A few years ago, I was sitting around with some of my buddies, reflecting on life.  I told them I didn’t start understanding life until my late 30s.  One of the guys said, “That’s pretty good because I was in my 50’s before I started to figure things out.”  We then laughed about how young men tend to have a blind spot in their emotional intelligence until about 30 or 40 years old.  I can’t speak for all men, but this was my experience.

For me, one of those blind spots was not understanding the importance of transparency.  As I write this, it is very profound that many of us struggle just to be ourselves and be transparent about who we are.

In my journey to be more transparent in my relationships, I have found that good communication skills are vital to being constructively transparent.  Sometimes I have a feeling inside, but I need to spend some time figuring out how to communicate it transparently to my partner.  I know I want to be transparent.  But figuring out how to do that constructively is not always easy.

So why is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Epsilyte telling you about his life journey?

Because the macro trend of the business world embracing sustainability in the twenty-first century is analogously recognizing an emotional intelligence blind spot later in life and change.

For many years companies did not understand the importance of operating sustainably.  But now they do, and changes are being made.

Taking this analogy further, improving transparency is one of the most critical dimensions of sustainability the business world needs to work on.  To build a more sustainable world together, we need to be transparent about where we are, where we are going, and how much progress has been made.  This is not natural in the business world.  In the business world, we are good at marketing.  Marketing is an effort to influence rather than be transparent.  I believe globally corporate sustainability efforts stand at a fork in the road:  Marketing or Transparency?  I often worry that marketing is winning.

Now, I am 44 years old.

I’ve been working on being more transparent in my personal relationships for almost a decade.  It is an ongoing effort.  When I joined Epsilyte in 2021, we made transparency a pillar of our sustainability strategy.  We will work to create a more sustainable company and transparently report on how we are doing each year.  So, with that background, I invite you to read the inaugural Epsilyte Sustainability Report at Sustainability | Epsilyte.

I also invite you to leave a comment or e-mail at info.epsilyte.com. Help us see our blind spots.