Effortless Thursdays #44: It's more than a Sycamore tree at Hadrian's Wall
What barriers have you put up that prevent your team from excelling?
Vrooom vroom. Vrooom vroom. Vrooo-ooo-ooooooooo-ooooooooom.
Kkkkreeeeeeee-eeeee-e-e-e-kkkktchhhhhh.
And there it lay.
Broken, with a storm still swirling around it.
Over 300 years, it had survived all sorts of storms and extreme weather. Yet it was a human hand and a chainsaw, not Mother Nature, that had felled this tree.
"Are you a coincidental visitor here, then?", asked a man with his dog as I quietly, gently, gingerly walked around this scene of devastation.
It was an astute question from a local passerby. He was one of many who had gathered at the famous Sycamore Gap, the place on Hadrian's Wall where the 300-year Sycamore tree had been intentionally felled a couple of days earlier.
This was Day 13 of hiking the Pennine Way. Andrew and I were hiking only half of the route so we could take in the views along Hadrian's Wall and the Roman fort of Housesteads.
I don't think I've ever been moved by a tree. Sure, I’ve touched trees along hikes and done my fair share of shinrin-yoku. It’s the term for ‘forest bathing’ or ‘taking in the forest atmosphere’ coined by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1982. It can be summed up as making contact with and taking in the atmosphere of the forest.
But, at the Sycamore Gap where there was no sycamore standing majestic any longer - only the Gap - I felt the same emotions as if someone close had died. The more I kept thinking "This is just a tree", the more gut-wrenching my emotions became.
I surprised myself as I noticed the groundswell of anger, bitterness, compassion and wondering in me.
I wanted to give this tree a big hug. Perhaps to apologise (?) for the person who brought about this destructive demise.
The bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, summed it up well on a post-it note she left in the celebration room at The Sill: National Landscape and Discovery Centre.
Here's her memory:
This tree had unwittingly brought people together, weaved memories, and made humans feel like they belonged here - to nature and the local community.
Marriage proposals, the scattered ashes of loved ones, and helping with mental illness.
It was an outpouring of connection, memories and loss.
This tree brought people together. So why did someone decide to chop it down?
There was some talk on site about a dispute between a tenant of land nearby and the owner.
Maybe there were strong emotions and then - in one fell swoop - a mighty tree had fallen.
Keeping other people out
I thought about how this tree that brought people together was standing by a wall - Hadrian’s Wall - that just under 2000 years ago was designed to keep people out.
To exclude them.
To ‘other’ them.
To allow the Romans to speak about those north of Hadrian's Wall as "barbarians".
It also got me thinking about the barriers we create in our work environments, and what sycamore trees we might plant instead to bring our teams together.
ps If you’re an entrepreneur, a lawyer or another high-flying professional and want someone to help you connect your ideas in creative ways so you can build a healthy brain for a career that’s full of success and joy and feels effortless, get in touch and let’s have a conversation.
What barriers do we create that make people feel excluded from our teams?
We use language that judges others.
"You're always putting me down in front of the client"
We're not present
Perhaps it's when you're having a chat with a team member and you're focused on something else, like your emails, fiddling with your phone, or avoiding eye contact.
We're stressed
Maybe you're really stressed and you're impatient when your colleague calls you for your advice on a project, wondering "Why don't they know the answer already?"
Or perhaps you’re finding the threat of a market downturn is making you unhappy and you revert to what is easiest: micro-managing everything?
We're focused on the wrong thing
You focus on your team's problems rather than what they're great at
These might seem like trivial instances, but the principles of Nonviolent Communication teach us that communication can be as violent as physical violence.
If we're not careful about the quality of our conversations, empathy can evaporate and we push our teams back onto the other side of the wall.
So much of that empathy and how we want to show up and be present is determined by our health.
Waking up in the morning groggy and lacklustre is not a good formula for presence, patience and creating connection in the workplace.
That's why one of the foundations we can build is our own optimal health - especially a healthy brain - that allows us to plant those sycamore trees, rather than leaving people behind the wall.
When teams feel connected
So what do we notice when we have the foundations for health that allow us to be present, full of energy, and clear-minded, no matter how busy we are?
Our teams talk about "we" rather than "they", the informal test that Robert Reich, the former US Labour Secretary uses as a proxy to determine whether teams have a sense of pride for the organisations they work for.
They smile.
They have the confidence to speak up.
Their creativity flows.
Over to you!
What barriers might you be putting up that need to be broken down?
What sycamore trees might you plant?
Resources
If you want to focus on what's right, rather than what's wrong, and to propel your team to success using their strengths, take a look at some suggestions here👇
If you want to how to communicate empathetically and use effective strategies to resolve disagreements or have challenging conversations, here's a good starting guide to the four pillars to Nonviolent Communication.
If you want to bring calm to your nervous system and gain mental clarity, try nourishing your gut with this approach to nourishing yourself with the most nutrient dense, low-inflammatory foods.
That’s it for this week!
As always, I appreciate your feedback on Effortless Thursdays.
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What did you think of this week’s edition? How can I make it more useful to you? Let me know in the comments, by email, on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
To your health and success!
That’s it for this week!
As always, I appreciate your feedback on Effortless Thursdays.
If Effortless Thursdays resonated with you, I'd be grateful if you told just one friend to subscribe. They and you can always unsubscribe using the link below.
What did you think of this week’s edition? How can I make it more useful to you? Let me know in the comments, by email, on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
To your health and success!
Eric
So sad about the tree. Makes me appreciate trees more.
Ugh i was so devastated to see this story in the news (though I’m glad it was at least “newsworthy”). Thank you for paying tribute to it.