I recently had the opportunity to do some extended work with a European company and my discussion of the need to be true to its roots hit a nerve. The executives fully recognized how crucial that was — in fact, honoring the heritage of the company was something constantly on their minds and at the table when making strategic decisions.
One issue, however, was hard for them to get their arms around: the multinational nature of the company. While it had clear and strong roots in the small town in which it was founded (and in which I was presenting), it now operated around the world, with a global retail presence and withs its goods in homes virtually everywhere, plus significant operational units in numerous countries (which I could tell by the accents in the room). How could they be true to each and every place?
Then an analogy hit me: the Quaking Aspen. This tree, quite widespread in the northern US and Canada, is known for two things: how its leaves tremble or quake (hence the name) in the slightest of breezes, and that it forms “clonal colonies“. This means that one ancestral tree sends out roots into the ground that shoot up elsewhere into what looks like a new tree, but is really part of the same colony. This process can repeat itself quite extensively; indeed, one such colony, dubbed Pando, spreads itself across 107 acres in Utah, and at over 6600 tons is the largest living organism in the world.
So I encouraged the executives of this company to have this image in mind when it thought about staying true to its roots — all of its roots, wherever they happen to pop up in the world, with the ancestral home still at the core. Then they can collectively grow to be the largest living organism in their industry.
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