5.1 Reflecting on the values-based approach

In the next activity we revisit the practitioners for a final time to find out what they made of the workshops and which aspects of the values-based approach they intend to apply to their own practice.

Activity 5.2: Reflections

Timing: This activity should take approximately 20 minutes

The aim of this activity is to encourage you to reflect on the course as a whole, and to consider how you might incorporate the values-based approach into your own professional practice.

Watch the video (around 2 and a half minutes).

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Next steps: developing values-based approaches

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[How might you apply these ideas to your own practice?]

MAN 1
The value-based proposition that's been presented here at the workshop is going to influence how we can engage with businesses in order to get them to really understand within a sentence or two that, yes, this is something that they should engage with.
MAN 2
It's almost like trigger words for motivations for creating change, whether that be technological change, behavioural change, or just cultural change in general.
WOMAN 1
I found the workshop really helpful in thinking about language and the type of language that has universal appeal but also language that's very specific to specific groups, be they right-wing conservatives or commercially driven individuals.
WOMAN 2
Someone who might be towards the end of their career that just wants to do something benevolent is going to respond to certain types of words and phrases in a different way to someone who is at the beginning of it and is keen to go and to really engage with change and be different.
WOMAN 1
I'm going to try and be more conscious of asking open-ended questions that help me understand the values and where people are coming from in terms of their values so that I can then appeal to those values.
MAN 1
We've done some role-play here today as well, which has been useful. So we've practised being the advisor and also actually stepping into the business role, which, as I said earlier, is quite new to me. So that's been very useful to investigate some of the issues and – that might be surrounding business and what drives them and what might, therefore, drive them to be more sustainable, which is the ultimate goal here.
MAN 3
I'm really excited to see the toolkit that's going to come out of this and get some real, very simple tools to identify the language that I could be using. I think it's also just really cemented in my thinking that I need to be very conscious when I first meet the client to try and ask some leading questions to understand a bit more about their values and use that information to guide my approach with them.
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Questions

  1. What values have you encountered in your career so far?
  2. Thinking about the culture of your current organisation and workplace, what values are most prominent?
  3. Has this course helped you to understand and to clarify what your own values are? If so, which of the 10 Basic Human Values do you most identify with?
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Comment

In the video, these experienced advisors indicated that the workshops had helped them to identify the values that they had encountered in SMEs they’d worked with in the past.

Several mentioned how they were already adapting their approaches based on values in an instinctive way, but that the workshops had given them a framework for reflecting on this more formally.

Final reflections (thinking point)

Values are always present in our everyday lives, at home and at work. However it is rare that we talk openly about our core values, and this can be especially true for busy SME owner-managers.

This course has been developed because we think that these values could provide the key to getting more SMEs to engage with environmental issues such as climate change. We think that by bringing values out into the open, by using appropriate language, empathy and sensitivity, intermediaries can help owner-managers to reconcile how their business operates with what is important to them.

Human beings often make assumptions about one another based on a variety of factors. When it comes to SMEs, we have observed that economic profit is too often assumed to be all that matters to business owners and managers. However, research tells us that entrepreneurs start businesses for a variety of reasons, and not simply for financial gain (e.g. Birley and Westhead, 1994; Dawson and Henley, 2015; Edelman et al., 2010).

Watch this video in which an advisor describes an unexpected interaction with an SME and consider what it says about the potential of developing a more values-based approach in your own work:

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Making values-based business decisions – a case study

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[What motivates businesses to go beyond ‘win–win’ – and what are the implications for practice?]

WOMAN
I very recently met a company who was in a delivery-type role, so a fleet of vehicles and a warehousing-type business. And what was really interesting about meeting that company was it was one of the first companies in my probably 15- or 20-year career where they were considering making investments in things like solar, PV, and LED lighting that may well have not paid back in energy cost savings within the time period that they were going to be on that site.
That is incredibly unusual. Typically when I'm working with businesses, it's very much around making sure that there is a sound business case for the investment in lighting improvements, heating improvements, et cetera and that they know what that payback period is. And then typically, the more environmental values based off the moral and ethical issues are nice add-ons that they can then perhaps tend to their competitive advantage in future.

[‘Making a difference’]

I was meeting the MD. He was an owner MD of a relatively small business. He was in the fortunate position of having cash available that he could invest. And he very much felt and was very verbal about the fact that he had an opportunity to make a difference, and he felt that it was the right thing to do and that even if he couldn't take those solar panels with him when they moved sites, they will continue to supply energy into the grid in a low carbon way and that would future – that would benefit future generations.

[Implications for practice?]

So what meeting a business like that told me was that things have evolved massively over the last 15 or 20 years that I've been doing this job. And more and more people are integrating the moral and ethical values around environmental issues into their business decisions and into their personal decisions. So it is really important that we all stay open-minded to all the different ways in which we've got for motivating businesses to make change.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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This video indicates that when SMEs take pro-environmental action, such as installing solar panels, they may be motivated by more than simply financial return on investment. Concern for climate change in the business community is on the rise, and there is an increasing awareness of the need for urgent action, even if that comes with a financial cost.

As our economy transitions away from a dependence on fossil fuels towards renewable energy, and as environmental issues become increasingly prominent in public discourse, it is inevitable that the cultures, norms and practices involved in doing business will change too. This includes the growth of self-styled ‘eco’ ventures and the transformation of existing businesses (Klewitz and Hansen, 2014; Schaper, 2016). Business advisors already play an important role in shaping how the economy is run, and it seems likely that their influence will be even more significant in a low carbon future.

5 Conclusion and action plan

Summary and action points