Helping leaders go further – 3 years of working with O2

Today Telefonica UK – probably better known to you as O2 – launches Think Big Blueprint O2, its ambitious plan for people and planet. It’s a big step for O2, the latest in a journey which I’ve been involved with for over 3 years. I’m often asked ‘what does Forum do with its partners?’. The launch is a good moment to lift the curtain a little on how we work with them to create change.

The Think Big Blueprint has some bold commitments for 2015: helping 1m young people develop skills; help 10m people live in easier and more sustainable ways; and to help deliver carbon benefits to customers that are 10 times the impact of their network.

Just think about those numbers for a second. O2 are promising to help one in six Brits live in a more sustainable way. One in six! Back in 2008, one study thought that ICT could deliver carbon benefits of 5 times the impact; O2 have committed to do twice that. Like with M&S’s Plan A, nobody knows for certain how to hit those targets. Sure, the targets are baked into O2’s 3 year divisional strategies but the world is a complex place and you cannot guarantee success. Being bold in the face of uncertainty – this is an act of leadership from O2.

So, how did we help O2 get to the point where they are confident and inspired to act?

Cast yourself back to the summer of 2008. Lehman Brothers hasn’t yet gone bust; indeed you may well have never heard of it. A colleague and I are having lunch with Bill Eyres, the relatively new Head of Sustainability at O2. Bill is explaining that the CEO, Ronan Dunne, is ambitious on sustainability. He had heard P&G say that it makes commercial sense at a conference in Dublin (graphically explained in this interview). Now their CEO wants a vision and strategy by the end of the year. Can we help?

The answer, of course, was yes. We do sustainability visions and strategies all the time. What I could only hope, at that point, was how the project would blossom into a very successful relationship, and support O2 in becoming a leading business on sustainability in the UK.

That December we had a half-day session with the board. The result was a vision and strategy that became known as the sustainability ‘temple’: foundations based on great people and operational performance; pillars of customer-facing opportunities; and a roof that brought together the right management structure and internal processes.

The last three years have been different phases of implementation, learning and improvement. We supported O2 on some of the specifics, and on the whole. We’ve helped embed change by running a 6-month learning programme for O2’s high potential managers. We attended Taskforce meetings, ran internal workshops, and did problem solving clinics with key departments. On the innovation front we helped O2 develop “EcoRating”, the UK’s first scheme rating mobile phones on their sustainability, as well as supporting their in-house innovation teams.

We also attended board sessions every six months to monitor on progress and update them on what’s new in the field. Those sessions were opportunities to increasing the senior understanding of the issues, and keep re-committing them to action.

Throughout all of this the people in O2, especially the directors and the sustainability team, are responsible for making it happen. Our role has been to help them understand their global landscape, and to support them transform it. Fundamentally, our ability to be ‘critical friend’ relies on three things.

First, deep, long-term relationships. We have had a close working relationship with the O2 sustainability team, with at-least monthly calls and regular reviews. There has been a great deal of senior engagement. If that sounds like a lot of work, it is, but the O2 team tell us they appreciate it (a few years ago, they told the Guardian). Over the years we’ve built up a lot of trust and insight into O2, its people and its underlying business. We can give nuanced, practical advice to change agents who are caught up in the busy day-to-day.

Now, it's not all plain sailing. The 6-monthly board meetings are especially important, and establishing the key messages can be a tense process. Mutual commitment to the relationship, and to O2 as an agent of a sustainable future, gets us all through.

Second, our experiences with so many other businesses. Over 16 years we’ve built up a toolkit of methods on strategy, innovation and embedding change as well as insights into what makes for a sustainable business. Every time we work with a company is a chance to improve a method, an insight or the capabilities of our own people. O2 is one company with the ambition that allows us to use nearly every tool in the kit.

Finally, and most importantly is our charitable mission to promote and educate for sustainable development. We make sure companies understand our mission before we even start with them; it gives the relationship direction and an anchor when things are difficult. It means that our partners can always trust our motives (unlike some give-me-your-watch-and-I’ll-tell-you-the-time consultants).

There is more I could say but I can only lift the curtain a little. O2 are about to embark on the next part of their journey, the hard graft of being a leader with public commitments to hit. We look forward to supporting them on this next exciting phase.

If you are a leader who wants to go further, and want a critical friend to help you on the way - get in touch.

To find out more about Forum's work with O2, and see the Think Big Blueprint, click here.