Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM DECEMBER 2015 44 Libby Wagner Culture Coach I n North America, late summer and early autumn are the times we associate with harvesting, especially harvesting crops and the bounty of our farming labors. Even the kitchen gardener will find this a busy time for canning, drying, freezing and sharing an abundance of zucchini or tomatoes or apples with neighbors and friends. We know what harvest means—we get to finally enjoy the results of our work and the mystery of science and growth. Often, in organizational life, our harvests can come at the end of fiscal or calendar years, ends of quarters or even the ends of projects. No matter the timing, the harvest is eventually the still point on which balances everything that came before (the planning, the resources, people, execution, mistakes made, triumphs celebrated) and the future of what comes after (now forever changed by this harvest, this completion). At its core, the harvest is bittersweet, the perfect juxtaposition of the fruits of labor, beginnings and endings. It is the perfect metaphor for organizational life and for conversational leadership. The cultivation of ground, the presence of nutrients, the seeding of ideas, the artistry of practice and consistency, the final celebration of the ending and the enjoyment and celebration of that harvest, that thing that has been completed in its most natural cycle of becoming. And, it is also loss; it is cleaving and leaving, only to realize that you must begin again, at the beginning. There is a deep knowing in harvesting because you have, through the process of growth and cultivation, been learning all along, and this learning is evolutionary and transformative. This harvest will be like no other harvest, and yet, you must learn from this harvest or you will repeat potential mistakes and pitfalls from the past. You can also learn what to do, but the outside world and conditions may challenge what you think you know and what you think you know about resilience. Organizations and teams commonly want to rush to harvest, they become addicted to speed and the marketplace often rewards them for this pattern of behavior. Ridiculous work habits along with diminishment of life outside work are pervasive and challenging for the conversational leader. How will you succeed in the market place if you don't try to rush to harvest? How can you, with great vision and even irreverence, push against the pull to cultivate too soon? Time and again, the other elements of conversational leadership invite us to the iterative process. What are the beautiful questions that arise in the notion of harvest? Where may there be an opening for artistry among my colleagues, which might contribute to a new sort of harvest? How might the harvest require my robust vulnerability? What is your harvest this year? Here are some beautiful questions to bring to your team, company or group to make sure you are honoring all the work that's led you to this place at the end of something unique: 1. What are the most significant things we harvested this year? What gifts do they bear for our present day (team, customers, projects) and for the future? 2. What did not yet come to fruition or died on the vine? 3. Where were we good stewards of the seeds planted? Where could we have been better cultivators? 4. What seeds are important to plant for this next harvest we anticipate in a year's time? DEVELOPING THE ABILITY TO BRING IN THE HARVEST Libby Wagner, author of The Influencing Option: The Art of Building a Profit Culture in Business, works with clients to help them create and sustain Profit Cultures. www.libbywagner.com RO

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