A story of growth

I have been inspired this week after a conversation with one of the Midlothian Accelerator and the first Net Zero Nation 'Meet the Experts' event with Ross Haddow and Andrew Barnes to write this post.

The conversations covered the following:

• the younger workforce and mental health issues
• understanding (or not!) the needs of the younger workforce
• how purpose-driven organisations are underpinned by work being considered 'an essential expression of our humanity and self-worth'
• how the next generation in the workforce can be a source for the necessary innovation on the path to Net Zero

I believe it would be useful to reflect on some of the key points on my journey and how I have grown and developed in the world of work.

I hope that some of the following will be of use, especially as ideas to reflect on when considering these points that were raised in the conversations.

I will start with what my experiences have taught me:

• We want to make a positive and meaningful contribution
• We are innately gifted in specific ways (which most of the time don't fit neatly into a job description)
• We are not taught how to discover or develop those innate gifts
• Our contribution will be greatest when we are best able to express those innate gifts
• Traditional organisational structures and ways of working are not well designed to support this
• We (most of us) want to support others in their growth and to discover and use their innate gifts (despite the above point)
• We enjoy seeing others flourish
• Under these circumstances it is easy to place blame and transfer responsibility elsewhere (employers, government etc)
• The employer-employee power dynamic makes it very easy to blame, feel persecuted and disengage
• The employer's power through firing or ending a contract and removing your financial lifeline makes honest conversation difficult (and biases contractors towards avoiding challenge)
• Money can become more important than meeting your own needs (for work that you naturally enjoy)

How have my experiences taught me this?

I graduated in Computer Science in 1991 and my worklife started here.

(My fascination with computers started with the BBC Micro in the 1980s. It was at this point that it was clear to me and others that I was 'into computers' so my career path was obvious.)

My path was laid out clearly ahead of me. It was a relief because all I actually wanted to do was travel the world which was clearly unrealistic. I kept quiet about the travelling thing and knuckled down to do what you had to do in the 'real world' whilst keeping my dream alive.

I went to career fairs and quickly dismissed Accenture and the like as too ambitious and looked like a lot of hard work (the opportunity for foreign travel got my interest for a while).

I joined a small software house called DataLogic and started my working life.

I would discover as I grew and developed how all of these assumptions and beliefs would utimately prove to be false.

I worked diligently and found myself confused over what it meant to progress.

I wanted to get promoted but it wasn't clear how that happened. I worked hard and thought that would be enough. The path to promotion was opaque and involved building a relationship with key people, not just the quality of your work.

This introduced a degree of cynicism and what is now called disengagement. I didn't believe my company had my best interests at heart and would spend time wondering how things 'really' worked. If I was fully engaged I would have invested all my energies in doing the best work that I could.

I wanted to feel that I was developing. I didn't have any way of measuring progess other than through promotion and I found it ambiguous and not entirely based on merit. I started to get disenchanted.

A couple of years into my career with a bunch of unexpected overtime I found myself flush with cash. Without any thought whatsoever I resigned and planned my backpacking trip through SE Asia, Australia and wherever I wanted to go next.

I was able to do what I really wanted to do not what I thought I should do.

It was amazing! But unfortunately it came to an abrupt end a year later. My glittering career in the world of IT in Australia to fund me embarking into Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and beyond was cut cruelly short. Filing, warehouse work and fruit picking kept me in beer and a short trip to New Zealand but no more.

So I joined another software house where I fully engaged with my being 'into computers'. After another few years I realised that this simply wasn't true. It wasn't a passion and, after years of trying, I wasn't as good at coding as I wanted.

I understood now what I didn't love to do. Maybe it was something I could do but not something I loved.

I was becoming more self aware and honouring my inner nature.

Many people had helped me along the way and many had, no doubt, become frustrated with my lack of ability and lack of ambition in this field. But now I knew why.

I followed the money for another couple of years in another software firm where their approach to coding was like the wild west. It reinforced my dislike of the IT world here as far as coding was concerned.

Money distracted me from honouring my inner nature for a while but it wasn't enough. Having found myself in IT which may well have been wrong for me, I needed to understand what I loved (I was just aiming for what I might like at this stage).

Another short trip to New Zealand, a recognition that I want to solve the business (human) problems inspired me to branch into business analysis which, via a couple of startups, lead to my contracting career, starting in 2000.

My disenchantment with employment meant that I chose a path where I would not be distracted to what was called 'corporate politics' (mostly referring to the need to please the right people in order to 'climb the ladder').

After another 10 years, I found that this path started to feel routine and what I wanted to bring to the workplace (e.g. always asking why and challenging assumptions) was often not wanted. It was at this point that I realised I had been put in a box and the box was a bad fit (they mostly are).

I spent many years worked at building my own business to create a revenue stream which would give me financial freeedom.

I was increasingly aware of what I wanted and what I enjoyed. Income had become important and equated with quality of life, what my family and my relationship 'needed' so my focus was on the money. I thought I could only be free with adequate income.

In the last few years I refocused on what I needed and the desire to 'follow the laws of nature' which opened my eyes to possibilities, a greater self awareness including unhelpful ways of being adopted unconsciously earlier in my life.

I developed and grew into opportunities that honoured my true nature.

I discovered a deeper understanding of what gives me joy and that my initial 'being into computers' was actually a love of having a vision and seeing it come to life (as well as being an adventurer - someone who enjoyed tackling an important challenge where the way forward wasn't clear).

Over time I cofounded a community interest company Earthaconter Community and started my own movement to support others reconnect to nature as a regular practice (#naturebeing) and joined Net Zero Nation .

My creativity was unleashed as I connected more deeply with myself through reconnecting to the non-human natural world. Leaving contracting was an opportunity that emerged, it wasn't part of a plan executed step by step. I learnt how to discover my innate gifts and focus on what I needed, and not focus solely on money.

I take responsibility for my own wellbeing and growth. I don't expect it of my 'employer' but I do speak honestly where necessary, often when I am having difficult feelings. In fact, these are the moments when I recognize it is most important that I speak up, if only to share those feelings to allow the individuals and the organisation as a whole to develop and grow (as opposed to, for example, stagnating).

What questions does this leave you with? Do you have similar stories?

For me there are three very big questions that will always remain important:

How do we learn how to know ourselves better and honour our own nature in the work that we do?

How do we take full responsibility for our own growth and development in our work whilst recognising that the workplace can help or hinder and acting accordingly?

Earthaconter Community runs the TreeJourney programme to give us the tools to start answering these first two questions. It honours the fact that everyone's path is different and learning to trust ourselves is key.

How would your organisation like to support the people who make a contribution in the organisation in search of answers to these questions?

The last question is a leading question. One possible answer might be 'not at all'. There are many other places where this responsibility could lie - it could be with government, education, adult education (that is missing) or perhaps religion. It is noticeable that we leave education and enter adult lives with no further education available to support us to thrive.

That said there are many organisations who are challenging the status quo, not least because of the commercial benefit and the recognition that the way we have always done things isn't working anymore.

What does an organisation require as a foundation when considering the long journey toward Net Zero with the radical changes in business and industry that will need to be considered? And what about Nature Positive which is starting to gain momentum and will follow close behind. Halting and reversing biodiversity loss comes from the same place - to love and respect the natural world. How can we expect to love and respect the natural world if we don't also respect our own human nature?

This will require questions to be asked that are challenging and the safety to hold and explore these. This will require psychological safety which will only come when people believe that they will not be taking a personal risk simply by asking these questions.

In fact, it will come not only when it is safe but when it is expected or has become the norm for people to ask challenging questions.

In future articles I will be sharing (as you would expect from this newsletter!) ways of doing business outside of the mainstream that will help with this.