Partnership is an emergent philosophy of leadership, which understands that the best outcomes for any endeavour are the ones that benefit everyone involved. This is based in the synergetic alignment between the multitude of interdependent roles, requiring group cultures to understand how to include and engage their members’ diverse perspectives, priorities, and strengths, in a robust and effective manner.

Many of the cultural systems we have evolved in the West are not rooted in Partnership, but instead have grown from a worldview that creates winners and losers, that enables the fruits of success to be hoarded by the few at the expense of the many, and that inherently resists and fears difference. This worldview is called Dominance. We believe that, in order to truly meet the challenges of our changing world and to become more successful in our group initiatives, we must consciously un-learn Dominance-based patterning and integrate the skillset for Partnership instead.

In today’s world, the need to respond to complex social, economic and environmental challenges is bringing people together across lines of difference, and calling for new ways to organise and act together in service of our local communities and the world. The need for practical and versatile skillsets for collaboration – with our friends, families, colleagues, and communities – is greater than ever. However, cultural expectations are developed and carried beneath our conscious awareness and are often more “felt” than “known.”

Culture Garden helps groups to learn the skills and practices required to understand and engage with this hidden landscape: to identify the dynamics, needs, and issues at play in their cultural field; to compassionately release patterns that no longer serve their wellbeing; and, to become active participants in co-creating healthy group cultures that express their values and empower their work in the world.

Simultaneously, we support groups to plan and enact the structural and systemic changes over time which allow their healthy group cultures to flourish. This is a multi-dimensional process which can include governance and decision making systems, strength-based mapping of organisational assets and needs, action planning, and personal development planning and role review processes to name a few structural supports. A healthy culture functions best when it is in a reciprocal and harmonious relationship with these more formal group processes.

We call this practice Culture Gardening.

connection

Connection is like an invisible root system, which links each individuals’ inner journey of self-actualisation with the interactions and activities of the whole. Practicing connection invokes the powerful synergy of mutual benefit. We’ve seen the ways that this synergy is an invaluable source of energy, inspiration, and guidance for any group.

collaboration

Collaboration is about sharing intelligence, effort, and leadership. This doesn’t mean that every decision or action must be taken collectively; rather, it means we believe that every member of a group has valuable input which can be engaged in different ways in different contexts. We believe that groups are more alive and make better decisions when they use flexible, collaborative systems which draw from the intelligence of the whole.

creativity

Creativity is the process of tapping into the vast field of possibility that exists within and around us. By attending to activities that nurture creativity - such as nature connection, dance, art, and play - a group feeds its collective sense of inspiration and keeps its hearts and minds open to new opportunities that want to emerge.