Sustainability: Foundations in Discipline

At n2 Solutions, we favor the deployment of systems that continuously add value, promote sustainability and elevate financial performance. The foundation of our strategy begins with the implementation of the first system called the Sustainability Gearbox Concept, or SGC. A gearbox converts rotational energy into torque. The Sustainability Gearbox combines Discipline, Adaptation and Creativity towards sustainability.

The three drivers are interdependent and create synergy. Discipline is validating and executing and essential to the efficacy of each driver. Discipline in innovation manifests as empiricism; whereas discipline in Change Management translates to vigilance. Thus, discipline is foundational to decisive action and the starting point towards sustainable value creation. In the Sustainability Gearbox, discipline is the largest and primary gear to reinforce the driver as a first priority, core competency in your organization.

Now let’s translates these drivers into familiar and achievable best-business practices.

The Discipline driver translates to Operational Effectiveness commonly referred to as “OE”. Philosophically, OE focuses on continuous improvement through the validation and consistent execution of best practices. OE maximizes return on existing assets and binds business risk through plant operating efficiency optimization to ultimately defend the process margin.

Adaptation translates to Change Management. Change Management incorporates both sensing and mobilization in response to uncertainty. Sensing corresponds to situational awareness; whereas, agile mobilization removes barriers to execution while compressing the time between disruption and decisive action.

The Creativity driver transforms into Innovation as a familiar business practice. Note that creativity and innovation--while often used interchangeably--are different in a key way: Innovation includes implementation of an idea to create value while creativity is only ideation. For the sake of this write-up, implementation rolls-up under Change Management.

It is common for OE to overlap and evolve into a needs prescription for innovation; however, let’s not confuse incremental gains from OE activities with Innovation. Innovation is a high risk, speculative endeavor with a broad, strategic view based upon new knowledge and resources that results in transformative change across the value chain. As such, Innovation often results in radical, disruptive change.

Now that we understand how the value drivers work together, let's talk about how we can implement the Sustainability Gearbox Concept in your organization.

Note:

Organizations that struggle with low risk, low innovation-threshold activities from OE, will likely not be able to successfully manage the high degree of uncertainty and techno-economic skill-sets needed for Change Management and Innovation. Just another key reason to build foundations with OE first. Moreover, these functions are typically not solely managed by operations personnel due to the different skill-sets and time requirements.

Discipline in innovation requires the confidence and independence of thought to reject pressures to conform from echo chambers, authority figures, pundits and conventional wisdom. When uncertain, we look to empiricism--a form of discipline heavily reliant on direct observation, experimentation or tangible evidence--as the foundation for decisive action.