Are businesses ecosystems? 

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I use this image to encourage people to think about the richness of metaphor, and how their ‘transformation’ work engages with the messy reality of organisation. Are they dredging out the stream and building a concrete gunnel? Maintaining the bridge? Seeding trout in the stream?

In a recent episode of The Seen And The Unseen with Amit Varma, Santosh Desai asked ‘why do we put creases in our trousers?’ 

His answer: a straight line is a sign of civilisation. A straight line that I am not allowing circumstances to impose on me but rather I impose myself on them.

This is right, of course – ‘there are no straight lines in nature’ is a bit overstated, but for us to do things productively, we have to make intentional choices to impose ourselves on the world. To eke out a productive space, to create something which can temporarily hold back the forces of entropy, decay, and regeneration. 

But of course, the more harshly and strongly we demarcate the world, the more these things happen:

– The more energy we need to sustain the difference between our walled allotment and the wilds outside. Seeds, critters, and other liquid and airy things will blow in however hard we fight them.

– The more we keep the world outside, the more we need to look out for our little space recreating the patterns of the world – snakes! Snakes in the garden!

And the more we remain different from the outside world, the more breakdowns there are likely to be in the system – in the people themselves.

So we can and do build beautiful machines out of nature, and we’re very good at managing the buffer zones. But how much do we want our businesses to be like that?

There are, of course, alternatives. Wild-cropping – learning how to benefit from the fruits of nature in the flow of nature. Permaculture – appreciating those flows of energy and building staged, permeable barriers that allow just enough regulation, mostly assisted by nature. Rewilding. Wolves and bison.

What kind of a business makes you sing?

– Rows of greenhouses and polytunnels – humanity’s triumph over nature, our success in control?

– A rundown garden of a family-run business?

– Humble herders following their sheep around the hills?