employees want to be more proactive than the management, but often wrongly think they are not given enough room to do so,' says Rob van Tulder, emeritus professor of International Business-Society Management and author of the book Duurzaam ondernemen maken.

According to Tulder, the attitude, ethics and behavior of top management become visible in small, daily signals. What does the MT spend time on? Which investments will be given the green light? What happens when sustainability clashes with short-term returns?

"We see many organizations where sustainability is high on the agenda, until time pressure or financial tension arises," says Ulrike de Jong of sustainability consultancy firm TOSCA. 'At that moment you see where the real priority lies: which decisions will still go ahead and which will not. Employees sense that flawlessly — and adjust their behavior accordingly.'

The tension of the boardroom
Why is this clarity so often lacking in the boardroom itself? Not because of a lack of motivation, but because the boardroom is the intersection of conflicting interests. Shareholders and financiers expect results, political cycles are short and costs are immediately visible, while benefits are often not.

'A fundamental leadership challenge is to integrate the longer-term ambitions into the core activities of the company,' says Van Tulder. 'Employees see the difference between philanthropy and strategy.'

Although social value is increasingly mentioned, it is rarely decisive. Non-financial impact is more difficult to measure and valued differently. 'Administrative choices are not always determined by what is most important, but usually by what is easiest to measure and account for,' says Maas. 'In this way, social value becomes structurally subordinate.'

Then there is the uncertainty. Transition requires choices now, while technology is still developing, regulations are changing and markets are uncertain. Classic governance, aimed at mastery instead of learning, is ill-prepared for this.

"Directors who dare to be vulnerable are better able to deal with uncertainty," says Nicolette Loonen of TOSCA. 'They open up to other opinions and dare to admit that they don't have all the answers either. Unfortunately, vulnerability is often not a trait that brings you into the boardroom.'

The energy from the bottom up
While directors struggle with this complexity, in many organizations sustainable innovation does not arise at the top, but lower down in the organization. Teams experiment, employees take initiative, young talent asks different questions. Yet that energy often remains unused – not due to unwillingness, but due to lack of space.

Without top-down support, initiatives remain pilots: interesting, but not scalable. Many directors struggle with the question: how do you give space without losing control? This requires different skills than traditional management: listening instead of sending, setting frameworks instead of prescribing solutions.

'When we work with directors to make dilemmas explicit, and to have the value-free conversation about them, we notice that clarity arises,' says Loonen. 'There will be more understanding for everyone's point of view and new ideas for possible solutions will arise.'

A different role
The solution does not lie in even more steering from above, but in redefining the role of the boardroom. Instead of wanting to manage everything, the focus shifts to connecting initiatives, removing obstacles and making priorities explicit.

Sustainable transformation is not a linear process and not a matter of either top-down or bottom-up. It requires direction from above, conscious choices in the boardroom and room for energy from the bottom up. It is precisely at that intersection that it becomes clear whether organizations are ready for the future.

From ambition to action in five steps
Do you want to go from ambition to action? Here are five concrete steps.

1. Make sustainability explicit in choices, not just words | Translate ambitions into concrete priorities: which investments will be prioritised, which projects will we stop, and what does sustainability mean if it clashes with short-term returns? Clarity is not in visions, but in decisions.
2. Connect goals to consequences and behavior | Sustainability is only taken seriously if it has consequences for how people are assessed and rewarded. Link sustainability goals to KPIs, budgets and management agreements.
3. Acknowledge the three real blockages: direction, capacity and motivation | Is there a clear direction (what exactly do we expect)? Are there enough capabilities and resources? And is the intrinsic motivation present or inhibited?
4. Give space to bottom-up initiatives – with administrative backing | A lot of sustainable innovation is already happening in the workplace. Make that energy visible and scalable by setting frameworks and removing obstacles.
5. Dare to have the uncomfortable conversation in the boardroom | The core of the sustainability gap is often not in unwillingness, but in unspoken dilemmas. Make tensions explicit: short versus long term, financial versus social value, security versus experiment. Governing in transition requires vulnerability.

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