In Your Element

FOUR ELEMENTS OF CONNECTION WITH THE EARTH: VISUALISATION NARRATION

(Adapted by CTF Nicki Davey from Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta and narrated by CTF Andrew Melville)

Hector describes how he fell in love with TetraMap many years ago - initially as a simple model for understanding difference and diversity. Through his long relationship with founders Jon and Yoshimi Brett, he explains how he continues to use TetraMap as a verb, and in all aspects of his life and work, as a powerful and flexible framework which can be applied in any human setting.

He shares personal and professional challenges projects, problems and opportunities - all of which have benefitted from the wisdom of nature and the lens of the Four Elements.

Dr Matthew Adams is a Principal Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Brighton, UK.

More of us than ever are stuck indoors, whether we are working at home, self-isolating, or socially distancing from other households. Long periods of isolation are already impacting many people’s mental health and will continue to do so.

On the other hand, people have reported discovering outdoor spaces on their doorstep as they are forced to stay local. Many say they have felt happier for doing so.

This reinforces the surge of research exploring the psychological benefits of connecting to nature that has developed in recent years. The idea is also growing that encouraging time in and engagement with nature has enormous potential in terms of mental health and wellbeing.

Constantly curious, Lorenzo Gilomee was Head of People Development at the mobile phone network O2 where he worked for over 5 years until recently. O2 are one of the UK's best known brands with a customer base of over 35 million consumers.

He was generous to acknowledge how TetraMap played a key role in the approach they took. He says "Learning is not done to people, it is done in partnership with people." This led the team to consider why learning is important and how they could build a learning culture on three key principles - Connect, Learn and Grow.

21 Whispers was born to build that very capability. Pete believes life whispers to us, and occasionally – it shouts. When it shouts, we tend to do something about it. He asks how can we use these challenging times to now only bounce back but to bounce forward? 

One of his favourite quotes is "What would stop if you weren't around". If the answer to this is nothing - then where is your legacy?

Liz has been working with one of Australia's largest organisations to prepare for 'The future of work' - including remote working and to support employee wellbeing. Remote working isn't new, but what is new is the scale, pace and impact of the change.

Liz says remote working can definitely work, it can and it does does, but a large part of success is down to the role of the leader.

At the heart of TetraMap and its success is the use of nature as a metaphor. Aristotle said to master and use metaphor was a sign of genius.

Metaphor is compelling and engaging to people of all types of intelligences, or as we start to define in a TetraMap way, people with preferences relating to different elements; earth, air, water and fire.

8 minutes

Jane Beddall is from Connecticut, USA. She is a lawyer with a focus on mediation and conflict resolution with a particular interest in family businesses.

She shares a workplace situation where a simmering tension arose and led to a need for workplace mediation. The "I am right and you are wrong" fixed mindset caused an escalation from something small into a much bigger problem. Ultimately her intervention allowed each party to hear the other's perspective and move forward.