Sustainability: More than being green

Lost in the popular definition of sustainability referencing green practices can be the word's relation to business. At the root, something that is sustainable is maintained or kept going. So at the core of every business should be sustainability, the ability to continue to provide opportunity and worth to a company and its customers.

That was the message David Hildreth, president of BOOST Associates, shared with the 150 lawn care and pest control operators and technicians attending the 2011 Lawn Care Summit.

"Bottom line is that sustainability is an environmental and business concept," says Hildreth, who was the event's opening general session speaker. "It's about being green, but also driving value to your business."

Why should businesses focus on sustainability? The concept makes companies nimble, makes them attractive to customers and leadership tends to be more respected by employees, Hildreth says. It also creates stronger brand awareness, greater pricing power, overall operational efficiency, effective uses of resources and enhancement of a company's ability to enter new markets.

How does one become a sustainable company? High performing sustainable companies, Hildreth says, follow this model: People performance, drives company performance, which then drives the customer's perception of quality and value. And those high performing companies also follow an alignment of five key resources. They are:
 

Strategy. Companies have to know where they want to be in the next 12, 24, 36 months. Is the goal to grow by X amount or is it to add a new service? Most importantly, once the goal is defined, a plan has to be in place to outline how to get there.
 

Structure. A strategy is great, but a company's organizational structure needs to be in line to support that strategy. Structure starts with employees and trickles down to whether or not it's easy for customers to do business with the company. "It's a matter of taking a look at structure and making sure it's in line with our game plan," Hildreth said.
 

Process. If a process or a service is not adding value to the customer experience, then why is the company doing it? "What are your processes doing for you for enhancing and driving that customer experience, and when was the last time you took a look at it?" Hildreth said. Management can never ask this question too many times.
 

Rewards. Every company needs to ask itself if its people are engaged. Processes and rewards need to be in place to keep them engaged. Hildreth cited a Gallup Poll from 2007-2009 that found only 30 percent of employees said they were engaged at work.
 

People. To be successful, companies must have the right people with the right skills and attitudes. That may mean getting rid of the underperformers.

He summed it up with this analogy: If a football player wasn't doing a good job, would they be on the field playing? No. They'd be on the bench. And they might not be resigned. So why hang on to underperformers? "If you want to create a great experience with your customers, are those the people you want representing you no matter where they are in your organization," he says.

When those five resources align, it gives companies the opportunity to rise to a much higher performance and to truly be sustainable.

The author is an associate editor at Lawn & Landscape. She can be reached at clawell@gie.net.