EO: Transformational growth through sustainable action
Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) is a global non-profit organization that brings together a community of 14,000+ of the world's most influential entrepreneurs to help each other learn and grow in their business and personal lives. I collaborated with boutique strategy and innovation consultancy Sustainable Futures on the winning pitch and development of their sustainable strategy and communication materials.
In 2020, EO asked us to help them develop a sustainable strategy that would reflect their commitment to supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. EO recognized the world was rapidly changing and embarked on a journey to reinvent itself for the fourth time in its 40-year history. The 5-year global strategic plan included help from BrandPie, who evolved their purpose, positioning and identity.
EO wanted to manage its own environmental and social impact and inspire their membership to create positive impact in the world by engaging with global sustainable challenges, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, well-being and justice.
However, only a small percentage of the membership were actively involved in or advocates of a sustainable agenda. Many with traditional business mindsets were not engaged and typically did not like being told what to do or understand the business case for sustainability. There was a lack of education about why sustainability was important and although many shared a desire to ‘give back to the world’, there was no consensus on the best way to bring about change resulting in unstructured local initiatives and spinoff groups pursuing UN partnerships without adhering to a shared policy of governance.
Entrepreneurs’ join EO because; they want to scale their business; they want advice and help from other business leaders and; they want to feel part of a community of likeminded professionals. EO enriches members’ lives by providing benefits derived from three dynamic areas:
Peer-to-peer learning encourages members to learn and grow by sharing their personal and professional issues in a confidential, non-competitive environment.
Once-in-a-lifetime experiences give members access to exclusive social events with exciting networking opportunities at unique conferences in cities all over the world.
Connection to experts helps members tap into a network of experts as-needed, drawing from the experience of others in areas such as medical treatment, business advice and life-skills coaching.
We want to manage our global impacts and engage all of our members to experience transformational growth whether it is in their business or personal life. Therefore, the sustainable strategy must focus on both the organization’s sustainability performance and empowering members to engage in the sustainability agenda (either as individuals or through their businesses). To help us grow our membership and enable transformational growth:
· Develop a sustainability strategy with specific and measurable goals for the implementation of the strategy and action plan.
· Provide a clear roadmap for the organization on how to incorporate sustainability into its strategy and operations and measure its sustainability performance.
· Articulate the business case for sustainability for EO as an organization and its members.
· Develop a set of communication materials to help members learn how they can be involved in a sustainable future.
As Design Director my role was to help design and facilitate the process, based on a Diverge-Emerge-Converge model and lead efforts in the creation of communication materials. The aim was to engage the global board and EO membership in the strategic sustainability direction and roadmap.
I planned activities and designed tasks that enabled us to explore and ‘sense’ the current situation. This included conducting stakeholder interviews, empathy mapping and the development of archetypes into personas, to understand the organization, its staff and members and give context to underlying conflicts and tensions.
Using collaborative tools (Miro and Mural) over video, we ran interactive whiteboard sessions to work through our research and deliver dynamic online workshops. This helped show the progression of our thinking throughout the project and provided an easy way to resolve comments and feedback collectively, before the final strategy presentation.
I developed 6 personas to represent the different perspectives about sustainability we uncovered, based on the views and attitudes expressed by staff and members. These were invaluable in helping us craft a business case for sustainability and as a visual device to connect with audiences more broadly in a relevant, creative and carbon neutral way. The design of each persona card was characterized by a unique illustration, colour, quote and description with action-oriented statements that linked to the strategy framework and road map initiatives. We also piloted a remote sustainability leadership coaching clinic with 50 EO members using Zoom breakout rooms to:
· Strengthen the sense of an EO sustainability community
· Enable members to ask, offer and receive help
· Learn from each other and promote peer coaching
· Introduce EO’s strategy work so far and inform our process
· The strategic framework has made EO’s sustainable vision a priority inside and outside the company.
· The persona cards encourage members to learn about the sustainable agenda and co-create sustainable practices.
· The roadmap initiatives generate sustainability knowledge and competence for staff and members.
· The sustainability leadership coaching clinic was so successful, EO commissioned us to run a regular program of events for the rest of the year.
“This is looking great - so happy to see it coming together! It’s been a long road and EO is ready for it! ;)”
“Love them!!!!! I believe members will have fun trying to figure out which 1 or 2 persona’s best describes them.”
“Innovative using Persona cards. I connect immediately where I stand.”
“The Sustainable Leadership Coaching Clinic was one of the best virtual learning experiences I’ve had.”