I am excited to return to this newsletter after welcoming my second child into the world last December and taking some time off for parental leave – thankfully, we are all healthy and embracing the joy (and occasional chaos!) of the moment.
This event, along with the arrival of spring, has brought birth and rebirth to mind. It serves as a reminder of the deep beauty in this phase of life, but also that part of this beauty is due to its impermanence. As much as I’d sometimes like it to, spring does not last forever; it occurs within a cycle of seasons, of creation and destruction, continually evolving.
All of this got me thinking about a lovely tool for organizational development and strategy called Ecocycle Planning, that comes from the facilitation resource, Liberating Structures. The concept of the Ecocycle takes inspiration from nature to represent an infinite evolution between gestation, birth, maturity, and creative destruction.
We plant seeds that bring new life. That growth develops and then ultimately transforms through destruction into an opportunity for renewal of some kind – and so it goes on and on. This framework helps us appreciate how each stage has unique value on its own, but is also a critical part of the greater whole. Where organizations struggle is getting stuck in any one phase. The visual shows a common “scarcity trap” where a promising idea is not given the resources to develop. It also shows a “rigidity trap” where something that has reached maturity and seems to be working well becomes stagnant and resistant to change. I imagine both of these phenomena are familiar to many of you working in organizations.
Looking through the lens of the Ecocycle can help nudge us into the next stage when we get caught up in one. Ecocycle Planning calls on organizations to consider where their programs, initiatives, and practices are in this cycle and to use that as a window into where adaptation can occur. What are the seeds that need tending in order for buds to emerge from the soil? What needs support to grow into its prime? Where are we holding on too tightly to the way things have been and how might creative destruction, the clearing of deadwood, bring about something unexpected and new?
You might choose to do this activity with a team or group you’re part of, placing post-its of your projects on the visual and opening up conversation about strategy and innovation. Perhaps simply reflecting on your work through this perspective offers important insights. This framework may even be helpful in looking at our lives more broadly – the communities we are in, how we spend our time, what we nurture or neglect, what we hang on to for too long.
The key, I think, is not to see change as the enemy. As a creature of habit who finds tremendous comfort in routines, I know this is easier said than done. I also know that routine and change can evolve together; the buds come back again every year, albeit in a slightly different form. I hope that spirit helps you to usher in whatever is calling out for transformation and to appreciate its movement in the cycle, its potential for renewal.