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We like the idea of starting the new year talking about regeneration, this time dedicated to our work team. Have you ever wondered what the regeneration looks like if we apply it to ourselves and our organizations?
In many areas of organisational life, and beyond, we seem to be stuck, repeating patterns that do not produce situations that we desire. Many of us can feel inescapably caught in this pattern-repetition, helpless and powerless about the possibility of generating different experiences and outcomes. These experiences become manifest in a fractal way: on an individual level, for example if I feel caught in a job that is depleted of meaning; at the team level, when turnover is too high, leading to an absence of team identity; as an organization, if it fails to adapt to the working needs that the younger generations are symbolizing; or as a society, given that we are becoming more and more aware of the use of a circular economy as the only economic form able to deal with the issues of environmental sustainability, design and ethical fashion and sustainable luxury.
Change management in the 80s and 90s and the transformation programs in this sense have mostly failed, pursuing a linear model geared to profit alone. But it may not be so difficult to revitalize a more natural, circular system, creating the right conditions to promote more natural growth and development.
A phenomenon that we feel very strong and that has the name of REGENERATION.
It is something that has been happening for millions of years in the living world, and this is precisely the reason why its name is "living".
When we look at how life has flourished on this planet we can take several interesting ideas such as: a great interaction between living organisms and non-living organisms (light, minerals, etc.), the fact that what has exhausted its cycle of life dies, making itself available as a nutrient for the next cycle, or that no external help / input is provided to keep alive something that is no longer vital.
So how about trying to seek inspiration from the living ecosystems to bring more life into our psycho-systems and socio-systems? What might regeneration look like if we applied it to ourselves and to our organisations?
Well, the 5 operating principles might now look like this:
- Increase interactions. This could mean getting out of the routine and habits we have built over time, meeting new people and with life paths different from ours; spend time in a forest to understand how life flourishes here without the need for any gardener.
- Encourage life where it is asking to blossom. Organize your workload so that you engage when you feel the energy is right; develop ideas and projects that sound true to you, where you feel passion and energy; prioritize, in your team or as an organization, those products, services or actions that can both help your company to prosper and give life to the social systems that surround you.
- Reduce attacks on life. These can take the form of resistance, cynicism, games of power, control behavior, war on the territories, fixed mental models, etc .; make friends with the idea that life is an emerging process, difficult to foresee and controllable; rewarding collaboration and cooperation by promoting collective decision-making processes.
- Help what needs to die. It could be your previous successes or failures, your hopes or your fears, a project that you helped to create and guide, the city you live in ... Composting is a good metaphor: it reminds us that it's not just about say "it's over", it's about engaging in a process of mourning that will eventually turn death into precious resources for the life of the future.
- Let go of the superfluous processes of life, do not choose to waste energy to keep alive something that must die. Feeding your false self rather than your true self is drying up your life, then depriving yourself of it; let go of dysfunctional relationships, goals that are not centered or unattainable.
So, while you are engaging in a situation that you intend to regenerate ask yourself: how can I increase the interactions that give life here? Where is the life that is trying to blossom and how can I encourage it? What do I need to be able to help what must die to really die, thus fueling the next cycle?
If activated together, you will discover that these 5 principles will bring a lot of power to the regeneration of yourself, your team and your organization.
Post taken from an article written by Matthieu Daum and published on November 19, 2018 on Linkedin.