Nadler Strategy LLC

11/23/2024

11/15/2024

Corporate environment/climate/sustainability leaders may face some serious ethical, personal and career challenges over the coming months. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. And the worst is to find yourself in a career defining – or threatening – moment without being ready for it. Here's how to look at your situation and make your plan

Corporate environment/climate/sustainability leaders may face some serious ethical, personal and career challenges over the coming months. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. And the worst is to find yourself in a career defining – or threatening – moment without being ready for it. Wil...

07/01/2024

I'm delighted to share the next stage of my life. Effective today, I am free to focus my time on the issues, people and activities that truly align with my passion and values. I’m retiring – on my terms.

Starting today, I will be:

- Staying active in the sustainability world, focusing on my two priorities: (1) honest climate strategy and (2) helping the next generation of sustainability leaders deal with all the stuff my generation is dumping on their plates. Expect to see more of my writing on this, here and elsewhere.
- Spending much more of my time on things that I've cared about, including family, history, travel, my synagogue, and the wonderful cultures and mountains of New Mexico. Expect to see some of those show up in my writing, too.
- Continuing to consult for up to 10% of my time where I think I can have a real impact on those priority issues.

I've been blessed with some amazing relationships that have helped me in the past, eased this transition, and opened up more pathways for this next stage. You've enriched my life in so many ways. (I tried to acknowledge many of you in my post on LinkedIn, but I'm sure I missed many of equal importance to me.) I look forward to sharing this next stage with so many of you. Thanks and best wishes to you all.

05/09/2024

Artist: Michael Laweka

White Marble, Standing Bear

Click on the direct link below for more information!
https://www.zarteam.org/products/michael-laweka-white-marble-standing-bear-zuni

02/16/2024

"Burn on, Big Planet, Burn on": My very personal view on why I think the LEAD statement is so important to read, sign and share. Everything we're doing on climate is necessary but not sufficient. Feel free to disagree but please read and consider.

The Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland OH on June 22, 1969. It wasn’t the first (or last) fire on the river, and it wasn’t the biggest. It did catch the public imagination and, along with a major oil spill off Santa Barbara CA, helped focus public attention

08/26/2023

Kathleen Watson Nadler

08/23/2023

Danette Laate: Mother of Pearl, Rabbit >> https://www.zarteam.org/products/danette-laate-mother-of-pearl-rabbit

08/23/2023

05/01/2023

My personal view of diversity

I used to be diverse.

As a Jewish kid going through school in the non-Jewish suburbs of DC, working in Illinois State government, and for 15 years on the railroad, I was often the only Jew in the room. For 20 years in consulting, I was the only non-technical person in a room of engineers and geologists, and sometimes the only American in the room.

Now, as a “stale pale male” (and a gender-static one at that) in the senior levels of the US sustainability world, I’m the old boring baseline. As an old Jewish guy with a white beard from back east living in Santa Fe NM, I’m lost in the crowd here.

But I’m getting to live in a much more diverse world. My professional world in corporate sustainability used to be 90+ % white males in my general age range. Now, the energy is coming from rising leaders who are my kids’ age, and probably 70% female, 20% BIPOC. My personal world here in New Mexico is the picture of diversity: according to the US Census Bureau, the state is 50% Hispanic, 11% Native American, and 39% “all other” (including me). As a guide in the Museum-sanctioned history walk in Santa Fe, I spend a big part of each tour explaining that diversity and the city’s deep indigenous and Spanish roots - and showing (sometimes shocked tourists) that “we’re all still here”.

Melting Pot vs. Tapestry

Growing up with mid-20th century assimilationist parents and conventional public schools, I was taught the American “melting pot” mythology. Only later did I come to realize the tragic flaw: in the melting pot model, success lies in having your identity literally melted down until you can become part of an indistinguishable mass.

Perhaps because my wife is a weaver, I came to embrace a different metaphor: tapestry. As I watched my wife weave, I saw her take disparate limp, colorful threads and turn them into a piece of beautiful, strong material which simply hadn’t existed before. She didn’t destroy the different colors or reduce them to the lowest common denominator. She highlighted them, combined them, contrasted them, showing them off in different weaves and textures. When she weaves, she doesn’t destroy the colors, she dances with them. Each finished piece is more than the sum of its parts. It celebrates those different parts rather than extinguishing them. (And her weaving combines things she’s learned from Spanish, Navajo and 18th century Anglo styles and methods.)

That’s the diversity and inclusion model I like.

[Photo: 18th century American Overshot pattern with modern colors, by Kathleen Watson Nadler ]

09/08/2022

It’s time we get more honest about climate strategies. Climate reporting, transparency and accountability are important, but what matters most is the substance underneath - and whether we’re facing the climate challenge honestly and addressing it meaningfully. Make climate a business solution instead of a legal or reputation problem. Get your senior management in the room and start working on climate with them – honestly.

Climate reporting, transparency and accountability are important, but what matters most is the substance underneath.