I love trees
I love trees, always have. As a kid, I would doodle trees and still have some grade school papers with trees on them. (I also drew eyes, but I have no clue what that’s about!).
I fell in love with Suzanne Simard’s “Finding the Mother Tree,” book. I geek out with Peter Wohlleben’s research, videos, and “The Hidden Life of Trees” book. I have gone down ridiculous scientific article wormholes looking at how plant roots compete to find that, under the surface, we may be characterizing accommodation as competition. I have no expertise or scientific background in anything in this territory.
But I have to wonder what we can learn and how it relates to our lives, our world, and our work.
Trees take care of each other and are successful
The New York Times summarized some of Wohlleben’s findings in a paragraph that read, “…trees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network…. and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.”
As a coach, I work in and out of many other peoples’ ecosystems. I think I’m so attracted to the trees because they mirror what we can and could be doing for each other. We still draw artificial lines in what it means to be successful or run successful organizations. We still make deeply unconscious assumptions: money precludes being good to each other, working hard means sacrificing friends or family or adventures by overloading hours if I win, you lose.
Somewhere deep in my DNA, I am an optimist who thinks we can make shit tons of money (a thriving forest) while still “nursing sick neighbors, warning each other of danger, and honoring elders” (ancient stumps).
We are more ignorant than we know
I see my job right now to not pretend I know what’s possible, to stop limiting what I can see by what is in front of me. Most of us, myself included, are still ignorant of the immense scope of things. The fact that we are in the 2000s and only learning what indigenous people knew about trees thousands of years ago is pretty telling.
I get down when I read bad news, particularly global news or a bad actor in business. And, let’s face it, with few exceptions, news cycles prosper on bad news.
Our job is to not know while holding possibilities
But then I think about what I DON’T KNOW, and I get more hopeful. The trees do many sophisticated, sustainable things that I was ignorant about ten years ago. There are countless solutions to problems right in front of us. I believe in us and our ability to solve the apparent challenges we face. We can run businesses that regularly serve employees, contribute to a thriving natural environment while making loads of money, and right some of our systemic wrongs.
So, if you find me hugging a tree. I make no apologies. I’m still learning. We all should be.
