I recently wrapped up a series of Agile Uprising podcast conversations with Gene Gendel on getting beyond agile theater. Along the way, Gene shared one of his favorite phrases:
You can’t grow flowers in a desert.
There’s a lot to unpack in that simple statement, and it’s got me thinking…
Metaphorically Speaking…
Gene’s phrase works for me as a metaphor for organizational change, as it suggests that you can’t create positive change (flowers) in an environment that lacks basic supportive conditions (desert). And humor me as I sidestep, for a moment, the literal interpretation which doesn’t hold up all that well, eg. cacti, succulents, desert wildflowers, and ephemerals.
Maybe you’ve been part of an initiative to “propagate an agile mindset” while leaving intact all the organizational structures that actively fight against agility. (See Organization Debt.) Or perhaps you’ve watched leadership mandate “being more innovative” while maintaining incentive systems that punish experimentation and reward heroics. How’d that garden bloom for ya?!
Anyway, those conversations with Gene got me thinking: what if we looked at organizations as living ecosystems? How far could this metaphor go? HR policies and financial structures as the soil composition, product centricity as the nutrients that flow through the system, and organizational design as the overall climate that determines what can thrive.
Let’s dig in (Pun intended).
The Natural Order of Change
If you’ve ever watched a nature documentary that gave a time-lapse view of a barren field transforming into a forest, you know it doesn’t happen overnight. Nature has a sequence, and she can’t skip steps. Sticking with a forest ecosystem: first come the hardy pioneer species – plants that can survive in harsh conditions and gradually enrich the soil. Only then can more delicate species take root.
Does successful organizational change follow a similar pattern though thankfully faster than forest succession (you probably won’t wait 100 years for results… or maybe that’s part of the problem… short-term thinking!)?
BTW, if the idea of your organization as a forest doesn’t fit… pick another analogy: coral reef, savanna, tide pool, etc. What attracts me to any of these metaphors is how each ecosystem has evolved different solutions to universal challenges like:
- Resource allocation
- Adapting to change
- Building resilience
- Fostering diversity
- Managing energy/growth cycles
- Creating protected spaces
- Developing specialized capabilities
- Maintaining balance
Pioneer Species: Creating Initial Conditions
You’ve no doubt heard about Spotify’s squad model a hundred thousand times (I can hear your eyes rolling from here). But what’s fascinating isn’t the model itself – it’s how Spotify created space for organizational evolution to happen naturally. They understood something fundamental about ecosystems: you can’t force growth, but you can create conditions where growth is inevitable. Everyone wanted to copy their squad structure, but most missed the crucial point: Spotify’s model wasn’t the cause of their agility – it was a result of creating the right conditions for evolution.
As Henrik Kniberg, one of Spotify’s early agile coaches, often points out – they never actually fully implemented “the Spotify model.” Instead, they created protected spaces where new organizational patterns could emerge and evolve. The model people obsess over was just a snapshot of their journey at a particular moment.
Toyota’s transformation offers another example. While everyone was busy copying their kanban boards, Toyota was actually doing something far more fundamental: they were creating an environment where continuous improvement could become part of the organizational DNA. The Toyota Production System wasn’t installed – it emerged from decades of cultivating the right conditions.
Creating Protected Spaces
How does one create conditions for organizational evolution? It starts with the understanding that while we can’t command and control growth directly – we can create environments where growth is not only possible – but highly likely.
In our conversations, Gene shared the concept of “deep and narrow” transformation – creating protected spaces where new patterns can emerge without trying to change everything at once. Think of it like starting a garden in your backyard before trying to re-forest that back forty.
Some practical ways to create these spaces:
- Ring-fence teams from traditional reporting structures
- Establish different funding models for pilot groups
- Create “air cover” for experimentation
- Allow for different working agreements and practices
Yes, this means accepting that different parts of your organization will work differently. That’s not just okay – it’s healthy. (Sorry if you love normalized story points.)
Resource Flows and Cycles
Gene also emphasized another point: “Follow the money.” If you want to know what’s really happening in an organization, look at how resources flow.
Traditional budgeting cycles are completely out of the natural product market rhythms – and a lot like droughts and floods – they create feast-or-famine conditions that make it impossible for stable, healthy practices to take root. (Ever been part of that end-of-year spending spree to “use it or lose it”? Yeah, me too.)
Just as natural ecosystems develop more sophisticated nutrient cycles over time, organizations can evolve better ways of managing resource flows. In our second episode, Gene shared how some organizations are moving beyond traditional project-based funding to product-based funding models that create more sustainable resource cycles. It’s a great start.
Unfortunately, far too many organizations’ budgeting processes are entrenched in outdated thinking. As Bjarte Bogsnes shared in his book This Is Beyond Budgeting :
Most corporate planning is like a ritual rain dance. It has no effect on the weather, but those who engage in it think it does. Much of the advice and instruction is directed at improving the dancing, not the weather. – Russell Ackoff
There are better ways… if we let go of “organization as machine” thinking… Learn more about Beyond Budgeting principles and practices at https://bbrt.org/
Fostering Diversity
Remember those monoculture farms we learned about in school (was it Econ or Bio?) They’re efficient in the short term but incredibly fragile. One pest, one disease, and the whole system collapses. (If you’ve ever been part of a “standardized Agile transformation,” you might be having flashbacks right about now.)
Healthy ecosystems, on the other hand, thrive on diversity. Each species plays its role, and the interactions between different species create resilience. W.L. Gore (you know, the Gore-Tex folks) figured this out decades ago with their lattice organization. Instead of trying to make every team work the same way, they created conditions that allowed different organizational patterns to emerge based on the work being done.
Getting Started
What would change if you started thinking of your organization as an ecosystem rather than a machine? What if instead of trying to “drive adoption” or “push transformation,” you focused on creating conditions where healthy practices could naturally emerge and thrive? This means things like:
- Removing policies that constrain natural collaboration
- Adjusting incentive systems to support desired behaviors
- Creating feedback loops that support learning
- Allowing time for new patterns to emerge and stabilize
Measuring What Matters
“How do we measure success?” is usually one of the first questions executives ask when we talk about organizational transformation. Fair enough – but imagine if we measured a forest’s health solely by counting trees? We’d miss all the other indicators of a thriving ecosystem.
Leading Indicators
In the first episode of our Beyond Agile Theatre series, Gene made a point about leading indicators – they’re often the things we can’t easily put on a dashboard with RAG (Red/Amber/Green) indicators. But there are signals available. Just as a forest ecologist looks for signs like the return of certain bird species or the presence of new seedlings, we need to look for markers like:
- The types of conversations happening in meetings
- How teams respond to unexpected challenges
- Whether people feel safe enough to experiment
- The flow of ideas across organizational boundaries
These indicators are a new kind of data – what Nora Bateson calls “Warm Data” Unlike traditional “cold” metrics that measure isolated variables, Warm Data helps us understand the rich web of relationships and interdependencies in complex systems. It’s about seeing the patterns between the patterns – like how a forest ecologist considers not just individual species counts, but how those species interact with each other and their environment. This Spring I’ll be exploring how this lens might offer new insights into organizational health. More to follow.
Counting Leaves?
During our second episode, Gene and I explored how many organizations get stuck measuring what’s easy instead of what matters. Far too many metrics that came along with “organization as machine” thinking can be harmful, setting up perverse incentives. They create destructive patterns for the longer term. Why are we still arguing about velocity or story points (the organizational equivalent of counting leaves) while missing signs of systemic health or dysfunction?
Not all traditional metrics are useless – they’re just incomplete. Think of them like tree height measurements: they tell you something about past growth but little about current health or future potential. For a more in-depth exploration of metrics, see Reading the Ripples: A Systems View of Change and Agile Metrics: Measure Many Things
Looking Forward
The most profound realization from exploring this ecosystem perspective isn’t about specific practices or frameworks – it’s about timescales and patience. We keep trying to transform organizations on quarterly schedules, but real transformation works on a very different timeline.
What if we thought about organizational design the way we think about climate rather than weather? What if instead of asking “How do we hit our transformation targets this quarter?” we asked, “What kind of organization do we want our grandchildren to inherit?”
The irony is that when we slow down and work with natural organizational patterns instead of against them, meaningful change often happens faster. It’s like the difference between trying to force a plant to grow by pulling on it (good luck with that) versus creating the right conditions and letting nature do its thing.
Organizations aren’t machines to be optimized or gardens to be controlled – they’re ecosystems to be nurtured. The question isn’t “How do we make transformation happen?” but rather “How do we create conditions where healthy practices naturally emerge and thrive?”
Thanks to Gene Gendel for the conversations that sparked these reflections. They’ve taken root and are growing into something larger. (See what I did there?!)
I’d love to hear your thoughts, as mine are still forming. Maybe I’m making sense. Or maybe not, yet….
Are there any organizational ecosystem metaphor that resonates for you? How are you balancing the need for immediate results with the patience required for sustainable growth? And if you feel like you’re in a desert, take heart from the many wildflowers that have found ways to adapt through deep taproots, quick germination cycles, and drought-dormancy capabilities.
