This morning I was thinking about photosynthesis and how it can be applied to organizational dynamics. Photosynthesis describes the relationship that leaves, grass, and algae have with sunlight. When sunlight falls on leaves, they can take that energy and transform it into nutrients that fuel life on this planet.
The process of photosynthesis is unseen but essential to all life.
The evolution of understanding photosynthesis
From its partial discovery in the 1600s to the 1930s when Cornelis Van Niel proposed the general equation for photosynthesis, it has taken hundreds of years to understand the essential process of photosynthesis. We can learn from this evolution of human understanding.
You can read more details about the evolution of our understanding of photosynthesis here. What strikes me as most amazing about this story of discovery is that photosynthesis went unseen for billions of years before we understood its importance.
It makes me wonder about other unseen processes that are critical to our organizations and lives. Perhaps we don’t value them because we can’t see them. Perhaps they aren’t being measured. Or maybe we haven’t yet connected the dots between this unseen critical contribution and the overall performance of the organization.
The relationship between the unseen and the seen
Hubris can show up in our organizations through the unexamined assumption that only what can be seen and measured should be valued. A corollary to this is our success and profitability for our organization are directly linked to what we can measure. When I’ve written about softness, a core point is that much of our effectiveness is the result of soft skills. These can be emotional intelligence, the existence of strong, positive relationships, meaningful work, and purpose, to name a few. Despite the contribution of soft skills to performance, they are rarely measured and therefore rarely given the value they deserve.
In my consulting practice, I’ve observed that we often measure things we don’t really care about. Because we can’t see them they don’t matter.
Using photosynthesis as an organizational metaphor suggests many things are critical to our organization’s resilience that we simply can’t see or aren’t on our radar. If they are seen, we can’t or don’t measure them. The conundrum here is that these hidden processes and connections are responsible for our organization’s capacity to thrive.
Questioning existing measurements
What would happen if we understood that what we currently measure are only approximations of what really matters?
For example:
- Focusing on activity as a means to measure productivity.
- Using accountability to measure the performance of work teams.
- Relying on performance reviews to measure the development progress of individual team members.
- Reporting on profit to measure our organization’s health, including its long-term resilience and productivity.
Yes, it can be harder to measure some things that are unseen when it comes to the qualities of high-functioning teams, for example. An individual staff member’s development is can feel subjective. it’s much easier to quantify their performance by using numbers in an annual review. Profit is another number, but does it measure the good that the organization is contributing to its true stakeholders, including our planet?
These are the things, often unseen, that matter. This is what we need to learn to measure.
Photosynthesis is an essential process in nature. The point is that like photosynthesis, there are deeper and stronger indicators of a healthy resilient system.
Maybe we should all go on a learning journey to see deeper into our organizations to uncover what is really contributing to our organization’s success. What do you think you would find? How would you measure it?
Like the thought of unseen being important