🌳 TREE 721: The institution must die

TREEpeat 242

I tried to write a thing for today. It hasn’t worked yet, and now (Monday evening) I’m about to go to the pub with my writers group. It’s fine though because this TREEpeat is a good prelude. Hopefully I’ll be able to put the words down in the right order for Wednesday.

This newsletter is called TREE because it’s about thriving as your true self and growing slowly. In this post I’m using trees as a different metaphor.

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A tree can maintain the form of a tree long after it has died. Wood is hard and strong.

A tree that has fallen over with its roots ripped out of the ground can sustain leaves, flowers and fruit for a while.

Institutions are like trees. (Religious organisations, political parties, businesses, schools, teams, charities, governments, civil services, militaries, governing bodies, etc.)

Institutions are formed around ideas, technologies, products, processes, strong leaders. All those things have a lifespan that is shorter than the lifespan of an institution.

An institution that does not have the ability to renew itself with new ideas, technologies, leaders, etc. will die. Like a tree. What I mean is that it will keep on looking like a living institution for quite a while even though its destiny is to be lunch for wood lice.

For any institution that you are part of, it’s good to know
where it is in its lifespan and
whether or not it can renew itself.
If it can’t, get out well before everyone has noticed that it’s dead. By the time people have noticed, it’s way too late.

It’s a valid question.

Grow slowly
Jeff