Concepts and applications that are newly arriving or reimagined in a new way.
Inspired today by the many wild ginger plants growing in our woods.
Wild ginger is considered a spring ephemerals. This means it’s one of the first plants to bloom and often fades as the majority of plants around it are just getting started.
It’s a pioneer of spring.
I also love this plant because it’s discrete flower, lying below the canopy of sorts, is an unusually beautiful rust color. The fact that you have to look for it makes it even more satisfying to see.
While wild ginger is a native plant to my area, many other spring ephemerals are rising up which are invasive.
Interesting to me that these harmful and toxic plants such as garlic mustard are also pioneers of spring.
A reminder to me that pioneering, innovative ideas sometimes can harm the rest of the system around them. Maybe best to ensure pioneering ideas are more native than invasive.
Also I’m intrigued that while wild ginger is pioneering the season, it’s nothing new and has been around long before humans have. Maybe new ideas don’t need to be new entirely, just new for the season.
Go find some spring ephemerals in your area and see what lesson they have for you.
A few things that inspired this post:
A friend Anna and Steve gifting us some ramps to cook with and plant in our woods. Also spring ephemerals.
Spent this weekend planting 134 trees with friends and family. Inspired by this poem as I sit and reflect on the weekend, all before it, and what is to come.
Planting Trees In the mating of trees, the pollen grain entering invisible the domed room of the winds, survives the ghost of the old forest that stood here when we came. The ground invites it, and it will not be gone. I become the familiar of that ghost and its ally, carrying in a bucket twenty trees smaller than weeds, and I plant them along the way of the departure of the ancient host. I return to the ground its original music. It will rise out of the horizon of the grass, and over the heads of the weeds, and it will rise over the horizon of men’s heads. As I age in the world it will rise and spread, and be for this place horizon and orison, the voice of its winds. I have made myself a dream to dream of its rising, that has gentled my nights. Let me desire and wish well the life these trees may live when I no longer rise in the mornings to be pleased by the green of them shining, and their shadows on the ground, and the sound of the wind in them.
Wendell Berry, The Country of Marriage
Here’s a booklet of trees we planted and those around our home.
Problem: has a solution. Can be solved. Requires brainstorming, problem solving, strategy.
Situation: how it is. Not solvable right now. Requires empathy, recognition, acceptance.
Sometimes we think we have problems but actually have situations. Maybe we can tell if it’s a problem by considering if we are willing to hear advice or not. If not, it’s likely a situation and we need to treat it like one.
Maybe someone will come to you with a “problem” but it’s actually a situation. Recognize it and respond appropriately.
Inspired by Seth Godin’s Akimbo podcast below where he explains this concept in more detail.
Parts of our job align so tightly with our talents that we can effortlessly excel and perform well
Other parts feel like the worst things in the world to work towards. Kind of like picking up dog poop.
What if you took the core competencies of your job (bonus points if you get your leader’s input) then considered how your talents (recommended Top 5 Report from CliftonStrenghts) can feed into those competencies.
This is great if considering a new job or if evaluating your current job. What is required of the job and how could you use strengths to meet (and hopefully exceed) those requirements.
You might notice a job has little alignment to your talents…consider steering clear of that one.
Maybe you see that your talents would have to be honed and refined (raw vs. mature) to meet the needs…do you want the challenge?
Maybe you realize areas you align almost perfectly in some areas…bask in the goodness and consider some gratitude.
I’m considering creating a worksheet to help with this process…pulled some ideas from a few Gallup blogs linked below:
Understand the politics do not play in the politics because the worst thing that can happen is you’re labeled as political, which is a dead nail. So please do not embark and playing the politics. Just be cognizant of the politics.
This is from Part 2 of a two part series of interviews by Adam Grant with Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of Pepsi Co. Both interviews are worth a listen and specifically this concept of being cognizant of politics but not embarking on politics in the workplace.
Balance between being aware but not engaging. What a dance to do.
Peter Senge, in the Fifth Discipline outlines how we can understand systems around us and the importance of pulling the right levers and being aware of what other levers change when we do pull certain levers.
One “archetype” of a natural system at play in most areas of life is “Limits to Growth.”
From The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge (Limits to Growth)
As we work to expand something, grow something, do a function more we need to be aware, there may be a limiting condition around the corner.
A farmer may grow a crop using fertilizer only to grow more than what the average rainfall of the area can sustain.
We may work a few more hours each day to get some work done but the stress adds up and we notice our internal limits are exceeded causing us to be burnt out.
A new area I noticed (thanks to the help of a friend and colleague who outlined their plan explained below) is when we think of expanding a service or function in an organization.
Consider a new initiative that is yet to have full organizational support but is widely successful and impactful. Many around the organization see its value and want to support the initiative…maybe its a new diversity, equity, inclusion initiative.
But it may be missing key top leadership support or have a limited budget.
You could expand the initiative out and continue to push it to the masses who you know will love it, adopt it, and move it forward. However, eventually you will have so many people wanting to join in that you will need to hire more people or expand the budget or need deeper support from top leaders. All this can make the growth unsustainable. People will be annoyed by your lack of responding to requests or feel let down by the expectations that were not met or leaders will divest in the initiative because it has gotten beyond what they initially supported.
To solve this, we can think of the initiative as concentric circles.
The center circle is your key support. Executive leaders bought into the initiative. Budget commitments to grow the movement. Key influencers and stakeholders.
The second circle is your advocates or champions. People who will do a lot of the hard work to make things happen. These people would likely be bought into the initiative no matter what but do not have as much organizational power as the key support.
The outer circle are those who are not yet impacted. Your “outreach” or those you can impact and get support from if they knew more about it.
Beyond the outer circle are other smaller circles of people who are likely resistant to the change. Often it’s difficult to get them bought into the change. It is worth evaluating if there are too many little outer circles to make the change effective but often best to not manage to their needs or expectations if the change is truly needed.
The error that can be made is to expand the outer circle. Focus all effort on growth and expansion of the initiative. Push harder. However the inner circle is your limiting condition. Peter Senge says the key to leverage with this model is identifying and changing the limiting condition.
For the concentric circles, focus first on growing the inner circle of key support. Expand there so as it grows out, it can be sustained.
Sometimes we need to keep outward growth going while also investing on the limiting condition. We can’t slow the outward growth but need to also focus priorities on the limiting condition.
It may be easy to stop there but we should not. There will always be limiting conditions after we remove or remedy one. Be on the lookout for what could be the next limiting condition.
When looking ahead, planning a shift, crafting a career, deciding about the future, we ought to focus more attention on our values instead of our talents.
Talents or gifts are reflective. They look backwards at where we have been. This contextual perspective brings loads of insight but we must ensure to also look ahead.
The rear view mirror on a car is much smaller than the windshield.
Values help us look ahead while also connect with a core of who we are.
Talent/Gift: A unique function or ability we possess or have proven to be successful.
Value: A guiding principle or ideal which we prioritize.
If you are looking ahead, of course consider where you’ve been and what are your talents or gifts but ensure you focus more towards what you value. If we continue to respond to our environment with our talents alone, we are shaped more by our environment than our true selves. Focusing on values brings a proactive approach, helping us shape the environment with ourselves.
Values lead ahead while talents look back.
Brene Brown has a great values clarification process where you take this list of values and cross out words until you’re left with 2-3 of your top values.
Building a practice of mindfulness or journaling can also help you clarify and identify your values while reflecting on the talents you possess.
I love focusing on talents and have found huge value init myself. Strengths or talents or gifts are important to consider. But they only go so far. This StrengthsFinder worksheet can be a great launching point if values feel too daunting.
phil invites 