We are excited to announce the release of our latest BCorp Annual Report!
At Wise Goose, our dedication to social and environmental impact is at the core of everything we do. This report showcases our journey, achievements, some things that didn’t go according to plan and the steps we’ve taken over the past year to make a positive difference through coaching.
Key Highlights:
Impact and Successes: Discover what we’ve done and what we are celebrating
Setbacks: What we said we’d do in the last report and not done (and why)
Sustainability Initiatives: Learn about our ongoing efforts to promote sustainability and reduce our environmental footprint.
Fostering Conscious Leadership: Read inspiring stories of how we are nurturing conscious leaders andwho are equipped to navigate complex challenges through coaching.
Vision for the Future: What next and where we want to improve
We believe in the power of business to drive positive change, and our BCorp certification is one way of being held to account and showing our commitment. By measuring our social and environmental impact, we aim to be part of creating a future where everyone can thrive.
We invite you to read the full report and join us in celebrating our progress. Your feedback and thoughts are invaluable to us, so please share your comments below.
Wise Goose Founder and Director Helen Sieroda shares some thoughts about the importance of ethical marketing for coaches, touches on marketing snares and snags and offers a some suggestions for marketing with integrity.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been preparing for our 2025 BCorp recertification, this happens every three year. It’s a rigorous process and treading water for three years isn’t an option. We need to demonstrate a journey of continuous improvement.
There are some areas where we are already doing better, and places where we need to improve. Going through our impact assessment I realised that Wise Goose didn’t have a written marketing policy. We are small, and maybe we don’t need a policy, but it started me thinking about the importance of aligning marketing strategies with our core values and mission.
We do our best to live our values through the way we do business and talk about our work, but I’ve not really thought about this as marketing. This is probably because I’m definitely not a marketing expert. In fact, I’m ambivalent about a lot of the ‘hype’ that gets generated in marketing .
I may not be a marketing guru, but I do want to build a business that’s sustainable and makes a profit. For me, learning to be okay with marketing is about embracing being a business owner, and building effective systems that can create real lasting success. So what’s been my problem?
Someone who helped me to understand my ambivalence was Mats Alvesson. In his book The Triumph of Emptiness, he demystifies popular, upbeat claims about branding in higher education, organisational change, professionalisation, leadership and coaching. He argues that a culture of grandiosity is leading to numerous inflated claims as organisations focus excessively on image, brand, visibility at the expense of substance and genuine value.
Inflated claims that over-promise and under-deliver can easily sneak into the marketing of coaching and coach training. With this in mind, ethical marketing is not just a strategy—it’s a commitment to authenticity, transparency, and genuine engagement, ideally to serve worthwhile purposes., or as Simon Western for the Eco Leadership Institute puts it Coaching to act in ‘good faith’ to create the ‘good society’. This can apply to pretty much any coach, whatever their niche, so I hope the following suggestions will resonate whether you are a life coach, executive coach, career, wellness, relationship or any other kind of coach.
Transparent Practices
Transparency is crucial in building trust. Focus on providing honest and accurate information that helps potential clients make informed decisions. Be clear about your coaching methods, pricing, and what clients can expect from your services. When I designed the Wise Goose website ‘experts’ told me to leave out the ‘fees and dates’ page. I was determined to make it easy for potential students to have the information they needed to compare us with other training providers and make a confident and clear choice about their next steps.
Genuine Engagement
At the heart of ethical marketing is genuine relationship and engagement. This means interacting with all stakeholders (not just potential clients) in a way that is sincere and meaningful. Rather than viewing potential clients as mere leads, or ‘prospects’ see them as individuals with unique needs, challenges and aspirations. Encourage thoughtful conversations, give personalised responses, and show genuine interest in their hopes and dreams and aspirations. This is what coaching is all about, so hardly needs saying! But sometimes, even though it seems obvious it’s challenging; for example if I really want more clients, the focus easily shifts from what’s best for them to my needs. I might feel under pressure to try hard to sell my services and ‘convert’ them rather than focus on where they want to go and if and how I might help them get there. If I think a client would be better served by another coach, or another training programme I say so and refer to someone who could be a better ‘fit’. But sometimes, turning away business feels like losing out- and that’s hard.
Building a Community
Hiding your light under a bushel, and waiting for the world to come knocking on your door won’t work and is one of the biggest pitfalls new coaches fall into. You need to let the world know what you do! Aim to build genuine relationships and to connect with other coaches and professionals not just potential clients. Attend workshops, and webinars, go to training sessions, read books then go and talk to friends and colleagues about them. After meeting someone you have a connection to, follow up with a personalised message to show are genuinely interested in staying connected. Partner with other coaches, therapists, or consultants to offer joint programs or workshops. Collaboration can expand your reach and introduce you to new audiences. Wise Goose has thrived through collaboration, not all have been successful, but all have been worth exploring. The word-of-mouth referrals that come our way through our community are incredibly powerful, it’s the foundation our business is built on.
The Power of Storytelling
Share stories that highlight your values, experiences, approach and the impact of your coaching (with permission and respecting confidentiality.) Testimonials are a powerful way of illustrating how your coaching has helped clients achieve their goals. They can demonstrate the tangible benefits of your services. Rather than trying to explain what coaching is in theory, find ways to show how you are offering a clear path forwards that can lead to real, positive change and results. It’s totally possible to do this while being honest and avoiding the temptation of creating a glossy front on your work.
Education and Expertise
Share your interests and knowledge through blogs, videos, articles, webinars, podcasts and workshops. Write or speak, depending on your strengths and preferences. Provide educational content that helps your audience understand how you can address their specific needs. It’s a place to share your approach, and focus on how your coaching process works and can help them get from where they are to where they want to be. This not only positions you as an ‘expert’ but builds trust, allowing you to interact with potential clients and other professionals in a meaningful way.
I know social media can be a powerful tool for ethical marketing but it’s not my favourite place and I don’t engage enough. So on this topic I encourage you to “do as I say not as I do” – use it to share valuable content, engage with your audience, and build your brand presence. Focus on creating content that educates, inspires, and adds value. Join relevant groups and participate in discussions – be generous – comment on others’ posts and engage with your community regularly.
Social and Environmental Responsibility
Incorporating social and environmental responsibility into your marketing strategy reflects a commitment to broader values. Highlight your efforts to support sustainable practices, contribute to social causes, and promote ethical behaviour. This a big part of our brand at Wise Goose, it resonates with clients who share similar values. Over the years I’ve learned that though it might put some people off, in the end it means we get to work with the people who are a good ‘fit’ with our approach and values – and that is a real joy!
In a nutshell, gaining attention, generating a buzz, showcasing your services and values, and creating traffic that can significantly boost the growth of your business is a primary purpose of marketing.
This begs the question – when you have a business that’s growing how much growth is enough? Just like any industry coaching can play into the myth of endless growth, feeding consumerism with life denying, planet depleting consequences. What kind of growth is good growth? What purposes does all that coaching serve? What if growth is not the only story? What is a good life – for us as coaches or for our clients?
Coaching can be part of the problem or part of the solution.
As coaches we have a powerful frameworks, structures, tools and techniques to help clients work towards their goals. We can do this while helping them explore new ways to be in the world, find new stories to tell about what matters, and consider the differences between surface wants, and deeper needs., We can help a client focus on transactional goals to achieve immediate tasks, and at the same time hold wider transformational goals to drive long-term growth and development. This isn’t about preaching or telling our clients what they should want, or how they should be. It’s about holding the bigger picture, inviting exploration, so they can discover what’s important, choose where they want to go and how to get there.
I want to finish with ‘worthwhile purposes’ I mentioned earlier. Over ten years ago on a Dartmoor walk, Jonathan Wise shared his story of waking up to the negative impact of his work in advertising, how he quit in the middle of a recession, and his journey towards getting people in the industry to ask tough questions about purpose. Marketing and advertising aren’t the same thing, but they are close cousins. This video from Jonathan and his associates at ‘Purpose Disruptors’ is aimed at the advertising industry, but there’s a lot here that’s relevant to our work as coaches, especially the exploration of ‘The Good Life 2030.’
We are delighted to share Wise Goose graduate, Julia Forster’s coaching story. Julia coaches emergent and established writers and offers writer retreats in the Writers’ Cabin. Here at wise Goose we don’t believe ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to coaching, and definitely don’t want our programme to be a ‘coach sausage machine’! So during our training we encourage students to find their own coaching voice and niche – Julia has done exactly that.
After spending twenty-five years working in writer development and publishing alongside my professional creative practice, becoming a fully qualified coach now seems like an obvious and natural progression. However, it wasn’t until the first lockdown in 2020 that I was able to articulate that goal to myself – and it took sitting still for me to tap into the bigger vision.
During that first, long lockdown, I took part in a week-long ‘Work that Reconnects’ virtual retreat informed by Joanna Macy’s work. I was able to tune into the very particular frequency of the square mile I live in, just outside Machynlleth, mid-Wales.
As part of the retreat, we were encouraged to meditate at a sit-spot and reflect on how our skills might meet the world’s deep hunger. I chose to meditate by the river Crewi which trickles along the bottom of the valley, and it was there that I struck upon the idea of training as a coach and specialising in working with authors.
After the retreat, I signed up to a virtual ‘Introduction to Coaching’ course offered by Cult Cymru. During that course, I realised just how pertinent and powerful the modality of coaching could be within the field of writer development.
As a young writer and graduate of both Undergraduate and Masters programmes in Creative Writing, we were taught about craft and technique, but it was rare for students to discuss the habitual challenges jobbing writers face: writers’ block, procrastination, the inner critic, imposter phenomenon…
After just six practice hours of coaching, I could already see how apt an intervention coaching was for authors facing these challenges, and many more besides.
My next step was to take a qualification in the Analytic-Network Systems approach run by Dr Simon Western. I completed that course fired up with a desire to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and to lay a firm groundwork within my portfolio of coaching skills.
Attending several introductory sessions for coaching schools, it was the Wise Goose School which stood out, not least because Helen Sieroda, who directs the programme, had given up her Saturday morning to run the session herself.
Additionally, I’d always wanted to visit Findhorn, a community not unlike the Centre for Alternative Technology which was one of the reasons I’d chosen to move to Machynlleth. Findhorn was where our Foundations course was to be held – but sadly another national lockdown intervened. Despite that, the fact that Wise Goose used it as a venue signposted to me their organisational values, which I felt were closely aligned with my own.
The gestation and articulation of my new outfit Write Within during the Wise Goose programme was an iterative process which ran parallel to my training. As a creative writer, reflective practice wasn’t a foreign concept to me, and bringing this into the realms of business development – a creative act in itself – helped me to overcome various blocks and challenges along the way.
I wanted the concept of Write Within to encapsulate all of my passions within writer development. This meant an offering that wasn’t necessarily going to fit into a conventional idea of a coaching programme. I wanted to bring a unique blend, something Helen actively encouraged us to reflect on and to discover for ourselves. I also resisted the idea of becoming ‘too slick’, and instead preferred to stay as authentic as possible.
Getting to know the coaches Jackee Holder and Fi Parashar, author of A Beautiful Way to Coach, at a weekly women’s co-writing group they co-facilitate inspired me to strike out with something a little bit different. I also took my lead from the Chuckling Goat entrepreneur Shann Nix Jones who offered a fantastic 13-week online course to accompany her book How to Start a Business from Your Business Table which I read and followed assiduously.
As I burrowed deeper into my particular field and developed my coaching business, I realised I wanted Write Within to:
Offer author coaching packages which replicated the soulful approach of Wise Goose
Share in the abundance of the Dyfi Biosphere we are lucky enough to call home by building a physical retreat space where guests could write their works-in-progress in peace
Give back by creating an annual writer’s residency for a writer of minoritized identity
Meanwhile, the woodland opposite our plot of land was ear-marked for felling due to the spread of the phytophthora disease which was threatening larch trees across the country.
To build the Writers’ Cabin, we put our names down for several tonnes and processed the wood on-site into planks which formed the bulk of the construction of the Writers’ Cabin and spa-inspired shower room and sauna.
I started to dream into what kind of space might unlock and foster creativity, and how the conditions inside could support a writer on retreat. I didn’t need to turn far.
In nearby Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire, the Poetry Pharmacy sold not only items for me to accessorize the Writers’ Cabin with but also, very generously, they offered a space in which I ran two six-month and low-cost Coaching Clinics for Creatives. I completed 18 hours of my portfolio coaching practice within the Pharmacy – which now boasts an outpost on Oxford Street, London, in the flagship Lush cosmetics store.
The support of my Learning Group continues beyond achieving the Advanced Coaching Diploma – the four of us still meet monthly and I suspect we are likely to meet for many months to come. I couldn’t have achieved my goal without the support of Annette, Alan and Vicki. We held each other gently accountable and cheered one another one throughout our journey with Wise Goose. We’ve taken flight together.
About:
Julia Forster coaches emergent and established writers of any genre who have a committed writing practice and offers writer retreats in the Writers’ Cabin. Potential clients can book a free 30-minute initial conversation to discuss their author coaching needs via this page: https://writewithin.wales/coaching/
As this International Women’s Day comes around, I’ve been casting my mind back to women who have been my teachers over the years, right back to Mrs MacLean in Primary school who gave the shy, sickly little girl I was in those days space to shine.
In my early 20s I met Miss Rose Li, an elderly Chinese woman and Martial Arts master who I trained with for a over a decade. I’d get up at 5am to practice TaiChi and HsingI before catching the train to London – then I’d get home in the evening and practice again – oh for the energy of youth!
Miss Li is the girl on the right in the front row, flanked by her WuShu family. Miss Li taught me Mandarin too, on the commute I’d listen to language tapes, I’ve forgotten pretty much all of my Chinese but I still have the Beijing accent I picked up from her. Sadly I drifted away after I’d been through some big life changes and we lost touch. A generous and humble teacher, she was instrumental in bringing Internal Martial Arts to the West, at the time I didn’t realise how famous and revered she was! I wish I’d kept up the TaiChi, but I didn’t. I’ve recently taken it up again, and I have to admit it’s hard to be faced with all the skill I abandoned. I never let go of my love of Daoism which still influences my worldview today.
Diana and Judith
Judith Firman and Diana Whitmore were my Psychosynthesis trainers back in the 1980s . I’m no longer in touch with Judith, but forty years on I still work with Diana. We’ve been on quite a journey together and feel blessed to count her a friend as well as a wise and trusted colleague. Her dedication and her work with young people is an inspiration..
I first met the amazing Joanna Macy in 1987. She introduced me to Gaia Theory, Deep Ecology, Buddhism and a systemic approach; all of which continue to flow through the my work today. I trained with her, and was part of a facilitation team working alongside her at the Findhorn Foundation back in the early 1990s. After a few years my work went in a different direction, but our paths would cross from time to time, at workshops, conferences and other events; meeting her was always a joy. She’s in her 90s now, and as inspiring as ever!
Then there’s Margo Russell. I joined Margo when she founded Psykosynthes Akademin in Sweden in 1989. She was an outstanding, inspiring trainer and a beautiful human being. Margo took me under her wing, mentoring, encouraging and challenging me. I wouldn’t be doing the work I do today without her. We worked alongside each other until her death in 2001. She was only 62. I still miss her humour, fiery intelligence, friendship and irrepressible, irreplaceable spirit. The Swedish Akademin was my core work for 25 years, an enriching part of my life that happened because of Margo.
Last but not least, Sue Farebrother, my oldest friend. Over the years we navigated births, and deaths, marriage and divorce, we saw the best of each other, and probably worst of each other too. She wasn’t a ‘teacher’ as such, but we never stopped learning together. Almost fifty years worth of friendship – such a gift. Sue died in 2022.
Having started this account I realise just how many women friends colleagues have inspired and supported me over the years. Too many to mention, but I will mention two; Sybille Schiffmann chair of Wise Goose who has just gained her PhD (she deserves a medal for putting up with my bad jokes about every meeting with her being a doctor’s appointment now.) The other is Josie Sutcliffe who, every International Women’s day hosts Occupy the Airwaves – a marathon 16 hours of live broadcasting from 8am until midnight on Phonic FM, Exeter’s community radio station. Josie definitely deserves a cheer for the amazing job she does.
The list could go on and on. Basically I wouldn’t be where I am, or who I am today without the generosity of a whole host of women and the gifts and love they have given to me. So, for this years International Women’s Day I want to celebrate the contributions of all the women I know and have known – you inspire me in so many ways as you work to forge a better world, and you have definitely made my world a better place.
Who are your women teachers past and present? I encourage you to join me in taking a few moments to celebrate them today.
Wise Thinking Partners is a hub and leadership development programme focussing on furthering the Inner Development Goals (IDGs).
Back in May, I visited Stockholm to launch a book and to reconnect with old colleagues and students. While there I was invited to co-lead a workshop on the potential of the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) to bridge the expertise of a community of psychosynthesis practitioners with the worlds of sustainability, business and leadership. The workshop title was ‘Doors to Be Opened’.
The buzz in the room that morning was great. The deep interest of this gathering of consultants, businesspeople, creatives, coaches and psychotherapists both energising and inspiring. By the time I got home I’d decided to see if anyone in our UK Wise Goose community wanted to explore ‘opening doors’ here by setting up an IDG hub. Since then, behind the scenes we have been busy co-creating Wise Thinking Partners – you can meet the team here.
We are excited by the potential of the IDGs to contribute to purpose led, sustainable communities and organisations. The goals help us do this by putting the inner dimension on the map, providing an accessible language and framework for the transformative skills and qualities needed to develop our inner capacity to deal with today’s increasingly complex environments and challenges. Find out more and follow us on linkedin.
Why do we need Inner Development goals – and how do they fit with the Sustainable Development Goals?
Worldwide we have known about sustainability challenges for decades, the Sustainable Development Goals or ‘Global Goals’ give a blueprint and shared vision and for peace and prosperity for people and the planet. But despite our knowledge not enough is being done to address pressing issues. The IDG initiative is a response to the lack of progress, it maintains that part of the reason for this failure of progress is that most of us, especially leaders, need to be, think, relate, collaborate, and act differently.
The European Parliament recognise this and have recommended the Inner Development Goals as an important framework to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.
How does this fit with Wise Goose?
Wise Goose was hatched over a decade ago out of the belief that we as individuals can influence a lot, and that coaching can have a role in supporting people in developing the self-awareness, communication skills, capacity for complex thinking and leadership that’s essential if we are to contribute to the larger systemic changes. The IDG framework fits seamlessly with the coaching and training we have delivered from the start. We believe we have experience and expertise to contribute to the IDG initiative, as well as a lot to learn together with those who join us in our hub.
And finally, ‘Wise Thinking Partners’ is another way of showing our commitment to ‘walking the talk’ as a BCorp, where our certification is underpinned by the Sustainable Development Goals.
So, what will our ‘Wise Thinking Partners’ IDG hub do? We aim to:
Bring people together around collective exploration and action.
Learn, innovate, prototype, practice and share application of tools.
Create local events, action days or programs to support further activities within the Hub.
Ally with partner organisations to help fund local and/or global development of IDG.
Share stories, recordings of lectures, event designs and presentations with local and global communities.
Next Steps…..
5th December – save the date!
The launch of our hub coincides with COP28 climate summit. Come along to explore and play. We invite the curious to a place free from expectations. A space to share your wise thinking and learn together how to make business, organisations and communities stronger for a better planet. Register here
I’m delighted to share this post by Pam Billinge, writer, leadership coach, and specialist in Embodied Horse-Led Leadership Development. I always encourage coaches to use supervision, and this is a powerful story of how much of a difference it can make to coaching practice. Thank you Pam – being your supervisor is a joy and a privilege!
Late in 2021 I was delivering a client programme when, out of the blue, I received some extremely difficult news. My blood froze when I saw the 12 missed calls throughout the day from two different numbers I didn’t recognise. What I learned in the subsequent minutes folded me in two and knocked me to the ground. There was no question of me entering the classroom again, I was in deep shock and grief.
Five months later Spring 2022 dawned and it was time for me to get back to doing the work I love, facilitating Equest’s horse-led leadership development programmes. We had 20 international leaders coming to the farm where we are based in Wiltshire for a two day programme. As it approached, still feeling raw and emotionally spent from the aftermath of my bereavement, I began to doubt whether I was up to leading our team of 10 humans and 8 horses and facilitating an intense process for a group of this size.
The nature of the leadership development we offer plumbs the depths of human emotion albeit gently. We’d be talking about being authentic, connecting with the essential self, about being vulnerable and creating emotional safety. And here I was, the programme leader, on track to be perhaps the most vulnerable person in the room. I knew my feelings of trauma could easily be triggered at the location where my nightmare had started and I began to question whether I should do the programme at all. I was terrified of spoiling the experience for the group, of being hijacked by my feelings, of looking stupid, of losing control, of not being able to provide a safe environment for others.
‘What is the worst thing that can happen?’ My supervisor said to me in our session a couple of weeks before the programme.
‘That I break down and completely lose it,’ I said.
‘So? What would happen if you did?’ She continued.
‘I suppose one of my team would take over. I would trust them implicitly to carry on without me, to cover for me.’
‘And what would the impact on the participants be of you breaking down? What kind of example would it set?’
‘I guess it would be an example of authentic behaviour, and of being courageous enough to be vulnerable!’ I couldn’t help a wry giggle.
So on the morning of the programme I briefed my team that they needed to be ready and verbalised the trust I had in them. Together we devised a ‘Pam breakdown back-up plan.’
The classroom hummed with happy expectation as I stood to welcome the client group. I shared that I’d had some bad news the last time I stood there and that I was still fragile, which the tremor in my voice betrayed. But I breathed deeply, grounded my turbulent feelings down through my feet, looked outside to the tranquil herd, the beautiful landscape, the red kites hovering overhead. I felt calmer. I had done it. I had named my vulnerability and suddenly everything seemed possible.
My usual introduction didn’t seem appropriate. Instead I read to the group from my journal about why the leadership development work I do with horses is so important to me. I spoke of how our approach has evolved through the interconnection and courage and contribution of many, both human and equine. I held myself together, just about, and the emotional chord I struck continued to vibrate it’s beautiful harmonies throughout the following two days for everyone present. I hadn’t broken down as I had feared, but I hadn’t pretended either. I had let my emotions live and breathe within the group process. And the group’s learning experience was richer for it: safe, joyful and profound.
I had rested in Trust – of my colleagues, of the horses, of our clients, of the process. And I had given myself Permission – to be truly real, to shed the need to be brave, or infallible, or in charge. The heart-opening which I had no choice other than to embrace flowed through to the group – they trusted and they too gave themselves permission to be true to themselves.
This experience has changed the way that I lead forever. Whilst the pain caused by my bereavement will lessen over time, I trust that the gifts it gave me – how to be openly vulnerable with grace, intention and fortitude and how to ask for help – will continue to grow and make me a better leader, practitioner and human being.
Pam is a writer, leadership coach, specialist in Embodied Horse-Led Leadership Development and Director of Equest Limited. Her books The Spell of the Horse, Stories of Healing and Personal Transformation with Nature’s Finest Teacher and The Spirit of the Horse, Finding Healing and Spiritual Connection with the Horse, are published by Blackbird Books and available from all good publishers.
How should we think about addressing climate change?
Over the past fortnight at COP 26 debate has circled around pragmatic questions; fossil fuels, net zero, eco-efficiency, green consumerism, conservation management, political policy, economic reform and scientific or technological ‘silver bullets’.
But what about other ways of thinking about solutions to the issues? Amid all the noise, and with so many points of view vying for attention how do I make sense of my place in relation to it all?
Over these days as I watched the news, and published the posts, I noticed different ways of thinking emerge as different contributors from different worlds offered their thoughts about questions raised by the climate catastrophe.
As I tried to make sense of the voices I remembered coming across a paper by political theorist John Dryzek, this was back in 2007 while studying for a MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice. It helped me understand and untangle different ways of thinking and talking about environmental challenges. Dryzek argued that environmental discourses fall into four different buckets (my image not his!) or discourses, either reformist or radical, and either prosaic or imaginative.
Dryzek, J., The politics of the Earth: environmental discourses. 2005, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The top left, prosaic and reformist frames the challenge within the current economic and social worldview. In other words, we need to tweak business as usual but basically can trust technology and markets to rise to the challenge and fix things. This was the loudest voice inside COP.
Top right, prosaic and radical on the other hand argues that there are limits to growth on a finite planet and to avoid disaster we must cut back economic activity. This might look like the call to rethink Christmas that just dropped in my inbox today, to reduce consumption.
In the bottom left ‘bucket’ the reformist and imaginative discourse operates largely within the ideals, values and worldview of current consumer-capitalist mindset, saying we need to do business better. Tackle things more creatively and intelligently, cradle to cradle, regenerative design fits here.
Finally, bottom right, the imaginative and radical approach seeks to shift consciousness, transforming the way we experience ourselves and the planet. Here all life is seen to have value in and of itself, not just as a resource for humans to utilise. This ‘deep green’ approach might involve a panpsychic perspective. In their beautiful pamphlet ‘On Sentience’ Peter Reason and Sarah Gillespie put it this way: “What would it be like to live in a world of sentient beings rather than inert objects? How would we relate to such a world?” This discourse can take a spiritual turn, seeing the sacred or divine immanent in the earth. A key movement here is in a shift of identity from a separate self, towards a connected self, what is sometimes called an ‘ecological self.’
Though these different ways of seeing the climate crisis and the best way to tackle it can and overlap, they are often in conflict and competition with each other. Think of the activists protesting outside COP26, angry with the prosaic reformist inside, or those inside wanting them to ‘go away’ so they can get on with the hard work of fixing the problem. Or, as we heard in posts here a cynical ‘your are away with the fairies’ or ‘in Narnia’ – a bemused ‘what’s the point’ of any of this in the context of business or a school of management?
I didn’t organise the way different discourses presented themselves over these two weeks, but reading back it looks like I might have. Perhaps it’s because most of us are dipping our hands into more than one ‘bucket’ as we go about our professional and personal lives, giving us access to different ways of thinking. I can easily name organisations and people I work with from all four discourses. This gives me hope, the challenges we face are complex, far reaching and systemic, we need to recognise, understand, accept, include, and co-ordinate all of these approaches. I have my own preferences and perspectives, but if we are to have any hope of tackling the challenges we’d best stop bickering among ourselves to link arms and work together.
Dryzek’s analysis is useful, but I’d like to offer another way of expressing this, from Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in Active Hope https://www.activehope.info/the-book
They outline three dimensions of work that needs to be done to turn around the climate crisis: Holding Actions, Life-Sustaining Systems and Practices and Shift in Consciousness. They are mutually reinforcing and equally necessary, each one leads into the others.
Holding Actions focus on holding back and slowing down the damage being caused by ‘business as usual’. This can include raising awareness of issues, as well as direct action and protest. These voices are often outside conference rooms, out on the streets. The goal here is to protect what remains. Holding actions are essential; they save lives, species and ecosystems. But, though protest is vital, they point out that on their own, these actions are not enough. Along with stopping the damage, we need to replace or transform the systems and institutions that cause the harm.
Life-Sustaining Systems and Practices involve rethinking the way we do things, redesigning of the structures and systems that make up our society. The green shoots of these practices are all around us. We can all support and participate through our choices about how to travel, where to spend our money, what to eat, where to save. Social enterprises, sustainable agriculture, green energy and investing, all are small steps that contribute to the creation of a life-sustaining society. But like holding actions, by themselves they are not enough. These new structures won’t take root and survive without deeply ingrained values to sustain them.
Shift in Consciousness involves a deep transformation from the hyper-individualism that’s become a hallmark of a ‘business as usual’ mindset, to a deepening of our sense of belonging in the world. This is the emergence of a more connected and compassionate sense of identity. This shift in consciousness involves our hearts, our minds, and our views of reality. For me, the practice of paying attention to small things, here, with care, in this place, keeps my sense of belonging in the world alive and fresh, giving me the energy and nourishment I need to do the work I do out in the world. Chris and Joanna call this “the inner frontier of change, the personal and spiritual development that enriches and deepens our capacity and desire to act for our world.”
I hope you’ve enjoyed some of the ‘Thoughts for the Day’ we’ve offered over the past 14 days – I’m going to take a break, head up to the allotment and be quiet now!
Todays Thought for the Day comes from Sybille Schiffmann. Sybille is Chair and a trainer here at Wise Goose and part of a team at Marjon University who have been collaboratively designing a new MSc in Management for a Sustainable Future. https://www.marjon.ac.uk/courses/msc-management-sustainable/
“The main ethical question for our time is what kind of work we want to build together with the immense resources we have at our disposal.”
GRLI, 2008 (The Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative)
In my work with leaders from business and the social sector who are currently studying on Marjon’s MSc Management for a Sustainable Future, the question above is particularly relevant.
At its heart it is about taking on new responsibilities, concerns for other people, and for our environment, while weighing those concerns directly against our self-interest and in relation to the primary activities, undertaken by our businesses and organisations.
It becomes a question of leadership – responsible leadership in other words.
As I work with students who have committed to this quite demanding path of study, while holding down their existing full-time jobs, I am really appreciating what a transformative journey this is for those individuals, as they seek to shift thinking and action in their workplaces, through the adoption and in time, integration of sustainable business practices.
Such responsible leadership requires far greater cognitive understanding of the complexities of addressing sustainability matters. As one small business leader, who produces sustainable swimwear while actively adhering to Circular Economic Principles and practices put it: “The easiest and most sustainable thing to do would be not to set up and run a business at all”.
Responsible leadership also involves being visionary in the sense of waking others up to the future that is being debated furiously at COP 26, and to help orientate others in their workplaces towards potentially very different business activities, or entirely new business ventures for that matter.
My hope for our leaders on this programme is that they fully embrace their unique potential to create a positive difference, and impact, for the people, or customers they serve and for the planet they inhabit; be that large or small.
Their job moving forward is to “ build muscle” as Mary Gentile puts it and apply ethical decision-making in their workplaces. All this while facing the demands and challenges of day to day business as usual, where they must now present the ‘voice’ for those environmental and societal stakeholders not conventionally represented on the Balance Sheet, or the Profit and Loss account.
In essence they are creating the path to new possibilities, new products, services or even whole new ways of doing business. Walking this path requires restless curiosity, resilience, courage and a willingness to act at times contrary to the status quo; or as Jacob Bronowski once said “It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.”
It is a great pleasure to be on this journey with them.
Another quote that aptly describe the mind and heart of our students:
“The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.”
“It’s my deep sense of wonder that keeps me hopeful.”
Alice Walker
It was pelting down. Fat silver drops that fall straight down to bounce and splatter, soaking shoes and trouser bottoms. The water flowed fast, bubbling along the gutters, skimming the top of the kerb and gurgling down drains. Shoppers huddled in shop doorways waiting for it to ease or hunched and hurried to whatever could not wait for the cloudburst to pass. I made my way up the steps of Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum to escape the rain.
On the floor plan I pick up there’s an invitation “Find your way or lose yourself”. I stuff it in my pocket and let my feet take me up the stairs, past the statue of Prince Albert where, ready to lose myself, I take a random left turn.
Disoriented, I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. On shelves specimens in ground glass jars are suspended in alcohol, there are old-fashioned mahogany display cases with neat labels. For a split second I’m in the Hancock Museum in Newcastle sixty years ago. A rare treat, just me and Dad. Every time we went I’d stand spellbound for what seemed hours, gazing into the eyes of the stuffed American bison.
Back in the present, in this museum, I’d stumbled into biologist Walter Percy Sladen’s study, unchanged since it was installed in 1910. It’s the home of his echinoderm collection – marine animals that include sea urchins and starfish.
I wander over to the shelves, examining the jars. Inside float delicate curling arms covered with fine hair that I discover are tube feet. In the centre, cases display dried starfish, all sizes, collected from all over the world. From Teignmouth just down the road, to New Zealand. The labels record the depth of the finds and the kind of mud; blue mud, volcanic mud, coral mud and gravel and stone. I wander absorbed, struck by their fivefold radial symmetry, I remember learning as a child that starfish have an amazing power – they can regenerate their limbs. Surprised by how moved I feel here, surrounded by what are after all dead specimens, I realise what is stirred in me is a sense of wonder at a vast otherness that puts my own small place in the world into perspective.
I glance up and see there are words written around the cornice. Craning my neck and turning around in the centre of the room I struggle to read; with no spaces and no punctuation and it takes a while for the letters to make sense:
“Look on the frame of this wide universe and therein read the endless kinds of creature which by name thou canst not count much less their natures aim which are made with wondrous wise respect and with admirable beauty deckt.”
Back home, I remember the sea urchin shell that sits on the windowsill of my office. Taking it in my hands, I turn it, running fingertips over the bumps where spines were anchored, tracing the delicate peachy-pink lines and darker mahogany stripes, seeing for the first time the curved fivefold symmetry, like a closed tulip. Here, in a room I work in most days; wonder rises again. Awe doesn’t require travel to distant lands. It does need space and time and perhaps, a willingness to meet life with openness.
I often find myself writing about what I think of as ‘micro-practices.’ A colleague once dismissed this as ‘Narnia’ irrelevant, not real world ‘work’. That was 15 years ago, but the barb still sticks. Last week, Chris Nichols, in his post ‘Reaching for the Stars,’ mentioned the time the CEO of his business school declared he was ‘away with the fairies.’ I smiled when I read that, taking comfort in knowing I wasn’t alone. Smiles aside, I still carry a secret, lurking fear ridicule.
Nevertheless, I want to take a stand for these glimpses of another way of experiencing my place in the world. The world needs more awe not less. Specifically, the wonder that rises in response to the natural world, transforming the way we understand the world.
As COP26 moves into its final days, my thoughts turn to Sir David Attenborough’s opening address. His sense of wonder, his capacity to engage and marvel has touched millions, opening a crack where love for the natural world can enter. Awe matters because the more we lose our capacity to be awestruck, the easier it is to look down on the world with superior, self-centred over-confidence.
Wonder is an antidote for the self-absorption that creeps up when I become too busy, speedy, preoccupied or fixated on personal concerns. A few moments at the end of the day breathing cool air and looking at the stars, a cup of coffee on a bench where I can smell honeysuckle and listen to bees, or pausing to watch the birds on the feeder outside the kitchen window – these presences work together to soften and melt a tendency to see myself as the centre of my own universe.
The lines in Sladen’s study are from ‘An Hymn of Heavenly Beauty by Edmund Spenser.
Todays thought for the day comes from Pat Fleming. Pat works in conservation education, and currently teaches and mentors on the ‘Call of the Wild’ courses at Schumacher College. She co-authored ‘Thinking Like a Mountain’, a deep ecology reader with John Seed, Arne Naess and Joanna Macy and has led groups in deep ecology and ‘Work that Reconnects’ for over 30 years.
Cutting Leeks as COP26 opens
I stand by the compost heap, bottom of our Dartmoor garden, wielding an old bone-handled knife, slicing muddy white roots off long fat leeks just heaved from the earth.
Above the pines, in the evening’s apricot sky the mewling of a young buzzard, high-pitched, insistent, cuts through the quiet. Alarmed, alone.
I carry on dropping leek tops into warm wormy compost, a tangle of rotting leaves-peelings-weeds-paper that yield such blessing, keep our garden in good heart.
Suddenly from the south, a wide-winged buzzard swoops over my head, feather tips swish air down my neck. It’s heading home, the Dart valley woods nearby. I try to call back, but my language is lacking.
At this moment, five hundred miles north, there’s a buzzing of heads of state, COP 26 opens to address our broken world, important people talking serious turkey in Glasgow, calling each other out, making more promises to be broken.
I would be there, I wanted to be there, for my alarm cries to be heard by someone, anyone, maybe no-one. But at least like the young buzzard, give everything for my voice to cry out.
But I didn’t get on that train, or sleep on the floor of friends, nor stand in a windy wet street handing out leaflets, maybe dressed as a turtle, or a puddle, or indeed anything that wants its voice heard in the melee.
Instead I slice the last leek, satisfied with their perfect long shafts, marvel how anyone would love them, sweet, lightly steamed.
Boris rattles on the 6 pm radio about “The last chance saloon” as if he’s some sheriff in a dodgy ole western, rattling his spurs, cocking his pistol, to save the world. Why does he sound so hollow, so desperate to project gravitas, whilst wearing a cowboy hat?
I hear the Island nations – Pilau, Philippines, Pacific, whose women speak so eloquently, passionately, concisely, about what needs to happen “Or we will get angry!”
Actually we are already angry, very angry. I wave my knife. Angry at my species, in our stupified thrall of stuff, turned away from our legacy, from future generations whose soil and sea and air we hold in our hands, within our smallest of actions. Angry how our endless reckless hunger is more important than the magnanimous recognition of our belonging, of all our belonging.
Deep down, aren’t we, like young buzzards, mewling for home, for safe places to rest and return? No need to holler any more, but to quietly embrace, be embraced, belong.
