Three business lessons — from the backcountry to the boardroom
If you’re a manager, facilitator or strategist, these three insights from my visit to Ottawa Forest School may be useful for you.
In late 2016, I decided I was gonna do 2017 differently. Mainly, this involved leaving my job as a Strategy Director at a busy digital agency in favour of returning to consulting and doing business in a way that feels right for me. It was also about finding more time and space to more deliberately commit to causes and people that I care about.
An organization that sits square in the middle of two important causes to me (education and nature) is The Child and Nature Alliance of Canada (CNAC). CNAC aspires to foster meaningful connections to the outdoors for children and youth. Forest School Canada is their flagship educational program and its aim is a powerful one: to provide children with regular and repeated access to a natural space for child-directed, emergent and inquiry-based learning. That’s a bit of a mouthful so let’s break down what I like about it:
1. Access to Nature
2. Child-Directed
The first goes without saying. It’s something we know intuitively , people who spend more time in nature feel more alive and they’re healthier and more resilient too. Child-directed, or self-directed learning can be a bit of a trickier concept but overall, it’s about putting the learner in the driver’s seat. These are good things.
I also enjoy that when I hear or say “Forest School” it just sounds so damn idyllic. I mean, imagine being a child and telling your friends that you go to Forest School?! It conjures up images of the enchanted forest and all the adventures that happen there.
Presently, CNAC and I are exploring ways to help spread their good work and to get adults playing in the woods too. So, it only seemed reasonable to spend some time at Forest School myself and witness first-hand, the land and the children among it. Last week, I spent a cold and snowy afternoon at the Ottawa Forest and Nature School. I observed the school-aged programming for children in the 5–12 age range. Despite knowing a lot about this program, I was unprepared for what I would see and learn and how applicable this is for my work as a Communications & Digital Strategist.
Here are 3 things that I was struck by and how I will take the learning with me into my personal and professional contexts:
#1. Communication
There are no such things as “No!” “Don’t!” “Stop!”
At Forest School, communication is different. It doesn’t take much to notice that events that might normally elicit a “no” are instead replaced with alternatives like “why?” or “I feel”. I observed an outdoor fire-building activity with a small group of children and an educator named Jen. One zealous child was insistent upon continuously using the matches, even once the fire was starting to take and the other kids were shifting their attention to keeping it going (side note: it was great to see the kids using matches). This child sure did love those matches but instead of telling him to stop using the matches or worse, take them away, when he would exclaim “I think we should light another match!” or “I’m going to use a match!” the educator would ask, “Really? Why?” His answers were varied but the subsequent replies would often be “Oh ok. That’s reasonable.” Another child became frustrated by the fixation on the matches. He exclaimed “Stop wasting them, we might need these for an emergency!” (side note: adorable) which seemed a solid consideration but still, Jen did not tell the boy “No”. Instead she gently asked, “Do you think we should try to keep the fire going now?” “Yes” said the boy, “I’ll go and get the fan board to blow air on it.” “That’s a great idea,” she said.
Later, the flint and steel kits came out so the kids could practice “making sparks”. In their excitement, they were standing, rather than kneeling close to the earth as they fired sparks here, there and everywhere (side note: impressive). Instead of saying “don’t stand when you’re using those” or worse, “Stop!” Jen said, “I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable with us standing and making these sparks, do you know why that might be?” “ Because it’s safest if we do this close to the ground where we have more control.” Boom.
I could tell other anecdotes from this one fire-building exercise. They might seem insignificant, but I was profoundly affected by witnessing these interactions. The difference here, instead of the societal norm, was the power dynamic at play. At Forest School, it’s clear that there’s an effort to narrow the power imbalance existing between child and educator. There, I saw that how we use power depends on our intentions and on self-awareness. When we use power constructively, we can enhance relationships and more easily solve problems.
As a Strategist who’s often working with a multitude of stakeholders and many power dynamics at play, these reminders are more important than ever. Even though I make every effort to behave like this on the regular, I now have a heightened drive to do the following in my interactions with colleagues and project teams:
- Use less verbal ‘me’ / ‘I’ and more ‘we’
- Speak with a profoundly positive tone
- Listen and ask lots of open-ended questions
- Show compassion for the perspective of others
#2. Community
Conformity does not a community make.
There’s no question that it feels good when we belong to a community. Humans crave belonging and we seek to come together and form bonds around shared values. Yet, joining a community can also coincide with a loss of individualism. In fact, there’s inertia between community and individualism. We don’t want the celebration of individuals to be at the expense of thinking beyond ourselves to the considerations of the group, so we lean away from individual variation. This is extremely evident in conventional school environments and certainly in business environments also.
Perhaps, this is why I felt completely alive to witness a strong community at Forest School — one that allowed individuals to thrive.
There were two things that stood out here:
- Choice — children were free to choose the activities they’d undertake but also how they’d undertake them. I watched them be encouraged to solve problems in their own ways.
- No Fear — children were able to behave in an individualistic manner because they were not scared of being punished or being overpowered by educators or peers. One child yelled out frequently as a means of vibrant self-expression. I found it harsh at first and had to control my urge to tell him to “Stop Yelling!” The community was unfazed. It was beautiful.
For me, as I go about business activities in conformist environments, I will constantly look for ways to unleash individuals — exposing their instincts, their desires, their thoughts and their natural behaviours.
#3. Curiosity
Did curiosity really kill the cat?! No. A lack of curiosity will kill you.
Exploring new things is hard. We’re creatures of comfort and habit and as we move out of childhood, the opportunities to test our limits are harder to come by. We all know that children are naturally curious but exploration and curiosity go hand in hand with exposure to the natural world. Children can more deeply engage their imaginations and inquiry-based play when they are in the woods. I saw so much of this at Forest School. Children that were roaming, gathering wood and building forts, and weaving very elaborate stories and play systems at the same time. There were next to no limits on their exploration (side note: amazing) and it got me thinking about all of the different workshops and business processes that I lead — how can I help my clients to encourage an authentic curiosity?
Perhaps that begins with constantly striving to ask interesting questions with less focus on the answers or the solutions? Maybe it’s as simple as encouraging others to try new approaches to meetings, conversations or business processes? Or maybe (and perhaps best of all), it means taking to the woods and building a fort.
I’m very grateful for my magical day at the Ottawa Forest and Nature School. I look forward to watching CNAC continue to grow and thrive. There’s a lot we can learn from their approach to learning. If you have thoughts / comments about communication, conformity or curiosity in business, I’d love to hear them! Reach out.