The unseen isn't only below the surface
Most of us know the iceberg model. What we see above the surface - the events - is only a small part of the story. Underneath sit the patterns, structures and beliefs that keep producing them.
I have used it many times to challenge my thinking.
But it quietly suggests something I'm not sure is true: that what we can see is the easy part. That the unseen only lives underneath the surface.
I've been playing around with looking at it from a whole different place.
Here's the thing - I live in Namibia. I've never seen an iceberg, let alone experienced one.
But I am surrounded by acacias. Fever trees. Paperbark thorns.
So this is an imagining from where I stand.
Look up into an acacia. You can see the canopy - it is in plain sight, but you can't possibly see everything.
I can see the dead bits high up in the fever tree - potentially from frost, but I can't really be sure.
I can see the patterns on the bark where the grass has brushed up the trunk in the wind.
I can see some nests.
I don't always see the shadow it casts on the wall at certain times of day.
I can't see the insects - or the pollinators that come & go when it flowers.
I can't see it at night. The owls, bats, moths. A whole other tree after dark.
And I can't see what this tree looks like to someone else.
So much of what I think I can see - right in front of me, above the ground - I don't really see at all.
And that's before I've even thought about what's below the ground.
And it doesn't stop there. What happens in the canopy changes what happens underground. What happens underground shapes the canopy. All the time.
I'm not the first to imagine a tree to visualise or represent systems. For me, though, the tree isn't only about what is above and below the ground. It's about the unseen everywhere - above and below - and the way each shapes the other.
The unseen is in plain sight.
Not suggesting a new model. It's just a different place to stand. Here's where it took me.
What if our businesses were trees?
Above the ground
The leaves - events. The day-to-day things we notice and react to. A resignation. Complaints coming in. How the problems show up.
The canopy - context. Everything around the events. Light, birds, insects, wind, signals passing from tree to tree. In a business, that's the market, communities, families, the news, social media, the conversations in the corridor. It's in plain sight. But we rarely see all of it - or how it connects.
I love this - when kudu browse on acacias, the trees increase tannins in their leaves – and release airborne signals that can prompt other trees to do the same.
The canopy is listening & sending signals all the time - we don't even know it is. And so are our businesses.
The trunk
The rings - patterns. A tree's rings hold its history: the good years, the dry years, the fires. Patterns are the same. They're the trends that build up over time. Not one resignation - but turnover rising year after year.
Below the ground
The roots - structures. The policies, processes, practices and workloads that keep producing the patterns.
The fungi and water - relationships. The informal network running underground. Where information really travels. Where energy and goodwill flow - and where they dry up.
The soil - beliefs, purpose and values. The ground everything grows in. The mindsets and assumptions that shaped the system in the first place. "People are replaceable" grows a very different tree to "people are the business".
Around it all
Air, water, sun - the living system. No tree grows on its own. Neither does a business. Water is fundamental to your strategy.
What the tree helps me imagine
That it's so much more complex than I can ever see. Everything seen and unseen is interdependent and interconnected.
And I'm only looking at it for a short point in time. I can't see the growth - the changes every day - too gradual for me to notice. There are the birds that come & birds that go - that might signal the things we will never notice.
And maybe that's the point. I'll never see all of it. So I'm learning to just get comfortable with not knowing everything that I think I need to know.
The iceberg can suggest the surface - the problems or symptoms are easy to spot. The tree asks us to notice the relationships we walk past every day.
The iceberg points us down - dig deeper for leverage. The tree reminds us that the canopy feeds the roots and the roots feed the canopy. What we pay attention to at the top seeps into the soil. And the soil shows up in the leaves.
A tree isn't something you fix. It's something you tend.
And I think most importantly includes the living world. Air, water and soil aren't a sustainability footnote. They're the conditions for growth.
Paying attention to the whole tree
Yes - we need to look below the surface. But we can't just focus on what's underground.
There's a lot that we have to learn to see - to read between the lines - to look at the negative space, the relationships between the things we know and the things we don't know.
The top changes the bottom. The bottom changes the top. All the time.
Questions for your next strategy day
If you're in a leadership role - whether in your own business, on a board, an executive team, a one-person show or an entrepreneur - try putting this on the table at your next strategic planning session:
What's right in front of us that we're not really seeing - above the ground & below it?
For you
What do you think you can see clearly right now - & what might you just be assuming?
When are you looking? What might you be missing at a different time of day, or a different season?
What beliefs are in your soil - & what are they growing?
For your team
What does our tree look like to someone else - a new hire, a customer, someone who's been here 20 years?
What's in our canopy that we walk past every day?
Where are our fungi - where does information really travel?
What are we pretending to know - & what would change if we got comfortable with not knowing?
For your business
Of everything we can see - the data, the stories, the context - what really matters? And what's just noise?
What signals are we sending to our communities - our consumers? And what are they sending back that we're not picking up?
How is what we do above the surface seep into the soil - & what's coming back up?
For the living system
What air, water & soil does our tree depend on?
What are we taking - & what are we giving back?
And always
Where is the human? That is always my first question.
Same system. Different place to stand.
I'm still playing with this one.
It's not about replacing the iceberg. It's about walking around to the other side of something and seeing what changes. It's the way Humanity Intelligence allows you to see the system transformation in everything you do. It's the way we approach culture in the Human Business Collaborative.
Today it's a tree. Tomorrow I might imagine it as something else.
What do you see when you look at a tree near you?
Love Yourself. Love the World.
Create Magic. Think Human.
