The risk we need to take if we want a more sustainable future

As an sustainability and environment speaker, Joanne focuses on how organisations can rethink creativity, leadership and decision-making in the context of climate responsibility and long-term impact, moving beyond short-term production cycles towards more resilient, purpose-driven models.

In this exclusive interview with the Sustainability Speakers Agency, Joanne Jørgensen shares her insights on leadership, creativity and the role sustainability must play in shaping the future.

Question 1. Why do you believe culture and collective thinking matter more than traditional top-down leadership today?

Joanne Jørgensen: For me as a leader, I’m visionary. So I’ll start with the first one. As we, not me, I believe it’s imperative to create a super strong community as a team.

And when I say community, I guess it’s your team culture, your ethos, your operating system. We all update our phone operating systems, but unfortunately more often than not leaders don’t take time to check in on the operating system of their teams.

So for me, that is really the most important foundational part of my job. It’s not to say that I don’t lead in front when I need to, but I believe in the power of harnessing the whole team.

Then the visionary part for me is very much about understanding the human need, the need of the end user. So that is your consumer, and really building strategies not in a silo. So making sure that it’s a multidisciplinary approach to strategy, but also tested with that consumer or human.

Question 2. In a period of rapid change, from technology to sustainability pressures, what do leaders need to get right if they want to build resilient and purpose-driven teams?

Joanne Jørgensen: Know your people and know yourself.

So when I talk about knowing your people, I really believe in hiring people who are exceptional. And when I say exceptional, the best advice I ever got was from my first manager. She said, “I was scared of you when I hired you.” And I thought, “I’m not scary.”

But what I learned from that is actually what she meant is she had no idea how to do what I do. And she said, “I’m telling you this so that when you go on to be a leader, you will also hire the most incredible people that you’re almost scared of.”

And I have always done this, surrounded myself with the most talented, amazing individuals. And it’s not to say that I ignore or don’t know how they do what they do. I make sure that I develop a baseline understanding from them.

Often I say, “Will you train me? Will you take me aside?” and really show me what the tools are that you use to do your job.

And then knowing yourself as a leader, taking the time to reflect, to share your approach with teams and other leaders, and building that habit. And when I say habit, I mean habit of feedback. Really having an open-door policy for someone to say to you, whether it’s a process, a procedure, an idea, they can open that door, or a virtual door, and come up to you and have that conversation.

And I don’t mean HR feedback questionnaires.

So I think those for me are the really key ingredients. And then, as I’ve also mentioned, team culture and operating system. This is so important to have that foundation.

I always see it almost a little bit like gardening. You have to have that foundation there, all your seeds put together, understanding what each person does, how they do it, but also their superpowers that might not just be their functional job.

This helps you really when you’re creating groundbreaking work, strategies that have never been done before. It helps you truly start as one. And I really do believe in starting as one. And when I say that, that’s both multidisciplinary and multigenerational.

Neither of these things work if you do not have a strong team culture or operating system.

And last but not least, in the pace of change that we’re dealing with today, whether it’s technology or sustainability legislation, it’s never stop learning, never stop growing, both as a leader and as a team. That is a constant.

Question 3. You talk about moving from human-centred to human-and-earth-centred creativity. What does that shift mean in practice, and why does it matter now?

Joanne Jørgensen: Yeah, absolutely. Human-centred, I really believe, is more important than ever. And actually, I now have shifted a little bit to calling it human and earth-centred.

And that means I don’t only look at the end user as the consumer, but also as our ecosystem that we sit in as a whole. Because I think we’ve got quite damaging narratives. We talk about the climate crisis, the environment, separating ourselves as not being part of that ecosystem.

So for me, I really approach it as both human and earth-centred. And the key principles there are empathy, deep insights, walking a mile in those shoes, whether it is of our ecosystem or the end user or both.

Idea generation, playful iteration. And when I say playful, that importance of not feeling too many guard rails.

Prototyping, testing, testing with that end consumer, gathering feedback, and continuing to evolve that product, that brief, until you really are creating something that makes both people’s lives better, but also the ecosystem as a whole.

This exclusive interview with Joanne Jørgensen was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.