TPC Leadership develops leaders with a heart for leaders AND their organisations. They are engaged and passionate in what they do. They focus on the individual, but will always keep the vision and objectives of the organisation into account.Janna Kramer, Learning & Talent Development LeaderEY – NETHERLANDS
In this series of blogs, Andrea Cardillo is exploring gardens as a metaphor for learning ecosystems. Over the past two weeks Andrea explored both the Italian/French and English styles of garden as metaphors for L&D organisations. This week he is focused on a Permaculture style of garden.
In my last two blogs exploring gardens as metaphors for learning ecosystems, I came to the conclusion that both the Italian/French and English gardens, whilst having some significant advantages, do not offer a truly sustainable model for learning ecosystems. So is a Permaculture garden the answer for an L&D system that is truly self-sustaining?
The Permaculture garden
A third and last powerful metaphor for a learning ecosystem is a Permaculture Garden.
Permanent agriculture (‘permaculture’ for short) is a system based on observing and imitating nature. Permaculture gardeners look at a natural ecosystem in its entirety, harmonizing plants, trees, roots, water streams to the existing conditions of the soil and the landscape.
Through this process, permaculture gardens produce food for humans and shelter and nourishment for local flora and fauna with minimal human intervention. This approach foresees a minimal need for watering, weeding and fertilizing, so that the entire natural system can survive and thrive over time.
I believe this is the best metaphor for how L&D departments are starting to envision permanent, self-sustaining learning ecosystems as an integral part of the wider organisational landscape. This philosophy embeds the main characteristics of what Laloux calls Teal organisations.
In an optimal scenario, purpose provides the system a clear reason for being. Significant freedom with responsibility is left to individuals about how to connect with that source of nourishment and how to develop and grow to be able to contribute to it.
Self-directed learning pathways for content (through e-learning or online repository of videos, podcasts, articles, etc.)
Reflective group and individual spaces (coaching, communities of practice, leadership reflection)
Leaders and senior professionals operating as mentors for new hires
Hackathons where competent people can gather to apply their knowledge to innovate and develop the organisation itself
Internal team coaching interventions to bring new teams up to speed or support them in moments of change or turn-around
All the above are examples of sustainable practices that may help organisations – and individuals – to embed a change- and learning-oriented mindset into their daily activities.
Of course, there will still be need L&D experts to help an organisation to embed and live the principles of a self-sustaining learning ecosystem. They will operate less as architects and designers, and more like expert gardeners capable of observing the dynamics and needs of the environment and intervening to support and adjust its natural evolution only as needed.
I think this third kind of ecosystem takes our level of thinking to a completely different challenge.
Could the L&D community (both internal functions and external consultants) work according to the regulatory principle of its own redundance? Could we seriously envision operating to embed a learning culture in our systems that it will not need our intervention anymore?
If you would like to speak to one of our experts about your L&D system, please get in touch.
In this series of blogs, Andrea Cardillo explores gardens as a metaphor for learning ecosystems. In last week’s blog, he discussed the Italian and French styles of garden as a metaphor for L&D within Orange organisations. This week he focuses on the English style of garden.
In my previous blog I focused on the Italian and French styles of garden as a metaphor for the L&D departments often seen within Orange organisations – to stick with Laloux’s definitions. However, I came to the conclusion that these tend not to be sustainable as a learning ecosystem. Why? Partly due to their resource hungry nature, and also the fact that they tend to be very much vision-centred rather than learner-centred. In this blog I focus on an English garden – will this prove to be more sustainable?
The English garden
If in Italian and French gardens nature was ‘tamed’ to ensure rationality and coherence of experience, in the romantic garden, the so-called English garden, natural landscape, wilderness and picturesque views play a key role. If you have ever walked among the pathways of Stourhead Landscape Garden in Wiltshire, or of the Englischer Garten in Munich, or of the English Gardens in the Royal Palace of Caserta, you will find no straight lines, but rather curves, hills and valleys, flowers and plants from exotic parts of the world.
Stourhead Gardens, Wiltshire, UK
The landscape is often peppered with fake Roman statues or ruins that invite the viewer to contemplate how time and nature in the long run reclaim their power over human plans and endeavours. It is not human reason, here, that is celebrated; on the contrary, the romantic garden invites us to engage with our intimate feelings, to connect with our ultimate powerlessness when faced with the power of nature.
Such ecosystems, with their unique mix of trees, exotic plants and – often – wildlife, may be a good metaphor for how many Green organisations build their own learning ecosystems. In shaping their cultures, Green organisations accentuate the importance of feelings and emotionally intelligent behaviours to facilitate productive working environments; training on employees’ wellbeing, diversity and inclusion of ‘exotic’ profiles, coaching and mentoring emphasized as fundamental enablers for the creation of the psychological trust which is so necessary to attract, retain and develop talent over time. Most of the time, Green organisations demonstrate a certain ‘allergy’ towards the top-down, machine-like, impersonal processes of the Orange organisations, similarly to how English gardens take distance from the geometrical lines and design of the Italian and French gardens.
English Garden of Munich
Nevertheless, English gardens still manifest some of the problems of the Italian gardens: being nature-like by design, they still need significant effort and maintenance to look like no human intervention is needed. Fake ruins must be built and maintained, water-streams redirected, trees and bushes must be pruned, exotic species must be brought into places where they would never arrive by themselves.
Similarly, how much effort is required, in many green organisations, to maintain the right balance between inviting everyone to be authentically themselves while developing emotional intelligence and sensitivity – and often political correctness? When people cannot see the connection between diversity and inclusion and business performance, or between coaching style for leaders and operational effectiveness, no matter how much training opportunities you provide, culture will not radically change: people will feel that, behind the celebration of humbleness and vulnerability, still a clear hierarchy is celebrated. In the end, were the English gardens themselves not designed for the enjoyment of romantic aristocrats of the 18th and 19th centuries?
Having explored Italian, French and English gardens, in my next blog I will consider if a Permaculture garden could provide a more sustainable model for a learning ecosystem. Check back in next week where I will share my thoughts.
The issue of leadership is often only narrowly understood. Many see leadership as a position, others as a set of skills, a capacity to influence, but all of these perceptions miss the nuances of being a leader. And the complications.
Leadership is a dynamic relationship. It is fluid, impacted by organisational culture (see more in our previous blog post ), by the needs of others and by world events. So much affects the leadership in our organisation that it can feel impossible to untangle. But we need to untangle it. And when we do, we are able to deeply connect individual talents and values with organisational purpose and strategy, developing a system that enables all leaders to thrive, while adding real value to clients and key stakeholders.
Adapting to world events
The impact of the financial crisis of 2008/2009 can still be felt today. Many organisations we work with say the issues never ended. They’re still driven to double and triple check everything they do. To proceed with caution in all things so that from the top down, the organisation can feel assured about the success of every endeavour, no matter how small or large.
Financial pressure created a preference for safety over innovation. Our organisational structures shifted towards survival. And quite apart from the skills leaders may or may not have been taught, their capacity to lead became constrained.
If the tolerance and celebration of risk-taking took a hit from the financial crisis, it will be important to evaluate what impact that the coronavirus has both now and in the future. Whether we are affected by decreased demand, quarantine or halted production, we will unconsciously adapt to the new rules of play. It will be essential for us to keep asking questions, to consider the impact of the changes we make and to hold onto the core values and purpose that makes our organisations what they are.
Considering every need and impact
Traditional leadership focused on the need to increase sales and efficiency. But this focus is too narrow for our changing world. Now the wider world affects leadership and leadership affects the wider world.
Too often we have focused on the means of creating profit, without considering its impact. Leaders have been driven by shareholders’ ends, without questioning those ends. And this has left its mark on the environment, the market and society.
If leadership is a dynamic system, it is more than a function. It is not about making things happen but asking what should happen in the first place – and why. We cannot consider ethics as an afterthought. Ethics aren’t something to temper the impact of profit-making. They can be the entire reason we are doing business in the first place.
We need to take our values and purpose seriously, to focus on what matters most. There are environmental and social ends we care about that we have compromised – consciously or unconsciously – because we have perceived leadership too narrowly. We have focused on the immediate and missed out on our reason for being.
This is where leadership consultancy is essential. It connects us back to the people we are serving, to the values that define our personal and organisational vision. No organisation aspires only to meet the bottom line. We know that we have a more important part to play. Leadership consultancy realigns us with the purpose we may have forgotten.
Crossing the unknown
The etymology of the word leader is rooted in the role of a guide. The kind of person who would help you cross an unknown land – perhaps a forest or mountain range – from one point to another. What kind of person would you want for a guide?
Today we are still crossing the unknown. There are world events and changes that threaten to be unnavigable. There are systems and cultures we work in that permeate our thinking so that it’s hard to separate our own priorities from the demands of the day. It can be hard to remember why we’re even travelling at all. On an organisational level, leaders can stay lost in the woods, perhaps forgetting that they ever meant to journey to another destination. It’s easily done. After all, this isn’t a reflection on our ability, but a reflection of the dynamic and ever-shifting system of leadership.
That’s why we do leadership consultancy. It’s about helping entire organisations to cross the desert safely. To remember what’s important. To hold fast to their vision despite the manys obstacles and get to their destination: a place that has a real and good impact on the world they are a part of. They’ll end up making a profit as well. But they do it without compromising.
We want to ask you the hard questions, to help you understand the importance of reflection. We won’t forget the needs of day-to-day business, but we’ll integrate them with an understanding of human behaviour and mindsets – connecting the day-to-day to the bigger picture, to your reason being, to the people you serve. We won’t just stop at self-discovery, or structures and process, we’ll help you follow through to support behavioural changes in your people.
Let’s walk together on this journey through the unknown. Check out our leadership consultancy services or contact your local TPC Leadership team to begin the conversation.
Navigating change is now more important than ever. This article is part of a six-part TPC Leadership original series on leadership consultancy – and its role in helping organisations engage with the bigger picture while staying adaptable to the present moment. Next in the series: The importance of setting the right goals and measuring the right results.
Co-written by Andrea Cardillo, Managing Partner TPCL Italy and Christian Scholtes, Managing Partner TPCL Romania.
Copyright@ TPC Leadership (2020)
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