Close your eyes and recall a moment when you felt energized – not just hyped up because of your third cup of coffee. I am talking about a deep energy. Remember a moment when you felt alive and like you had purpose. Close your eyes and let your mind and body recall a moment you felt you were thriving.
My bet is that you did not recall lying on a beach sipping a Mai Tai. I am nearly certain that what came to mind was not watching a college football game from the couch. What I am nearly certain of is that it was a moment when you felt like you were contributing. I imagine it was a moment when you felt confident in your strengths. I imagine it was a moment when you felt connected to others.
Want more of those moments? These seemingly fleeting moments are the focus of this Navalent Quarterly. We want to discuss how we can be leaders who thrive and how organizations can create a context in which more thriving can happen.
The word thrive has its roots in botany and is defined as “vigorous growth.” Who doesn’t want vigorous growth for themselves or their organization? Wanting it and encouraging it, however, are two different things. As acclaimed scientist and chef Daniel Barber describes, “To grow nature is to encourage more of it. That’s not easy to do. More nature means less control. Less control requires a certain kind of faith…The best farmers are observers. They listen. They don’t exert their control.”
Learning how to encourage growth in an organization is more important than ever in our workplaces. Statistics show that many people are quitting and leaving (giving up on the promise of organizational life and going into self-employment) or they are quitting and staying (studies say that 70% of the workforce is disengaged). Either way, it is a failure of the promise of organizations to steward people’s experience of employment and to help them thrive.
On this blog in the following weeks we will ask ourselves how specific elements of organizational life – management, organizational structure, talent development, networking – can create the context that encourages thriving. We will share what we believe are the four inseparable requirements of a thriving organization. And through these posts we hope that we can all learn how to be “organizational farmers” who listen, respond, and design opportunities for vigorous growth.