An organisation that was stuck in a rut

One example I share in my book Can't see the wood for the trees is about a suit wearing management team who were walking up a single track country lane surrounded by high, over grown hedges. It was in the middle of the countryside in Southern England, and they were on a vision-setting day discussing the future for their organisation. 

“The problem is, if we’re not careful and we keep doing what we’ve always done, just like this lane we’ll peter out.”

“Yes, we’re stuck in a rut,” someone else replied as they looked down the lane, towards the seeming dead end further along, with grass growing in the middle of it.

As they all nodded their heads someone noticed a small hole in the hedge, and said:

“To get out of this rut we need to do something different – like go through that hole.”

Five minutes later, after they’d all pushed their way through the hedge and dusted themselves down, they stood in the middle of a green expansive field at the top of a small hill, looking at the landscape all around them.

“That’s better – no paths already decided, no direction already plotted, just an open field ready for us to make plans about!”

When the management team got back into the boardroom the vision they identified for the organisation was certainly more innovative and creative than might have been imagined before the walk.

The Landscaping Your Life process works because it helps loosen the binds our current thinking has on the limited and perhaps unhelpful options we believe exist - once these binds are loosened horizons are expanded.

Do get in touch if you, your team or organisation would like to explore opportunities for expanding horizons using the Landscaping Your Life process or other unconventional tools I use for that purpose.

Alison Smith

Using patterns in nature to solve patterns in life