Making sense of work

Jotunheimen National Park, 2022

Recently, I have returned to work after a year of being away. I chose to take the time off to prioritise raising the tiny human we were about to welcome into our family. At least, that was the deduced version of reasoning. The real reason behind detaching myself from work was also that I desperately needed a break. How I was working, was not working anymore. I felt trapped in marathons of meetings, and being busy at being busy. It was becoming all too familiar to want to do things that could make things different but feeling like I never have the time to do so. In stepping away, I had hoped distance and new experiences would give me perspectives that I longed for.

Entering motherhood was in many ways, a metamorphosis of a kind that transformed my personal life into something new. New routines, priorities, and most important of all, my perception of time and energy have shifted. Returning to my professional playground with this lens, I know I need to re-design my own focus and ways of working.

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I am now taking up the role of leading our organisation activation team to challenge the status quo, and to bring in new perspectives that can transform our business and culture towards a planet-centric practice.

The understanding of planet-centricity is often times skewed towards a green bias. It is easy to perceive that impact focus primarily on environmental aspects alone. We forget that being planet-centric means connecting with our societal, planetary, cultural contexts just as much as we connect with our humanness. The reason why organisation activation exists in the first place is based on the fact that we see the need of revolutionising existing systems and processes. It is no secret that innovation and change often comes not from these set structures, but despite of it. Despite great intentions and commitments, processes that are supposed to facilitate and enable us often end up creating more busyness, leaving us with endless task lists, team checkins, progress reporting and the feeling of "talking about what we are doing instead of doing it". So how can we aim for a different outcome if we choose to do things the same way over and over again?

I know that in order for our team to have a real impact on our organisation and culture, it cannot rely solely on thought leadership, but rather on how we demonstrate the possible way of going forward as a community, and that comes down to us, starting with myself.

Just being honest here- I haven't exactly crack the code yet. This is not a reflection that outlines exactly what and how we have successfully implemented the change in our business. It will be an iterative process, and most likely adapted as we experiment and learn from each other. What this is, is my way of keeping accountability, to take it step by step.

Want to follow along? Let me know your thoughts.