Save the planet? You’re having a laugh!
This new column explores our role in tackling the complicated combination of economic, environmental and social challenges we face. It will be a place to question, offer, share, explore, challenge, dissent, celebrate, reflect, learn and enjoy.
Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, was a guest at a recent client event. He shared a story of a taxi driver who asked him what he did. Chris told him about the agency’s work. “Haven’t we got better things to think about than saving the planet?”, the driver said.
It’s a funny, serious, fascinating question. What could possibly be more important than the planet that gives us fresh air and water and food and energy and somewhere to play and work and rest and live?
Well, nothing really. So why is looking after it, and all that lives on it, not a central part of all we do, including work?
Perhaps it’s because life is big. There’s money and homes and health and family and careers and sex and hobbies to think about.
And perhaps because it’s too big a question. In our recent research, we asked David Clutterbuck about social, environmental and economic issues in relation to coaching.
He responded: “I feel these issues are so vast I wouldn’t know where to start!”
We know from other conversations that he is not alone in this. Many people care about these issues; most have felt deeply lost at times when searching for answers – ourselves included.
Aboodi Shabi offered us a Buddhist antidote: “Act as if the future of the Universe depends upon everything you do, and then laugh at yourself for thinking that anything you do makes any difference anyway.”
There is something magical about bringing these two elements – the serious and the humorous, the profound and the playful – together. And, as Ed Gillespie of Futerra said, recently: “If you want to subvert the dominant paradigm, you need to have more fun than they are (having), and let them know while you are doing it.” Loving that.
We started The One Leadership Project in 2011 in response to the questions that wouldn’t go away for us: “What can we do now for our grandchildren yet to be born? What’s our role in helping to address the big issues facing the world? If we weren’t afraid, and were doing what we really loved, what would that be?”
It’s serious stuff. We started working with people who are being catalytic in bringing change for the better; by supporting them and their teams and researching their world. It’s been life-changing, challenging… and a blast. For us. And for clients. As Camilla Arnold shared in our recent article for this magazine (‘Share your Passions’, Vol 7, Issue 2), “There are clients I work with, and clients I play with.”
Profound, game-changing work can be playful. Perhaps this is essential. In which case… What do you care deeply about? And how can you play with clients, as you do something together about it? If you have a story to share, we’d love to hear from you.
Neil Scotton and Alister Scott support and connect people ‘wishing to be more consistently catalytic, and organisations up to good things’. They are launching their first Catalytic Coach Programme in the autumn for people wishing to help clients be more catalytic: www.enablingcatalysts.com
Alister Scott: alister@enablingcatalysts.com
Neil Scotton: neil@enablingcatalysts.com
Coaching at Work, Volume 7, Issue 5