Impact Interview: James Payne

Name: James Payne

Role/Function: Associate Director, Transformational Strategies At Forum For The Future

1. What are you working on these days?  

At Forum for the Future, I work with organizations to help them understand the transformations that are needed for the decade ahead. The main thing that I've been focusing on lately is a piece of thinking around what it means for a business to contribute to a just and regenerative future. I’ve been keen to not only think about what businesses are good at, but also how they need to transform to meaningfully contribute towards this future. 

This all came to fruition last November with the publication of the Compass for Just and Regenerative Business report. We worked with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and industry partners such as the American Sustainable Business Network, Nestle, IKEA, Capgemini, Unilever and more. We did not want to develop something that was too academic or theoretical, but rather produce a guide that businesses could actually take and run with and apply. So co-designing the guidance with businesses and sense-checking the language and approach we were using felt really important. 

Now that the report has launched, we’re in a phase of exploring how we take this thinking forward. For instance, we’re running workshops for businesses to get their heads around just and regenerative business and think about how they can apply it to their strategies.

Another aspect of Forum for the Future is our School of Systems Change, a set of executive education programs we run. We’re exploring the option of introducing a program designed specifically for business executives who want to deepen their just and regenerative knowledge in the second half of the year. There are so many different ways we could take this thinking forward and we’re beginning to understand where we can have the most impact, and also where there's a real appetite for people to engage.

2. What was the “aha” moment that sparked your interest in social impact? 

I don't feel like there was like one pivotal moment. But growing up on the south coast of Ireland, I was embedded in a society that had experienced colonization and where the memory of famine was still very much alive. On top of that, I was exposed to some really inspiring leaders early on. When Mary Robinson became president of Ireland, her background as a human rights lawyer and her campaigning for social justice issues was very inspiring. And she’s just one example — I had many of those kinds of leaders to look up to when I was growing up, so social justice and environmental justice always felt really important.

3. How did you break into the social impact space? 

I was working in marketing roles at Diageo within the drinks business and I was on the global brand team for Bailey's Irish Cream. Even in my marketing roles, I always tried to bring my interest in social and environmental impact into my work. So I got to work on things like responsible cocoa sourcing in West Africa and sustainable cream supply chains in Ireland, but they were only a tiny, tiny part of my role. But that was also back in the noughties when sustainability was not really as high on businesses’ radars as it is today. 

I then went to do a master's degree at Imperial College London studying environmental technology. That was pivotal; it allowed me to build up my subject matter knowledge so that I could have the confidence to step into the space, and through it I was able to meet a lot of people. I really tried to use my master's thesis as a way of speaking to organizations that I was interested in working with, and sure enough, one of the guys that I interviewed ended up employing me after I finished up my degree. I was intentional with how I structured my graduate studies, but I also think it’s about preparation and seizing opportunity – being prepared when opportunities appear is often the way that lucky breaks come through.

4. Working in social impact is often about driving change. What is the skill or trait that has been most important for your work as a change agent? How did you learn or hone it? 

The thing that really jumps out to me from my practice is how to successfully hold space. I think there's a real art and skill in enabling people to engage with their organization or surroundings in a new way — not just operating in a superficial way or engaging at the level of metrics or facts, but really getting into some deeper questioning. It often comes from using techniques like future scenarios and other systems change tools. But it’s also about how you show up and set the tone that can enable those kinds of conversations. 

It’s also about being willing to “go there”. I have memories of working with the senior leadership team of a pretty groundbreaking organization and asking them to try to surface some of the dynamics that were going on within the organization. We decided to do a living sculptures exercise, where we asked them to act out through physical movement what was going on at that point in time. Through that exercise, we were able to uncover some incredible stuff that wasn’t previously being voiced. But before doing the exercise, I wondered if it was so out there, they were just going to tell me to get lost! So I think there's something about a leader’s ability to hold space and facilitate in a way that opens the door for the kinds of courageous conversations that can be really impactful.

I also think that because Forum for the Future is a nonprofit, people want to work with us because we can play the role of a critical friend. Sometimes it is about landing some pretty hard truths and being really clear about what the science is saying, or facing the difficulties of change head-on. Particularly with social justice issues, I think we just expect and accept inequity. But as a leader, to get a group to have the courage to challenge that way of thinking in a way that doesn’t alienate people, that’s an incredible skill to have. 

In terms of learning how to do what I’ve just mentioned, I think that every practitioner in this space also has to do a lot of inner work if they want to create deeper change. I went on an amazing leadership program called ‘The Journey’ at Embercombe in Devon, England. It was this really wonderful week-long program, that focused on clarifying your personal purpose and the kind of impact that you want to have on the world as an individual. I also have a meditation practice and go on meditation retreats often. 

And finally, there’s nothing like seeing an amazing facilitator in action. You can read about stuff till the cows come home, but actually, I think I've learned more from seeing people in action. For example, Forum’s CEO Sally Uren is just incredible, and so is Jonathon Porritt, one of our founders. Seeing them speaking truth to power is just an incredible and freeing learning experience.

5. What most excites you about the social impact space right now?

I’m excited that people are taking more of a systemic lens on sustainability and social impact challenges. They are joining the dots and seeing the interconnections, which really helps the work in this space become much more tangible. Organizations are embedded in economies, which are embedded in societies, which are embedded in the natural world. You can no longer think about social impact and environmental impact as separate, or work on one issue in isolation. That deeper understanding of interrelationships and interconnection has really shot up the agenda, which makes me feel inspired.

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