The beating heart of your organizational ecosystem

If you've read all my blogs so far, you will have read that we hope to leave this world better than we found it. Being a soft heart in business is not always easy, but it's rewarding and there are many, many soft hearts out there doing the work. In fact, there are many soft hearts that have created soft hearted business, but in 2023, we still hear business being referred to as predatory, capitalistic, and profit driven. I've even heard businesses described with political ideologies as if the shell corporation or small sole proprietorship could get up and walk around town autonomously, vote in the next election and have a hot dog from the local food truck.

However, this type of description has not been my experience in business. I'm sure that exists as does everything else on the spectrum of everything ever, but honestly, I have not had that experience. I have been fortunate to have met all walks of life in every work place I've been in. I've worked in organizations that have crossed every spectrum of people that ever existed if I was curious enough to ask about their thoughts, their feelings, their history and their passions. What that has taught me, is that we are all just people doing the best we can most days. How good our day is and the terms of reference for what constitutes "our best" change daily with the never ending variables we encounter throughout our lives. Family, friends, mental health, physical health, wealth, background, history, trauma, traffic. You name it, and it will create a variable for our day that impacts who we are, how we interact with each other, the decisions we make and how we show up for work.

In any case, it is a fascinating experiment to experience a business not as it's own entity, but rather the collective eco-system of the people within it and the structures and systems they have developed to accomplish their goals and co-exist together. Experiencing the eco-system from this perspective opens your eyes to an entirely different view where you can start to understand where people are coming from, why they do what they do and what they need from one another to accomplish great things. I have a whole series coming that will cover the archetypes I have encountered through my time and what I've learned from them, but for now, I encourage you to try a new perspective and look around your organization as an eco-system. Ask your colleagues curious questions, learn about your people. For example, ask your staff:

• What are your biggest challenges in your personal life and at work? (and allow them the space to say no to sharing)

• What has been your greatest lesson/learning through your career?

• What makes you come to work every day?

• What do you value most about your work and the people you work with?

• What do you feel you're missing?

• What would you like from me?

Understanding your team as individuals AND as a sum of it's parts, will give you little nuggets of wisdom you could never gain in a lifetime of self-help, development or business best practice literature and resources. Understanding the eco-system helps to understand what nutrition is required for the eco-system to move from survival, to optimizing it's environment to thrive. The best part of this? You don't need to optimize it's environment for them... just like fertilizing soil, nourishing your team means they'll figure out how to thrive all on their own, but together.