>Why can't the same excitement I experience when I plant a garden and
>watch it grow, exist in a business or in my home?
>Respectfully Stan
Stan, I am not certain this counts but my garden is my workplace. It
adjoins my studio and everyone who works with me, works there too. Over
the door a little banner announces "my secret garden." Each one of us have
a place there. Both the indoor workspace and outdoors can be exciting
especially when a green idea grows into a heady, fragrant wisteria of a
plan. What I have noticed in both places is that as seasons come and go
and that the gardener must pay very close attention to each sprout,
withering vine or annoying aphid. And so it is in my business. I sometimes
miss the very best in others because I am not present or paying enough
attention to see it grow.
Because I am in the garden everyday with contractors or clients, I am
privileged to see how our garden-variety creativity and seedlings appear
the same - dependent on light, air, nutrients and tenderhearted care
before either one will grow. Just as creativity produces ideas (my bias),
some of the seedlings take off right before my eyes. It is at this point
that I think the most profound likeness occurs - each needs others to keep
going. One seedling rarely is resilient enough to go it alone. The same
is true in our work together or so it seems.
My garden is not exciting every day, quite the contrary. It's dirty,
decomposing stuff here and there and lots of hard work. Things I have
steadfastly mentored can die overnight. Thorny problems, complex
infestations and false starts are common. So is show-stopping beauty,
sweetly subtle perfumes and impossible color combinations that only
nature's palette produces. And all of it just waiting for someone to catch
a glimpse of their faithful service. In fact in the garden the fairest and
most productive often give their lives for their project as I pluck them
and bring them indoors. That's where - thank goodness - the similarities
end.
Margret Dugan
Empowerment Evaluation Institute
margretd@earthlink.net
--"margret dugan" <margretd@earthlink.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>