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Story

What is The Holism Group’s story?

 

You might say it started when I was in my early teens. One day, a fixture and entrepreneur of the Maine coast beach community where my family spent summers was discussing his recently approved plans for the beach's fast food and ice cream stand at the edge of the tidal marsh. One requirement was that he install a holding tank for waste and sewage that he would need to empty on a regular basis adding costs and cutting into his profits.

 

His boast that day was all he needed to do was take his shotgun to the holding tank one night and no one would know the difference. Much to my family's annoyance I refused to ever step foot near or patronize the store when built.

In retrospect, I now realize at that moment I  became a proponent of the triple, if not quadruple, bottom line for business whereby the environment's and planet's bottom line was of more importance than the few extra dollars of business profit.

 

Fast forward to my early forties, I wrote an essay in graduate school —  Management and the Environment – Leadership “Spirt” as Governance. In it I observed:

 

Business management and its system of governance in this environment [ post Cold War] becomes not one of building technically guided systems but creating systems through leadership and conscience.  The new “guidance systems” are not hierarchies with the clarity of purpose an arms race imposed, but rather intricate webs of personal institutional and ecological levels of awareness.

 

In between these story bookends, I would be remiss not to acknowledge an early mentor on this path who, among other accomplishments, headed the Lincoln-Filene Center at Tufts University in Massachusetts, where he introduced me to and informed me about the practice of corporate social responsibility. A path he walked with the greatest of integrity.

 

The “Systems Thing”

 

It was in grad school that I finally understood how my brain was wired. The “systems thing” as I have come to call it.  More respectfully known as “systems thinking”.  It is the natural way of thinking and seeing the world for me.  A holistic perspective.

Throughout my career, I have navigated with clients what I have come to call the linear/organic dilemma.  This often manifests when data-driven decision-making meets intuition-driven decision-making.  Or Gannt chart and Excel spreadsheet meet Mind Map. This became such a common occurrence I mapped the process:

 

 

 

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  1. Opportunity identified, disparate parts through systems thinking and intuition.

  2. Catalyst, coach and strategist to bring parts into form.

  3. Linear mindset begins to see the whole and understand the vision.

  4. Value trajectory or over the cliff? Linear logic does not have proper sensors.

  5. The Holism Group senses new waves and creates a virtuous circle for growth.

 

In more recent years, I have come to realize and understand the reductionist ( linear) mindsets  dominate most Western world systems and organizations today. 

 

The Holism Group does not see it as an “either-or “  approach.  It requires both mindsets ( linear and organic) for sustained results.

 

However,  rather than the reductionist, linear thinking being in the driver’s seat, on this holistic systems approach and leadership journey it is in the passenger’s seat.

 

 Inner Journey Informs Outer Journey

 

Another aspect of The Holism Group story are transforming experiences in my personal and professional life whereby I have come to appreciate the inner journey, bringing experience and understanding to the importance of resilience, intellectual integrity and emotional honesty.

 

In these times such inner awareness I believe is fundamental to an adaptative and holistic approach to leadership and organizations.

 

Nature is calling us as a planet to lead and organize in a way that sustains her, not destroys her.

 

In our own small way, that is what The Holism Group is here to help do – driven by Thoughtful Urgency.

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The Holism Group

Making sense naturally.

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