How do you respond when business gets tough?

Take our free 2-minute reflection

A taste of our approach

Customer expectations change. Costs remain tight. Supply chains, regulation and technology keep moving. Sustainability can bring opportunities, but also new demands for evidence, decisions and action.

Technical knowledge matters, but it isn’t always enough.

Below, we’ve developed 10 short statements to explore how we respond when decisions are difficult, people see things differently and the way forward isn’t obvious.

There are no right answers and this isn’t a test.

Take a moment to reflect

Think about how you tend to respond in real working situations, rather than how you think you should respond.

Choose the response that feels closest to your experience.

Rarely | Sometimes | Often | Usually | Consistently

We won’t keep a copy; this is just for you.

0 of 10 answered

1. When commercial pressures make the best course of action unclear, I stay clear about the values and principles I want to guide the decision.

2. When a customer, colleague or supplier puts me under unexpected pressure, I pause long enough to choose my response rather than simply react.

3. When a business problem appears straightforward, I look beyond the immediate issue for wider causes, connections and possible unintended consequences.

4. Before making an important decision, I actively look for evidence or viewpoints that might challenge what I already believe.

5. When customers, colleagues, communities or other stakeholders want different things, I try to understand what matters to them before deciding what to do.

6. When people disagree strongly about priorities or solutions, I keep the relationship constructive while still addressing the difficult issue.

7. When tackling an unfamiliar problem, I involve people with different knowledge or perspectives before the solution is decided.

8. When people have competing priorities, I find enough common ground to move towards practical action.

9. When an important decision can't wait for complete certainty, I'm willing to take a proportionate first step, learn from what happens and adjust.

10. When immediate pressures compete with something important for the longer term, I keep it moving rather than allowing it to slip down the priority list.

Your reflection

We've looked at the pattern across your responses rather than giving you a score. Pay particular attention to what makes you stop and think.

What might be worth noticing?

Bringing it together

Now think of something real

Bring to mind one difficult situation you're actually dealing with. It might be a customer requirement, organisational change, a sustainability challenge, a difficult stakeholder relationship or a decision where there isn't an obvious answer.

Looking back over your reflection, what might you do differently?

What's behind the reflection?

These statements draw on the five dimensions of the Inner Development Goals: Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating and Acting.

We've translated those dimensions into recognisable situations at work: staying grounded, seeing a wider picture, understanding other people, working with difference and turning intention into action.

BRING A DIFFICULT CHALLENGE

Our Sustainability Accelerator introductory workshop gives you space to apply these ideas to something you're actually dealing with, whether that's a customer requirement, organisational change, sustainability challenge, difficult stakeholder relationship or a decision where there isn't an obvious answer.

The next step isn't another assessment. Bring something real and explore it with us.

Join an introductory workshop