Question

What is the “Garden Metaphor” as it relates to organizational culture?

Answer 1

Once upon a time there was a farmer who had three sons. After his dealth his three sons inherited his land. Though, they had different personalities with different approaches towards their life, however, they used to get along well each other. One day they decided to divide their father's land which they have inherited into three equal shares so that each of them could develop and use it for their own purposes.

The first brother wanted to go with the flow. He decided not to put any effor and just let nature take its course. He was just curious what nature would offer him, what kind of flowers, fruits, vegetables may grow and what kind of animals would live there. Therefore he did not want to do anything nor hire anyone to develop his land. He justed wanted to wair and watch.

The second brother was a business minded person. He decided to plant orange trees as many trees as possible to grow the type of oranges that were so popular and high in demand, but it was only reasonable business. So he had to invest money to buy seeds, hire farmers to develop his land.

The third brother wanted to create a beautiful garden. He created a design that would allow him to enjoy the garden throughout the year. He planted different types of trees of fruits, vegetables, flowers and also the design was aimed to attract beautiful birds and butterfiles during spring, autum, summer and winter. Therefore, he had to invest a lot and also be patient, hence he hired a landscaper, gardner to do all necessary work to develop his dream garden.

We can use the garden metaphor to elaborate on the above mentioned approaches. An organisation could choose the let nature take its course leadership development strategy and just go with the flow. Just by doing one’s work, getting feedback from coworkers, looking at one’s performance and getting involved in changes one can learn a lot. Principles from social psychology such as pecking order and informal leadership will naturally shape leaders and processes like the survival of the fittest will take effect

The rational blue print type of approach might be very effective and efficient but downside can be seen from the oranges business example. What if our popular oranges are not so popular next year? What if another type of oranges or fruit becomes more popular? The results of our produce will still be oranges but they will be less value or even obsolete.

The third option is the designed garden or ecosystem style of leadership development. One should have not a vision but also plan of what the ecosystem should look like in the future.

The gardener type of leadership development ecosystem creates structure, creates connections between people, aligns with strategies, removes obsolete parts, starts conversations, harvests results, nuture people, pushes or pulls relevant stakeholders into position, offers platforms for cooperation and facilitates knowledge sharing to let the ecosystem bloom to its full potential.

Therefore, all three approaches can be effective for organizations for today's world, however, it depending on their specific situation and requirements.