Once a year, we like to touch base with you all and let you know what we
accomplished in the last year and talk about our plans for this year. This
report is separated into three sections:
Contents: Reflections on the past year--Plans for 2001--2000 Annual Corporate Report
The problem with finding your passion is that it makes everything else seem much less important, even if "everything else" is what has been putting food on your table. This year, we spent so much time volunteering our time, doing pro bono work, and deepening our knowledge around sustainability, that we took a significant hit in income. We'd like to think this is business development, that we're building the foundation for our next decade in business. But it's not at all clear whether there is enough of a market yet to sustain those of us who want to work in this field. It seems like such important work, though --helping to transform our society into a sustainable one where the economy, environment and social equity are not at odds with one another -- that we forge on in the hopes that everything will work out.
So we are still doing some of the same things we have always done: facilitating
meetings, coaching managers, working with teams, customizing training. So
call us if you need that. But especially call us if you want to torque
up the level of social responsibility in your organization, enhancing the
"triple bottom line": people, planet, profits.
Sustainability Series -- Once people understand the need to pursue sustainability, they often are stumped. What do we DO? So we're writing a series of how-to booklets around environmental and sustainability practices: how to develop an implementation approach, how to identify your environmental impacts, how to train employees on sustainability, how to develop eco-metrics to track your progress, "greening" your supply chain, etc. We will be looking for pilot projects to validate them so let us know if you'd like to test them in exchange for reduced-cost consulting services.
Conference -- After doing the Symposium on Self-Direction for 10 years, we've been keeping an eye out for what's next. By now most organizations have institionalized many of the empowerment and team practices. Since we think the leading edge practices are now around cross organziational collaboration and in green teams, we considered doing a conference around that. For 2001, we've decided to collaborate with the City of Portland to help them expand their BEST environmental awards breakfast to include a panel discussion on green team practices. We are retiring the Symposium on Self-Direction but keep your eyes peeled for a greener version in the future.
Newsletters and Newsflashes -- We will continue our free quarterly newsletter and periodic newsflash services. (Newsflashes are summaries of interesting articles and books we come across.) The AXIS Advisory will only be available in an electronic format next year to save paper/trees.
NOTE: We have switched both services to e-Groups so if you have been getting these services but have not received a notice from e-groups, please go to http://www.egroups.com and make sure you're registered to AXIS-Advisory or AXIS-newsflash respectively. I worry that some of the records may have been lost in the transfer.
Team Boosters -- In 2001, our Team Booster
service, which provides helpful do-it-yourself team building activities,
will become an electronic (rather than paper) service. We will announce
a Booster as part of our Newsflash and Newsletter services (so if you want
to get notices of these Boosters, make sure you're signed up to one or both),
approximately monthly, and you can buy only the titles that interest you.
The electronic format gives us more flexibility so look for little Boosters
like "Six ways to make report-outs in staff meetings fun" as well
as in-depth topics such as "Team Accountablity Assessments and Tools."
The prices will range from $15-$25 each depending on the size of the Booster.
Axis Performance Advisors uses Ralph Estes concept
of a Corporate Annual Report as a way to track how socially responsible
we are. A corporate annual report, unlike the typical annual report, serves
to describe our contributions to all our stakeholders -- not just owners/shareholders,
but also employees, customers, the community and the environment. The real
bottom line is about more than just money. The following report summarizes
our contributions to our various stakeholder groups. Since the employees
are also owners, we combined those two stakeholder groups.
ClientsFor AXIS adding value to our clients' organizations is our primary mission. Here are some highlights of our work in the last year.
We helped one client develop a systematic process for determining customer needs before they develop computer systems. The client conservatively estimated that this would save them over $1 million per year.
We've also facilitated planning and review meetings for several virtual teams. We are seeing more and more organizations rely on this form of teaming and are learning lots about what makes them tick and what makes them stick.
We launched a new Team Boosters service this year, sending out powerful, do-it-yourself meeting activities do to with your department or teams. In 2001, we are evolving the service to be electronic rather than paper-based to reduce environmental impacts and the cost of the service.
Darcy and Marsha continued their popular (and free) quarterly newsletter and periodic newsflash service, sending out 4 newsletters and 10 newsflashes (summaries of interesting articles and books) during the year. We are moving our lists to e-Groups to protect the privacy of those in our database.
Marsha is writing a book called The Trust Imperative with Stephen Hacker of the Performance Center. The book is based on a year's worth of research and test cases and provides an easy to understand model for building and repairing trust in organizations. They plan to publish it in 2001.
We also developed and presented several new workshops:
Building Team Accountability, The Trust Imperative, Building Consensus
in Teams, and Introduction to Sustainability.
Community
In addition to our work with clients, we make a point
of adding value in our communities.
We "adopt" at least one client, offering low- or no-cost services to non-profits, up to a half-day per month of services. This year, Darcy adopted Oregon Environmental Council, offering them half-priced services to coach their director and facilitate organization redesign meetings.
Darcy volunteered her time to help a West Linn High School teacher put a socially responsibility spin on her economics class. She facilitated board meetings to help the formation of a new community school focusing on animal tracking as a metaphor for learning. She also sat in on a focus group to design the curriculum for the Women's Center for Applied Leadership.
Darcy facilitated a Green Building Council board meeting at half-price.
Darcy continued to volunteer as a board member of the local chapter of Business for Social Responsibility.
Darcy volunteered her time to do a keynote address and workshop in Guanajuato, Mexico, at a conference put on by General Motors and the local university. All profits go to the university.
We hosted a think tank on intention-setting
as an alternative to goal setting.
EnvironmentThough as a consulting service we have low environmental impact, we still feel a responsibility to being good earth stewards.
AXIS purchased carbon credits to offset all of their carbon emissions related to transportation, heating and electricity. This was very easy to do, cost little, and it helps to encourage certified carbon-reduction programs around the world. Darcy also joined the Pacific Power Blue Sky green power program. Marsha and Darcy also made extensive use of mass transit (87 trips for Darcy alone), as well as walking and biking.
Darcy co-authored a City Club report on sustainability which was released in November.
Darcy and Marsha acted as mentors for the Sustainable Project Exchange, a forum for people working on sustainability projects to get education and advice.
In response to the request of the City of Portland, we hosted a focus group to plan a Green Team Summit for organizations that use teams to reduce their environmental impacts.
We completed a research study on Environmental Strategies to discover the hopes and obstacles of organizations that want to do the right thing.
Darcy is writing a series of how-to booklets called the Sustainability Series. Near-final drafts are available on these topics: Developing an Implementation Plan, Identifying your Environmental Impacts; Developing Eco-metrics and Targets, and Training Employees on The Natural Step.
Darcy and Marsha facilitated a "greening the supply chain" project in cooperation with a Natural Step peer learning group.
Darcy wrote a case study for The Oregon Natural Step Tool Kit on Progressive Investment Management, the founder of Portfolio 21, the first sustainability mutual fund. And Marsha is writing the update on the Nike case study for the TNS Tool Kit.
In conjunction with a PSU class, Darcy facilitated the process for Hot Lips Pizza to examine their environmental impacts and develop a set of eco-metrics.
Darcy helped the Bureau of Environmental Services investigate the feasibility of creating a sustainability loan fund to help organizations fund actions to improve water quality in the area.
Together, Marsha and Darcy did six presentations
on sustainability and The Natural Step. Darcy also did a one-day workshop
for Portland General Electric.
Employees/Owners
As owner/operators we naturally set business goals
for our own development. This year, we focused on deepening our knowledge
of environmental issues.
Darcy completed the Sustainable Production class at Portland State University
Marsha attended the Sustainable Products conference.
Darcy sat in on an Extended Producer Responsibility workshop, which talked about the evolution of take-back and other regulations in the United States. Look for it first with electronics.
Darcy attended the Green Building Tour put
on by the Green Building Council.
Bureau of Environmental Services
Clackamas County Dept. of Transportation and Development
Learn to Track Community Unschool
Con-way Transportation Services
DAT Services
Dept. of Administrative Services
Dept. of Environmental Quality
FatEarth.com
Frito Lay
Green Building Council --ÝCascadia
Menlo Logistics
Oregon Environmental Council
Oregon Mutual
Oregon State University
Pacific Program
Portland General Electric
Safety Results Inc
Spirit Mountain Casino
The Performance Center
University of Oregon
Veterans Admin. Medical Center
Vancouver Housing Authority
WeAttract.com
West Linn High School
Woodfold Marco