Why Don’t We Use Some Gardening Strategies To Build Our Plans
This is an excerpt from the Introduction of my book THE NATURAL STRATEGIST: Cultivating a Mindset of Care and Connection.
It all started when Matt asked me what was going on. He pointed to all the scratches on my forearms.
“I did some work between my roses last weekend,” I said. I looked away, trying to change the subject. “Can we see some pictures?” Helen asked. Her voice was lighthearted with a hint of intrigue. I pulled out my phone and searched for some pictures of my garden. I quickly found one of Crown Princess Margareta, an elegant and impressive rosebush climbing to our balcony, covered in peach-orange blossoms.
For all to see, I projected my phone onto our conference room screen. I continued with the roses. We followed the small rose bushes as they moved along the white border with dark red bricks on top. The roses showed off their white, yellow, and apricot buds and blooms, interspersed with lavender-blue catmint and the occasional bright blue heads of “Kew Blue” bluebeards on stems with silvery leaves.
Huge yellow trumpet-shaped flowers swayed in the breeze on the branches of the namesake Angel’s trumpet tree. They reached over and over, as impressive as the huge white flower heads of the “Annabelle” hydrangea, almost as big as my head. We could not smell the fragrant scent the Angel’s trumpets sent throughout the garden, but we could see the garden changing and transforming throughout the year.
The white rhododendrons, next to the magnolias with their seductive allure in the early part of the year, competed for attention with the fireworks of white created by the azaleas. They pass their flowering duties to the hydrangeas, also all white, which carry the garden through the summer in tandem with the brilliant white hibiscus and their dark red splashes, which are the last to bloom.
As the year draws to a close, the red Yuletide camellias and the yellow of the lemon tree bring color through the cooler months, and the winter-flowering camellias continue into spring.
“What a rhythm. What a flow!” Helen said. “I bet you had no super detailed operating plan to create this. It can only be the work of an architect and what he does. Everything just works together. Everything flows beautifully. Everything just fits.”
Why don’t we use some of your gardening strategies to build our plans?
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I used to think leadership was all about driving growth. But I have come to learn that growth happens naturally when we take a step back and create the right context and conditions for thriving. We can activate strategy the natural way and create an inspired future for ourselves and those around us.
If you enjoyed reading this short excerpt, you can get my book at your favorite bookstore.
