How to look after yourself, your people and the planet

Running a good business is tough. In every decision you make you are taking into consideration what the business needs, what your people and the wider community needs, and what the planet needs. It’s no easy task and can easily feel overwhelming.

We’ve asked Adrian Ashton, SevensEdge, and Good Will Studios to shed some light on how good business owners can balance looking after themselves, their people, and the planet at the same time.

Looking after yourself

“Putting your needs as priority is not just a nice to have but a necessity if you want to continue doing the good work you set out to do.“
*Adrian Ashton*

With 51% of small businesses owners experiencing burnout since the pandemic started, what can good business owners be doing differently to be looking after themselves?

Adrian Ashton is a untypical enterprise consultant and trainer. Here’s his thoughts on how to look after yourself whilst looking after your business:

“I’ve been reflecting with several Club members in recent months about how I approach and ‘balance’ my pro bono work as a sole trader with the need to make sure I keep earning enough cash to keep the rent paid.

Because if we don’t get this trade off between ‘work and love’ working properly, we either:

Find ourselves at risk of being made homeless - evicted after non-rent payments because we didn’t do enough paid work in favour of our pro bono offers),
Feel guilt at not doing more when we feel we should/could - not feeling able to turn people away who we know we could have helped, but couldn’t otherwise pay us),
Risk serious burnout - we try to satisfy all these demands on ourselves and then see the ‘lights go out’.

And the way I try and get it right is through the following approaches:

Offering pro bono through structured volunteering programmes: that way there’s someone half keeping an eye on how much I’m doing, and trying to make sure I don’t get overloaded with requests. It also means that there’s also someone I can semi-regularly check-in with to make sure I’m also feeling ok with it all.
Tracking the time I spend on pro bono and capturing the monetary figure: I can then compare this figure to my overall paid earnings. It’s a tidy check-sum as I’ve a target percentage in my mind as to how much I should be ‘gifting’ through my pro bono work.
Reflecting with others on how they’re thinking about it and their approaches: all my fellow Club members whom I’ve already been having conversations with about this - it wasn’t all one-way!
Accepting what I am able to do: And ultimately, trying to accept the truth that however superhuman we might otherwise see or wish ourselves to be, we can’t save everyone.”

Putting your needs as priority is not just a nice to have but a necessity if you want to continue doing the good work you set out to do.

Looking After Your People

“Stopping to celebrate our team’s successes, recognising their resilience in tough times, or simply thanking them often, is a powerful demonstration of what we value”
*Jess Neil,* *SevensEdge Coaching and Consultancy*

The working cultures of charities have taken a real hit over the last decade, with 45% of UK adults confirming they have heard negative reviews about working in a charity.

As good business owners, we need to be open to developing ourselves into the leaders our people need. Not an easy task but critical to designing a business that positively contributes to its people.

Jess Neil is the Founder of SevensEdge Coaching and Consultancy, empowering leaders and their teams to align their actions with their purpose and reach their true potential more quickly.

“Here are the five key areas I focus on, when supporting clients to design a business that positively contributes to its people:

Trust, kindness and empathy - Company culture is contagious, and a leader’s behaviour will set the tone for their team. We empower our clients to weave trust, kindness and empathy into the heart of their leadership, creating a foundation of safety that is vital for success.
Growth mentality - In our experience, fear is the greatest limiting factor in organisations, holding teams back from fulfilling their potential. We support organisations to embrace failure, recognising that creativity and innovation can only thrive in an environment where it feels safe to take calculated risks.
Diversity - A team cannot unlock its potential if each of its members are looking at challenges and opportunities from the same perspective. We coach our clients to harness the power of diversity of thought, opinion and lived experience, supporting them to encourage kind challenges and embrace differences.
Communication - We believe that great communication starts with being kind, honest and clear. A common thread in the most successful organisations we support, are leaders who are accessible to their teams, actively listening to their ideas and experiences, and being reflective and thoughtful in their responses.
Gratitude - We’ve all heard about the benefits of practising gratitude in our personal lives, but might not realise that the practice is just as effective professionally. Stopping to celebrate our team’s successes, recognising their resilience in tough times, or simply thanking them often, is a powerful demonstration of what we value.”

Looking After The Planet

“Business doesn’t have to be brutal. Marketing doesn’t have to be manipulative. We can put people, planet and purpose alongside financial outcomes and thrive.”
*Will Saunders,* *Good Will Studios*

In the UK, SMEs share almost equal responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions as large businesses. So what can we be doing to reduce the negative impacts on the planet?

Will Saunders is the Founder of Good Will Studios, whose motto is ‘"A better world, by design":

“I’ve been in the creative industry for around 15 years, in fact it’s really the only career I’ve ever known (I don’t count my paper round or the time I worked at a fish factory!), and I have always loved the craft. I realise now that I ended up doing what I do because I was fascinated with visuals and shapes, I was always inspired by how graphic designers could say so much without saying a single word and how clever marketing could tell a compelling story that made me feel good and uplifted.

But a few years ago I realised that these incredible art forms were often being used as a tool to greenwash and to convince us to buy unsustainable and unethical products that we didn’t really need. That craft that I loved was contributing to something I hated.

This moment really hit home in 2017 when I was the creative director at my previous design agency. We had won a cool illustration project and I was so excited about doing the work that I almost overlooked the fact that we were designing illustrations for an offshore oil rig company - I was using my skills to help the fossil fuel industry. And this was at time when I was going through a personal journey of understanding trying to become more sustainable and ethical in aspects of my personal life; I was on the path to veganism, I was reducing my consumption, I was trying to reduce flying, yet there I was going against my personal values in my professional life. I was part of the problem.

I decided then that things had to change.

I slowly realised that as a small business owner, I could make a bigger impact in my work and that I could steer my ship in a different direction. I didn’t have to follow the “business as usual” mindset. I could politely rebel, and that's what I set out to do.

So I took a hard look at our client list and the work I was doing and why, and I made the shift to work exclusively with clients and organisations who shared my values. I eventually rebranded and repositioned my business, became an accredited Social Enterprise, and actively sought out those who are on a mission to use their business for good.

You can go paperless, you can change your office light bulbs, you can switch energy suppliers… but I believe the real power to look after our planet lies in our mission - who we choose to help with our skills and how we make the most of our professional lives.

Business doesn’t have to be brutal. Marketing doesn’t have to be manipulative. We can put people, planet and purpose alongside financial outcomes and thrive.

Take action in your personal life. There are many things you can do in your daily life to reduce your impact on the planet that are really in your control. These are reducing or eliminating meat and dairy from your diet, cutting down on flying, consuming more consciously and trying to inspire those around you to reflect on their habits too.
Align your business actions with your personal values. If your business operations or client list doesn't match up with your personal values, or something feels a bit off, then reflect on those values and take active steps to ensure that your work is not contributing to something you would not like to see in your personal life. Remember that you're in more control than you think.
Don't be shy in telling your story. Nobody is perfect and we all start from somewhere, especially as we're all participants in a hyper-capitalistic and unequal society, and you’re doing the best you can. I have been hugely inspired by others who have made many small but meaningful steps in making positive change. And if you're doing something good with your business and want to tell your story with confidence, I have an interactive brand-building workshop for you!”

The climate crisis may seem too big to tackle, but if we all take one small step forward, we can achieve more than not doing anything.

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