It's Not You, It's Us.

One of my clients broke up with me on Friday.

Via email.

"Unfortunately, next year we won’t be able to continue with the book circles. It has nothing to do with you or the offerings…..our budget has been cut significantly. We haven’t received final numbers yet, but I have heard that it has been cut in half. So we are having to move a lot of our classes and workshops to self-paced offerings. The book circles were a hit and employees genuinely loved them…. I did especially.

Maybe 2027 will be a better year and we can get back to normal. We are in unprecedented times at the company and this is one of the items that we will have to cut." 

"Unprecedented times" -- How often have you heard that one?

I always wonder when companies move from relationship learning opportunities, to transactional learning opportunities.

What guides them to make that decision?

When I mentioned it to a colleague, she said, "They might as well put a bag of money on the street and burn it." 🤣

In Otto Scharmer's work at U-Lab, he uses the metaphor of farming to point out the need to move from extractive to regenerative practices.

If the quality of the soil is bad, the quality of the plants will also be bad, just as the quality of the social system is only as good as the quality of the social soil.

When we don't create strong self-awareness, and strong relationships (the social soil), the social system suffers.

My work is deeply rooted in developing the social soil.

It's relational, not transactional.

Unfortunately, some people are still stuck in industrial farming methods.

Onward I go, to develop the social soil in another place.

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

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