When working in your garden – vegetable or flower – adding fertilizer to your plants you can achieve quick growth and health. However, next month you’ll likely need to do the same. And the month after that. And the month after that. However, if you create healthy soil, feeding the plants will not be required as the soil will provide all that is needed. Depending on the soil you are starting with, this could be a longer and slower process to begin with. However, once the soil is healthy, the plant growth will be brilliant.

In all forms of change projects there are fertilizer and soil routes. The quick fix fertilizer route is always appealing – it shows results almost immediately. The challenge is that the continual use of fertilizer kills the soil over time. Therefore you become reliant on fertilizer and a slave to the suppliers. The soil route takes longer, feels more complex, but benefits are long lasting and much more within your control.

In your change project, can you identify the fertilizer and soil routes? Fertilizer feeds the plants, not the soil. What is the soil in your project? Organisational culture or something else?

What would it take to create healthy soil again?

Photo by Roman Synkevych