Last summer, I reread a book by Charles Massy titled, Call Of The Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture A New Earth (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017). Massy is Australia’s version of Thoreau and Leopold blended together. It is a book about regenerative agriculture, which is a kind of farming that goes beyond sustainability. Instead, it maintains resources and then improves them, e.g. improving and “growing” more top soil.
In the book, Massy recounts participating in a private think tank where one of the presenters asked the following question: “When do you start raising a child?” A Mennonite bishop’s response was the following: “Child rearing begins not at birth, or even conception, but one hundred years before a child is born, because that’s when you start building the environment they’re going to live in.”
This was a deeply thought-provoking answer for me. As a father and a grandparent, this made sense. We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. We live in the environment that they created. Recognizing this wisdom, it is my responsibility to create the environment for both of our children, their families and, in time, their children.
The ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) call this kind of thinking the Seventh Generation Principle, namely the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future, which is 525 years into the future or the the year 2547.
When I reflect on this big picture perspective, and given the events of the last three years of living through a global pandemic, I have come to the conclusion that we are in need of regenerative leadership. Giles Hutchins, author and strategist, calls this “a way of leading that cultivates life-affirming conditions.”
As the intensity of a global pandemic fades, we are left dealing with a level of PTSD and, at times, grief that overwhelms us. We survived by being functional, but I believe we have lost the feeling of unity, clarity, and connection with others. Add to this situation the on-going worries about the economy, and the current balkanization society within which we live, where other people are considered culturally incomprehensible and unacceptable, we desperately need leaders inside our companies and within our communities to start cultivating “life-affirming conditions.” We need people who are willing to lead and build for the next 100 years, rather just the next 90 days. Recognizing that leaders create work environments every day by what they role model and what they tolerate, we need to be the kind of leaders who generate or, in some conditions, regenerate a healthy environment at work and at home. Then, all involved can feel like they can participate as whole people, that their work and their lives matter, and that they can contribute in meaningful and healthy ways.
A Monoculture Of The Mind vs. A Shared Adaptive Mindset
A long time ago, Douglas McArthur, an American general who commanded the southwest Pacific in World War II, wrote: “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.”
When we choose to see the bigger picture and to create a healthy work environment, and when we have the confidence, the courage, and the compassion to move through challenging times such as the ones we are in right now, then we must understand that we all are moving through numerous endings and new beginnings, all at the same time. Therefore, the equality of our actions and the integrity of our intent is to make wise choices and thoughtful responses to the problems before us.
One element we need to be aware of within this current environment of endings and new beginnings is the danger of a monoculture perspective. When people and teams choose to perpetuate a monoculture of the mind, they, in essence, view current events, choices, and responses from a fixed and binary fashion. From their perspective, all problems are defined and all solutions are known. Thus, leaders have to connect the right person, resource, process, or tool to the problem before them. This will then result in a solution that protects an individual, team, or the company from an external threat, pressure, or conflict. In simple terms, a monoculture of the mind focuses on maintaining norms and restoring order.
However, when an adaptive challenge surfaces, namely a kind of problem that we have not seen before, it is usually some combination of being complicated, complex, and dynamic. Thus, it is not easily defined. This kind of adaptive challenge calls into questions fundamental assumptions and beliefs. The action of defining the problem often involves the combination of reflection and learning, which may result in a change in people’s priorities, beliefs, and habits. In essence, it may require new ways of thinking and working in order to maintain an alignment between values and actions, to generate collaborative solutions, and to empower people to implement these new solutions.
As more complicated and complex problems arise in this post pandemic world and as more strategic rather than operational choices need to be made, we as leaders need to embrace a shared, adaptive mindset that results in better problem solving and collaboration. We also must support the work of diversity, equity, justice, and inclusion within the work place in order to access new and improved ways to work and to solve problems. With a focus on continual progress, growth, and improvement, leaders must also understand and support shared learning, and ongoing innovation, recognizing that it happens through participation and practice within a community based setting.
In order to assist people in transitioning from a monoculture of the mind to a shared adaptive mindset, we must build shared language, shared models, and shared learning experiences. Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen in the their excellent article called “The Secrets of Great Teamwork” from the June 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review, recognize this when they write, “Distance and diversity, as well as digital communication and changing membership, make them [teams] especially prone to the problems of “us versus them” thinking and incomplete information.” This polarization is a common example of a monoculture of the mind. Yet, these same authors note, “The solution to both is developing a shared mindset among team members - something team leaders can do by fostering a common identity and common understanding.”
Recognizing the importance of a common identity and a common understanding, i.e. a shared adaptive mindset, we as leaders need to understand that we do not impose a shared adaptive mindset, we build it, relationship by relationship, and experience by experience. What follows during the coming days on this blog are some important first steps in this journey.
FYI: To be continued on Tuesday.
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