Sustainability requires at least an awareness of the whole range of consequences and impacts related to one’s actions. It is sometimes said that a problem can not be solved by the way of thinking that has caused it. This is most certainly the case with sustainability. The way of thinking that has our present business, societies and very species unsustainable has been the cause of progress and prosperity, but since several decades it has outlived its value and shown mainly negative consequences. This way of thinking is characterized by specialization, a mechanistic style of rationality, negotiating as a kind of battle, a shopkeepers’ attitude towards all sorts of ‘resources’ (time, space, staff, raw materials), a limited approach to responsibilities, an industrial approach towards nature, a top-down command type of management, a sharp distinction between ‘in’ and ‘out’ of the organization and a predatory approach to competition.

The transition towards more sustainable ways of living, producing and organizing requires rethinking the assumption from which one has so far been doing all that. What is the nature of business? Before and now, this is about adding value to others and receiving value in return (something many managers appear to have forgotten). We have evolved, and if not, we have to, towards thinking about ‘value’ in wider terms than before. The ‘old’ way of thinking about ‘value’ is still relevant and should not be neglected, but nowadays we realize much more that there is much more to it. For instance, people do not just work for a company in order to be paid and survive; do not neglect paying them, but you may also want to check what other value people need form the organizations in which they spend most of their adult lives. And we have seen that being connected to the organization as a whole, in terms of internal clients, objectives, peers and values may well be one of the most important things people expect from the organization. They may still compete with each other over, e.g. certain positions, but they may also appreciate the connectedness with others at other times, not just because they like it (in itself not a luxury), but also because they learn from each other and realize the possible synergies.

Sustainability can be regarded as a further development of Kantian ethics. Kant’s Categorical Imperative reads “always act in such a way that the principle of your action could through your own will be as a universal law”. In other words, “ act in such a way that your actions would make sense for anyone else” . What if we are to extend this rule to future generations: “act in such a way that your actions also make sense for members of future generations”? That would mean to leave those generations the same options you have, would it not?

The more modern approach of John Rawls would also apply. One of the creteria in his theory of justice is that you consider a society just if you agree with how it honors everyone's rights while you do not know which position you will have yourself (agreeing, when you know you will be on top, is not so much a matter of justice).

In terms of sustainability, this could mean that you agree with a course of action even if you could imagine living in a different social situation or one or two generations later. Would that not make an interesting thought experiment?

Perspective
The ‘old’ way of thinking had a narrow perspective from its focus on specialization. This had certain strengths for the longest time, but no more. The downside of it is that certain things stay out of your view, sometimes only to appear when they have become a problem and then you deal with it in just as specialized a manner (making perhaps new mistakes).
Of course, one needs focus. Much quality comes out of precision one can not spend attention to many issues at the same time. But that is not what is needed. What the new ways of thinking entail is that one shows precision and focus from a realization of contexts and the ability to shift focus. Thus, the narrow focus is no longer a prison, but a magnifying glass.

Systems
It is perhaps characteristic of Western culture to think in terms of ‘things’. Even long after the developments in physics have shown reality to be otherwise, we still feel most at ease with thinking of ‘things’, even though these days we generally realize that the most precious things in life (love, health, friendship, security, etc.) can hardly be called ‘things’.
There is still some merit to thinking of ‘things’, but we do have to see those as elements of systems, in which often the relationships between ‘things’ are more important than the ‘things’ themselves. This is related to how we talk about ‘facts’: often we talk about ‘facts’ as if they are the ‘things’ of knowledge, not realizing that the facts are meaningless without the systems of conceptualization, meaning, language and social structure (note: I am not saying that the ‘facts’ are merely construed out of those structures and processes; rather, they are about a very real reality, but need us to be meaningful).

Stakeholders
A wide perspective brings stakeholders in sight which before you may not have seen. They are only seen as stakeholders, if you have at least some sense of the impact they have on your, or vice versa, or both. Some of those stakeholders you may have met before, without realizing how they were connected to the success of your business.
With sustainability, it becomes even a bit more complicated, as some of the stakeholders are of a kind you may not have seated around the table in your conference rooms. I am referring to stakeholders such as the environment and future generations. You will realize that they are important stakeholders, but how do you hear their voices? Through NGO’s, politicians, academics? They stand for a reality you may want to, or need to, explore.

Control
Sometimes managers have a hard time becoming accustomed with the issues and thinking concerning sustainability due to the fact that they are used to think in terms of control and often feel uncomfortable with things that escape control. Yet, clinging to the notion of control that once was successful could prove to be an illusion.
What are we talking about here? Perhaps about a need to find a new balance. After all, too much control is felt as a cramp.

Time
Sustainable ways of managing require a different way of thinking about time. Traditionally, managers are trained to think in terms of quarterly figures and yearly results. Now, they are being asked what the consequences of their actions are for the next generation; in short, they have to think in periods of 20 to 25 years. Usually, that is difficult, especially as the quarterly figures and yearly results remain important, so the challenge is that managers have to perform meaningfully in both the short and the long term.
Another issue concerning time is that many managers have been trained to treat time as a resource, which has to be used efficiently. That frequently means that they try to do in five minutes what actually needs a bit more time, and some issues remain unresolved as a consequence. It also leads to what might be called “the tyranny of the now”: the idea that issues need to be dealt with immediately. The idea that a certain issue might be a bit more complex and had better be postponed until tomorrow, sleeping on it in the mean time, is often impossible to behold.
Imagine what it would be like if you could think both in short and longer terms, and in terms of what to decide now and what to think some more over first. 

The story of the stockmarket and the corporate pinballmachine. 

Historical awareness
Sustainability needs the capacity to think ahead for at least one generation while you make the decisions for today. This capacity requires historical awareness (the company did not start the day you joined it, in most cases). If you can think in terms of the decades it took to build the organization you are a part of, you have a head start in thinking about the decades that lie ahead; it is in those decades that you have to make sense, as the company has made sense in the decades that lie behind you (although the ways it make sense will evolve.)

Soft values
Not so very long ago, it was considered ‘soft’, even weak, to pay attention to the human element of the functioning of organizations. Human beings were considered to be resources and fitting as such into the organizations’ processes. If was often even discouraged to derive anything from the human element that was not planned and controlled.
We have see a paradigm shift, as paradigms cause a change if there is more and more they can not order, until it comes to a crisis and a new paradigm comes forth. That new paradigm is sometimes called “the learning organization” or some such term. Although there are these days some business organizations that pride themselves to be “learning organizations”, it is still far from a success (for one reason, because ‘learning’ is often defined in inhuman terms).

One way in which the paradigm shoft can be seen is in hown more and more values are taken seriously, as part of the human dimension that consitutes the strength of the organization.
But the challenge is clear: how to benefit from the human aspect of the organization and allow humans, in and outside of the organization, to benefit at the same time (it is not either/or).

Competition
Competition is not invented by the capitalist system; rather, the capitalist system invented itself, building on the rise of markets all over the world. On those markets, traders have for the longest time competed with each other for the business of clients. In a well developed market, this ascertains the quality of the product and the proper price. It involves the availability of information, which allow the buyer to make the necessary comparisons; not too difficult in the early markets.
These days, we have a far more complex idea of what makes up the quality of the product and the price we are willing or forced to pay for it. We do not only want it to be a decent product, we want it to have been produced in a decent manner and allow us a decent use. What has not changed, is that those quality requirements can still be served best by having markets serve as their testing grounds. Information has become far more complex at the same time, but is also rapidly becoming more accessible. Thus, if you offer a product for which through the entire chain of production decent wages have been paid, you may offer the client sources of information on this claim and thus compete successfully with someone who can not make such a claim or at least can not back up such a claim with information (to give but one example.)

Society
The time when society was ‘outside’ of the organization, or we thought it was, lies clearly behind us. This is noticeable in many ways and perhaps most profoundly in the traditional business processes: the construction and lay out of sites is influenced by society, the hiring of new staff and the career development of staff is influenced by the role of the organization in society, marketing has received in many cases a societal component and strategy is now also about societal concerns.
A further complication is the result of globalization. The average company these days does not just have one society to take into account, draw staff from and find a market in; it has a multitude of societies to deal with and they diverge widely in their ties to the organization and in the expectations they have towards the organization.
The challenge now is to turn this around, changing it from a complication to an opportunity to added value. How to benefit from the growing involvement of society? How to build commitment with staff and clients on the role of the organization in society? How to prosper through the many ties with society?
Some organizations have found interesting new ways of communicating with the societies they are involved with. They surpass the traditional pr style of communicating, as those people and groups they communicate with are no longer satisfied with hearing a story, not even if it is an honest story, but they also want to be heard and be involved in certain decisions. That requires two-way communication at a larger scale than before. Again, this can also prove to be an advantage.