Latest news with #organizations
Forbes
10 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
What's Holding Back Sustainable Business? The Challenges That Matter Most
The race to a sustainable future is on In the next five years, an entire generation of 2030 sustainability goals will finally come due. ESG reports and shareholder letters alike are soon going to face their biggest reckoning yet: will all the lofty promises translate into real progress? Early signs suggest the answer will be sobering. While ambition has soared, actual outcomes have continued to lag stubbornly behind. The reality is not that business leaders lack the will, rather, it's that the pathways to sustainability are far murkier, slower, and more difficult than anyone knew, or perhaps wanted to admit. For many organizations, the past few years have revealed a brutal truth: good intentions alone are not enough. Across industries, leaders are confronting the growing reality that sustainable business challenges run deeper than public promises and ESG reports might suggest. Without the right goals, infrastructure, and incentives, sustainability efforts either stall or end up serving more as marketing than meaning. The subtle forces working against sustainability are often invisible at first: misaligned incentives, fragile infrastructure, and underpriced risk. It's time we look at them more clearly if we want to build companies that can genuinely claim to have moved the world forward. The Importance of Aligning Goals With Real-World Sustainability Execution At the heart of any real change is leadership that understands both the limits of today and the possibilities of tomorrow. Kenn Ricci, founder of Flexjet, is an executive who strives to embody both while also running a business in one of the more challenging industries to be sustainable in, aviation. As he explains it, Ricci's sustainability philosophy doesn't fall into the trap of setting goals that look good but collapse under operational scrutiny. Instead, he focuses on what could become possible with enough pressure and patience, and then works to build the conditions to achieve it, whether it is to further sustainability across his fleet of jets or simply managing the day-to-day operations at the back office. 'When you lead people, you can't just say, 'This is where we're going,'' Ricci explains. 'You have to build a path under their feet, step by step, that makes it believable and doable. Otherwise, it's just a dream. Worse yet, it might be just your dream, and never become theirs.' At Flexjet, Ricci has consistently pursued operational improvements that align with larger sustainability aims, but without forcing the business to lurch into goals it cannot yet support. He argues that trust, not slogans, is what sustains long-term change. 'Sustainability isn't a checkbox even if some still treat it as such,' Ricci continues. 'It's an ongoing negotiation between ambition and reality. The leaders who win are the ones who never let go of either side.' His pragmatic optimism stands in stark contrast to much of the corporate world, where sustainability targets are often designed by communications departments rather than operational leaders. And herein lies the first reason why we haven't seen as much progress on ESG goals as we would have wanted. For far too many companies, sustainability has not been a metric that they have actively led with themselves. Ricci puts it bluntly: 'Sustainability has to be a steering wheel, not a rearview mirror. If you're just reporting it, you're already too late. And the leaders have to be the ones with both hands on it, not just the sustainability or comms team.' He's also keenly aware that true leadership requires putting real capital behind sustainable change, not just political or reputational capital, but operational resources that can withstand market cycles. 'Anyone can make promises when the sun is shining,' Ricci says. 'The question is what you stick to when the headwinds come. That's where real commitment shows.' Why Sustainability Depends on Infrastructure: Lessons From Aviation and Energy If setting the right goals is the first battle, building the right infrastructure is the war. Kennedy Ricci, CEO of 4AIR and son of Kenn Ricci, has spent his career focusing precisely on this frontier. His company offers a certification program for aviation's environmental impact, not by promising zero emissions tomorrow, but by helping aviation stakeholders take verifiable, incremental steps today. 'A lot of people get paralyzed because they think the only good goal is net-zero tomorrow,' Kennedy Ricci explains. 'But if you can measure, track, and improve a little bit every day, that's how you actually get there.' 4AIR's approach doesn't pretend aviation can become clean overnight. Instead, it recognizes that building credibility today through offset programs, sustainable aviation fuels, and transparent reporting lays the groundwork for deeper decarbonization later. The company's rise is testament to the power of pragmatic ambition anchored by real-world execution. Kenn Ricci reflects on his son's growing success: 'Building an empire is one thing. Building a legacy that adapts to the future is something else entirely. I'm proud that Kennedy's taking on the harder challenge.' He continues, "We've always believed that real leadership isn't about announcing goals, it's about laying bricks, patiently, and getting others to walk the road with you. 4AIR is doing just that." Meanwhile, infrastructure challenges aren't limited to aviation. The broader energy ecosystem faces its own existential bottlenecks that a handful of companies are doing their best to break open for the rest of us. Deóis Ua Cearnaigh, CTO at Aeon Blue, a company specializing in energy transition technologies and sustainable fuel, emphasizes that sustainability isn't about simply adding more renewables into the grid. It's about fundamentally rethinking how the grid operates. 'It's wonderful that we have more wind and solar now,' says Cearnaigh. 'But you still need a spinning reserve for when the wind dies and the sun sets. If that reserve is fossil-powered, your emissions story isn't as clean as it looks.' Their bigger point is this: you can't just add renewables on top of a fragile or misaligned system and expect magic. Without reengineering grid storage, reserve capacity, and distribution models, the true sustainability gains remain elusive. Cearnaigh believes that while renewables will dominate the next twenty years, nuclear energy will inevitably rise as the long-term backbone for sustainable baseload power. 'The zeitgeist today is wind, solar, and geothermal,' he reflects. 'But it does also seem that nuclear is one inevitable destination as well.' Without grappling with these infrastructural realities, sustainability risks becoming a story we tell ourselves, not a future we actually live. This mindset mirrors the thinking of Brett Bouchy, CEO of Freedom Forever, a company deadset on revolutionizing residential solar. 'The solar revolution doesn't happen because people feel good about the environment,' Bouchy points out. 'It happens when saving money on your electricity bill is cheaper and easier than sticking to the grid.' Bouchy's laser focus on efficiency is another reminder that for sustainability to scale, it must compete not just morally, but economically. As Bouchy frames it, "We don't succeed by selling dreams. We succeed by selling better economics. And better economics drive real environmental change." He's blunt about the reality check the green economy still needs: "Nobody switches to solar because you guilt them into it. They switch because it's cheaper, easier, and works better. That's how you win hearts, wallets, and the future. And for that, you need the infrastructure to be in place, management to know what goals to drive towards, and an audience that is ready to trust what you are selling." Bouchy also sees a deeper, long-term opportunity that transcends energy bills: "Every home we upgrade is a client win, sure. But it's another node in a smarter, decentralized energy system. Sustainability isn't a utopian idea. It's the byproduct of millions of small, self-interested decisions that add up to a revolution." If only revolutions were easy, which is exactly why stories like the above are worthy of retelling. Companies that rise up to the challenge of sustainability cannot be taken for granted, simply because of how rare they still remain. That is particularly true for investments, which is the third missing pillar that is making 2030 feel further away than it should. Why Long-Term Investment Is the Missing Piece in Sustainability Strategy If setting the right goals is the first battle, and building the right infrastructure is the war, then making the right investments is the long campaign, often fought without fanfare, headlines, or even immediate returns. And it's here where sustainable business faces one of its most persistent barriers: the cruel mismatch between moral urgency and financial immediacy. Capital, by its nature, seeks returns. It rewards speed, liquidity, and demonstrable gains. But sustainability often demands patience, long arcs of investment, and a willingness to fund seeds that may only bear fruit decades from now. It asks us to invest in forests we may never personally walk through. Doing good, it turns out, is relatively easy. But doing good money, investments that compete at par with traditional, short-horizon opportunities, remains the real Everest to climb. This doesn't mean that the private sector is full of villains twirling their overgrown mustaches. It's simply important to recognize the system we've built and how it operates. Until the returns of sustainability become structurally competitive, whether through market shifts, regulatory frameworks, or pure innovation, capital will continue to flow where it always has: toward the short, the sure, the profitable and the now. The uncomfortable truth is that economics, not ethics, will be the final arbiter of the transition's speed, even if ethics gets to set the goal. And yet, there are signs of things shifting. Signs that smart leaders know: a world where customers demand sustainable products is fast approaching. A world where supply chains simply cannot function without green tech is not far behind. Companies who wait until the economics are easy will find that the customers, the talent, and the licenses to operate have already gone elsewhere. Which brings us to the handful of players quietly laying the groundwork. ENEOS, Japan's largest energy group, offers one instructive case. They are investing heavily in hydrogen transportation, synthetic fuels, battery recycling, and carbon capture, not because it makes perfect financial sense today, but because they know what survival will require tomorrow. 'There's no question the world needs cleaner energy,' an ENEOS representative explained in an interview. 'But if you exit fossil fuels too quickly, you leave markets in chaos, and ironically, you can make the transition slower, not faster.' The trick, as they frame it, is not to burn the bridges while crossing the river. Real transition demands continuity, not collapse. "You can't dismantle today's infrastructure before tomorrow's infrastructure is ready," added another ENEOS representative noted. 'The world is too interconnected for idealism alone. You need to build pathways people can actually walk.' This recognition, that reality, not rhetoric, is the substrate upon which change must be built, permeates the thinking of those who are keen to see sustainability truly take root today. Brett Bouchy, CEO of Freedom Forever, who is busy scaling residential solar across America, frames it in plain terms: 'You don't win by selling dreams. You win by selling better economics. If going solar isn't easier and cheaper than sticking with the grid, the revolution doesn't happen. Period.' It's a bracing, necessary reminder that narratives alone don't move markets. Incentives do. And this brings us full circle to the real challenge ahead: building an economy where sustainability isn't a premium add-on for the wealthy or the virtuous, it's the baseline expectation for everyone. In that future, "green" won't be a differentiator. Instead, it will simply be the cost of doing business. Those who invest today with that reality in mind, patient, practical, sometimes lonely, will be the ones best positioned when the forest finally blooms. And those who don't may find themselves, too late, standing outside the gates of a new economy that has no room left for yesterday's math.
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
3 Ways to encourage AI fluency at work
In my conversations with business leaders around the world, I consistently hear the same phrase to describe what they want to achieve for their workforce: AI fluency. I often tell them that to achieve AI fluency, we need to treat it as a foreign language. Like learning a new language, becoming AI fluent requires dedication, immersion, and practice. Fluency transforms how we think and communicate. Becoming fluent requires us to overcome the fear of making mistakes or incurring risks. Yet there's one crucial difference between achieving fluency in AI versus a new language: When learning a new language, we step into an established culture. With AI, we're learning the culture while simultaneously creating it. The big question: How can organizations build these cultures and become laboratories of AI fluency? Here are three ways to foster AI fluency. 1. Create an immersive environment Whether we're learning Spanish, Mandarin, or any of the other 7,000 languages in the world, immersion is an essential step to fluency. Living where the language is spoken forces you to adapt, to think differently, and to develop new neural pathways. AI requires the same commitment. Organizations are uniquely positioned to create these immersive environments where employees interact with AI tools daily, not as occasional novelties but as essential components of their workflow. From Udemy's work with thousands of organizations around the world, helping to create these environments, we've found that organizations succeed when they integrate AI across departments, from marketing teams using generative AI for content creation to HR departments employing AI-powered skills assessments. Immersive environments are built when employees understand they need to become fluent to reach their goals. That means the most successful AI adoption happens when tools directly address employees' pain points. Just as language learners progress faster when they need the right words to order food or navigate transportation, employees embrace AI more readily when it solves real problems they face. Organizations seeking AI fluency must balance structure with exploration. Consider how language learning works: Structured lessons provide grammar and vocabulary, but real learning happens through conversation and experimentation. Similarly, building organizational AI fluency requires a few basic building blocks: Upskilling on foundational AI capabilities and limitations, like learning the rules of grammar. Creating a sandbox-style environment where people can experiment without fear of consequences. Developing communities of practice where people can find social support to troubleshoot, ask questions, celebrate successes, and motivate each other to keep experimenting. Establishing guidelines for when to rely on human judgment versus AI, how to evaluate AI outputs, and how to maintain human connection in AI-mediated interactions. 2. Overcome fluency barriers The barriers to AI fluency mirror those of language learning. Fear of embarrassment prevents many language learners from practicing conversation, just as fear of looking incompetent may prevent employees from experimenting with AI. Imposter syndrome—the feeling that everyone else knows more than you do—impacts both AI and language fluency. The solution is creating psychologically safe environments where questions are welcomed, and mistakes are treated as learning opportunities. Leaders like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff model this by encouraging employees to approach new challenges with a 'beginner's mind,' getting curious instead of expecting immediate mastery and understanding. What's more, both language learners and AI adopters often experience an ' uncanny valley ' stage where they know enough to recognize their limitations but not enough to feel confident. Supporting people through this phase is critical. This is where many abandon the journey if they're not properly encouraged. In this case, encouragement can come not only from leaders, but from the environments leaders create such as building supportive communities of practice where learners can share their struggles with gaining fluency. This normalizes the experience, while reminding them that this uncomfortable stage is not just common but also a sign of meaningful growth. 3. Create culture while learning This is where the language metaphor ends. While becoming AI fluent, we're simultaneously students and architects of the culture. This dual role presents unprecedented responsibility and opportunity. Leaders must consciously shape how AI integrates into the organizational culture by establishing rules and norms that preserve human creativity and connection while leveraging AI's capabilities. This means modeling thoughtful AI usage, celebrating innovative applications, and continuously reinforcing that AI serves human objectives, not the reverse. The organizations that thrive will be those that build immersive environments where employees can become AI fluent and build cultures where technology amplifies uniquely human capabilities. In a workplace where managers offload administrative or basic creative tasks to AI agents, employees would gain hours back in their day. This would allow them to spend more time coaching their teams, helping them solve problems, identify opportunities for growth, and learn the best ways to motivate them during times of change and upheaval. The journey to this future begins with recognizing that AI, like any language, isn't just a skill to acquire but a new way of thinking.
Tahawul Tech
2 days ago
- Tahawul Tech
business-to-business Archives
Are the days numbered for '123456'? As Microsoft further nudges the world away from passwords, here's what your organisation should consider before going password-free.
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
AI readiness is no longer optional. Here's how to make it real in the next 18 months
AI isn't coming. It's here. And the next 18 months will be a proving ground, separating the organizations still testing the waters from those moving full steam ahead toward real transformation. Seventy-three percent of companies now spend over $1 million annually on AI, yet only about one-third have realized significant ROI from those investments. The gap between ambition and execution continues to widen. Many organizations still approach AI as a side project, guided by checklists rather than strategic vision. True AI readiness calls for something deeper: a clear strategy, modernized systems, and the commitment to scaling what works. The good news is, with the right focus, it's possible to go from fragmented efforts to enterprise-scale momentum—quickly. For leaders willing to act, the next 18 months offer a defining window to move from experimentation to integrated, business-aligned AI impact. WHY AI READINESS, NOT AI HYPE, IS THE REAL DIFFERENTIATOR The AI conversation is loud, but real transformation depends on readiness —the ability to scale AI with speed, discipline, and measurable value. That readiness goes beyond infrastructure. It requires: A strategy that connects business priorities with AI opportunities Teams equipped to move quickly without compromising trust or compliance Leadership alignment that drives adoption across functions The advantage now lies with those who move from intent to execution—who build the infrastructure, alignment, and cultural readiness to scale AI across the business. This isn't a time for isolated pilots or disconnected innovation efforts. It's a time to institutionalize AI as a core business capability. THE EXECUTIVE AI PLAYBOOK: WHAT LEADERS MUST GET RIGHT AI transformation doesn't hinge on a single capability. It requires readiness across five key dimensions, each critical to moving forward with confidence, speed, and accountability. 1. AI Strategy Alignment Too many AI initiatives lack a clear connection to business goals. Leading organizations define a strategic roadmap that prioritizes high-impact opportunities, aligns AI investments with enterprise objectives, and uses measurable outcomes to track progress. Without strategic alignment, even the most advanced models deliver limited value. 2. Data And Infrastructure Readiness Foundational systems often determine whether AI efforts scale or stall. Readiness in this area means having clean, accessible data, cloud infrastructure that can support high-volume workloads, and deployment processes built for speed, security, and resilience. Without this layer, innovation stays stuck in the laboratory. 3. Governance And Compliance For AI Responsible AI demands enforceable practices. Readiness in this area means having clearly defined structures, policies, and safeguards in place to ensure that AI systems are ethical, transparent, and legally compliant. Key components include role-based access controls, audit trails, model monitoring, bias mitigation processes, and risk escalation protocols. Organizations that embed governance early reduce exposure, maintain oversight, and build trust as they expand AI across the enterprise. 4. Talent And Culture Development AI adoption depends on more than technical skills. Teams need to trust the technology, understand its value, and feel equipped to use it in their day-to-day work. Readiness includes attracting and developing AI-literate talent while fostering a culture that supports experimentation, accountability, and continuous learning. Moving beyond isolated tool adoption requires a broader shift in culture—one that redefines how work gets done across the organization. 5. AI Integration Into Operations Scattered pilots and disconnected initiatives won't move the needle. Mature organizations embed AI into core business processes, scale solutions across functions, and continuously optimize based on performance. When AI is integrated into how the business runs—not just where it experiments—it becomes a driver of long-term performance, efficiency, and innovation. The belief that AI transformation demands massive, multi-year investments is outdated. Organizations that are moving fast have already proven the value of AI in isolated use cases. The next step isn't more experimentation—it's scaling what works. Getting out of the proof-of-concept mindset starts with identifying high-impact opportunities, integrating them into core systems, and measuring outcomes from day one. When AI improves efficiency, lowers costs, or enhances decision-making, momentum builds and resistance fades. Execution at speed doesn't require sacrificing control. With strong governance, technical readiness, and workforce alignment in place, organizations can accelerate adoption while maintaining clarity and accountability. What sets leaders apart isn't the number of pilots they've launched, but how consistently they turn early wins into enterprise-wide impact. Competitive advantage from AI won't come from early adoption alone. It will come from the organization's ability to scale strategically, operationally, and culturally. That kind of readiness doesn't happen by accident. It requires committed leadership, aligned priorities, modern infrastructure, and a workforce equipped to deliver impact. Technology may open the door, but leadership determines whether the organization is ready to walk through it. In the months ahead, the most meaningful gains will go to those who move beyond experimentation and create the conditions for AI to thrive. The real question isn't whether you've started. It's whether you're ready to lead.
Forbes
3 days ago
- General
- Forbes
Leaders, Stop Being A Speed Bump - Why Speeding Up Is Slowing You Down
When you're trying to drive your team to move with speed and urgency, your actions might actually be ... More slowing them down. I feel the need. The need. For speed. That Top Gun mantra has never been more true. Leaders and organizations are demanding that their teams work fast and furiously to keep pace with the breakneck speed of change happening all around them. So why is it that when the pressure is on, the clock is ticking, and deadlines are looming, your team seems to be more and more hesitant, and therefore slower, by the minute? When it comes to accomplishing big goals under tight timelines, being clear about objectives, due dates, roles, and the why behind the rush are all essential. But, if team members sense that failure will result in terrible consequences and individual blame, their brains divert energy to being safe rather than being bold. The concept of psychological safety – the belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking – is widely discussed but less frequently present. What we observe instead is that organizations are full of unconscious danger signals that make it challenging to maintain true psychological safety. Blame is one of the most prevalent culprits. When leaders look for someone to blame in the face of a setback, it signals to everyone else that they too may one day be blamed. The alternative is to focus on what can be learned from an error and how it can be prevented in the future. By making room in your team culture for high standards and mistakes, you'll automatically lower the temperature during tough situations and allow more space for innovation and creativity. Another critical leadership skill for creating psychological safety is self-management. Particularly during stressful times, it can be easy to default to bad behaviors – knee-jerk reactions, raising your voice, and losing your cool. But the way you behave during times of stress will set the standard for how your team behaves. Make it your norm to lead intentionally – practice active listening, ask genuinely curious questions, and acknowledge your emotions when they creep into work. Prioritizing self-management during your regular day-to-day will make it easier for you to do the same during times of stress. And finally, if you want your team to speed up, you likely need to slow down. When we're moving fast it's easy to default to transactional communication. Real relationships, however, are the best defense against our own defense mechanisms. Taking the time before the pressure is on to learn what motivates the people on your team, their best and worst behaviors under stress, and what they need from you, will make it easier to show one another grace when you need it the most. Unfortunately, psychological safety isn't something you can roll out for important deadlines and then shove back into a closet. It needs to be a consistent priority and cultivated regularly through words and actions. The good news? It's not hard to do, and it will pay dividends in your experience of work, your team's, and the pace with which you can perform together.
