Have you ever over-harvested your team?

I’ve been holidaying. And like many on holidays, that means I have been reading. I love reading but often don’t have the time that I’d like to devote to it. Or more precisely, I don’t make the time to devote to it.
 
This past week I have been dipping into Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer in the USA – or Turtle Island as it is known to some indigenous peoples in the USA. Kimmerer is a Potawatomi author and an academic ecologist. The book explores many topics, but a central one is reciprocity. The creation of relationships of symbiosis due to reciprocal benefits. For example, the relationship between sweetgrass and humans. Sweetgrass is respected as the first grass on Turtle Island. In traditional knowledge, there is a saying, “If we use a plant respectfully, it will stay with us and flourish. If we ignore it, it will go away. If you don’t give it respect it will leave us.” This belief runs counter to the commonly held scientific understanding that to conserve a species, we should leave it alone - keep it separate. Nevertheless, Kimmerer describes scientific research informed by traditional knowledge where the findings support the traditional understanding.  

It’s got me thinking about not only our relationship with using and over-consuming resources on this small planet we call Earth, but also about how we treat each other at work.

Getting the most out of people

Everyone knows that after years of trying to increase productivity and efficiency, we have reached the bottom of the barrel. The uncertainty caused by the pandemic has undoubtedly contributed to this, too.

Systemic burnout appears everywhere. We are also trying to work out how to work remotely or in a hybrid fashion. I thought we had sorted that one, but it seems not. I recently heard of a new compliance practice that entices employees back to the office 5 days a week with promises of promotions or pay raises. I cannot believe that such a short-sighted offer would be made. Imagine a situation where ill-equipped new team leaders and managers are promoted because they are willing to sit in an office chair five days a week. The unintended but not unforeseeable consequences have the potential to be far-reaching for the newly promoted manager, their team, and the organisation as a whole! 

These practices are fundamentally founded on unconscious ideas about 'getting the most out of employees'. At their heart, they have an extractive and reductionist mindset. They don't recognise the reciprocal relationship between employee and employer. Instead, we linger in the shadow of ‘master-servant contracts’ of days gone by. A more contemporary relationship might recognise that the reciprocity of the employee/organisation relationship goes beyond simply a pay check for service rendered.

The desire for work satisfaction

The organisation offers employment and a paycheck, but the relationship goes much further than this. Indeed, according to McCrindle's research, younger generations are expecting and seeking much more. Younger generations are seeking job satisfaction within enterprises that 'do good'. Your organisation and your team can provide what they desire and gain from more creative and productive work.

Work can be and is a place for people to belong, learn, grow, and contribute. It can be very purposeful and satisfying work that contributes to the health of the greater whole—the organisation, the communities it serves, and the country within which it is embedded. This dynamic also contributes to the well-being of employees.

A symbiotic relationship

Imagine a workplace or even a team as a diverse landscape with many species growing and benefiting each other. Nurturing your people rather than extracting from them will benefit everyone. In return, the organisation obtains people’s care and passion, their ability to learn and adapt, and so contributes to the organisation's ongoing survival and ability to thrive. 

Kimmerer's quotation from traditional wisdom about using sweetgrass could be directly translated to employing people in organisations. Let me adapt the saying to:

“If we employ a person respectfully, they will stay with us and flourish. If we ignore them, they will go away either psychologically or physically. If you don’t give them respect, they will leave you.”

All these relationships should be reciprocal if they are to be ‘sustainable and sustaining’, or ‘regenerative’ as we might now label them. 

Why? Consider the bigger picture

The world around us is changing very rapidly. Ocean acidity, the seventh of nine planetary boundaries, is either breached or about to be. Only two boundaries remain unbreached, and yet humanity's trajectory has not changed. If we want Earth to take care of us, we need to reciprocate and change the way we do things. 

In the next newsletter, I will share some details about my facilitation of two days with the Governor’s Leadership Foundation a week ago. We explored where we are and how we can change how we live and work.

Please contact me if you'd like to chat about how to nurture your team at work.

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