Fish Climbing Trees

At Fish Climbing Trees we believe that people are at the heart of every organization and we should design systems (in the broadest sense) to support the people doing the work. It is all about matching capacities so that we can be effective at achieving whatever purpose your organization aims to achieve. In practice, we see all kinds of processes, procedures and technical systems that don’t fit well with the actual work and the people who are doing that work. That flows from separating thinking and doing in organizations and mismatches are a normal order of business instead of exceptions. In short, we ask people things that they are not well equipped for; we’re asking fish to climb trees! We believe that a particular mindset is necessary to overcome this problem. This mindset has two foundational assumptions: People positive: people come to work to help achieve whatever the organization is trying to accomplish. People have adaptive capabilities to deal with a variety of conditions and changes in those conditions. Also they are master in overcoming mismatches between work as described and work as it is actually done; Complexity embracing: organizations are usually comprised of people, technical tools and various organizational processes. All these ‘components’ interact in complex ways to create the outcomes that we can actually see. Embracing complexity means that you know that complexity is part of the messy operational reality and it guides and inspires you in your actions and decisions. To do that, we must make use of the collective intelligence and experiment our way to new ways of working. So let’s stop asking fish to climb trees and instead start using their talents wisely!