I was sweating away on the cross trainer at the gym on Sunday morning next to Juliette. Juliette and I go back a long way. She taught with my dad. She taught my brother and sister English. Her daughter went out with my brother. She once interviewed me for a job. And she trains religiously in the gym almost every day. “I’m just back from a great conference about flourishing” I say, whilst struggling for breath. “Fascinating” she responds. “You know that comes from the Latin word which is the root of the words flora and flower.” I did not.
Despite having “Everyone Flourishes” as our Trust vision and having literally just returned from an excellent two-day event on the subject, with speakers from the Church of England, Harvard University and various other esteemed institutions, I had missed a rather fundamental point.
What I hadn’t missed was the detailed way in which the industrial process was described and decried. The factory processes adopted during the Industrial Revolution emphasised efficiency and consistency. Designed to ensure maximum production and minimum cost, the system meant that bosses treated people as part of a process.
Contrast this, says Professor Matt T. Lee from the Harvard Flourishing Program, with an emphasis on people’s wellbeing and happiness. Think about the Positive Psychology movement spearheaded by Dr Martin Seligman that highlights Positive Emotions, Engagement, Positive Relationships, Meaning and Achievements. Consider Andy Wolfe, Executive Director of the National Society for Education, who says that, “‘Where there are few flourishing adults, there will be few flourishing children.”
By taking this rather radically different approach, you end up with a model of leading an organisation that prioritises tending and cultivating people rather than treating them as cogs in the machine. Dare I say, we end up, and therefore start by, loving them.
This focus on cultivation reminds us that culture is at the heart of everything. Those words have the same root. And I have said many times, that every organisation has a culture whether they like it or not, so we had better ensure that ours is a good one.
The organisations that we lead are our gardens to be dutifully but beautifully looked after. We are stewards of them. They are not ours to squeeze the most out of as we would a lemon or a tube of toothpaste. Setting and sustaining a culture where people can flourish is therefore a prerequisite because the only alternative is that you set a different culture and that may well be one in which people flounder, are poisoned or are alone.
As our people are our greatest resource, we would do well to remember that they need care, love and attention rather than constant pressure, objectives and domination. As a Trust we are working hard and consulting widely to try and work out what flourishing means in our context and how we can till and toil our soil to bring nourishment. Thanks to the Flourishing Trusts Network for offering a space in which to work this through and to Juliet for slowing down to remind to me smell the roses.
