You can be successful in your organization but still struggle with collaboration and alignment across departments. Many leaders face the challenge of getting teams to agree on priorities, especially when deadlines loom.

Ines Garcia is an organizational coach and the founder and CEO of GetAgile, dedicated to helping businesses deliver better value and reduce waste. Her new book, Nature’s Blueprint for Business: Harnessing the Hidden Power of Edges, explores how principles from nature can be applied to improve organizational effectiveness and collaboration.

In this episode, Ines shares insights on how to bridge the gap between inspiration and implementation by leveraging the properties of edges in natural systems. She discusses how these principles can help organizations navigate complex challenges and foster better teamwork.

What you will learn from this episode:

  • The significance of edges in organizational design and how they can enhance collaboration.
  • How to create triadic connections to improve information exchange and institutional knowledge.
  • Practical strategies for applying nature-inspired principles to overcome silos and enhance teamwork.

“Organizations should operate like ecosystems, but what does that actually mean when we are on a Monday morning, facing a deadline, and three departments can agree on priorities?”

– Ines Garcia

Topics Covered:

01:15 – The concept of edges and their importance in organizational dynamics. 

03:30 – How natural systems can inform better collaboration and decision-making. 

05:00 – The idea of triadic connections and how they can enhance information flow. 

07:20 – Bridging the gap between inspiration and implementation in business practices. 

09:45 – Real-world examples of applying nature-inspired principles in organizations. 

12:00 – The role of redundancy in fostering resilience and innovation. 

14:30 – Strategies for creating spaces of abundance and collaboration in the workplace. 

16:15 – The impact of organizational silos on performance and employee engagement. 

18:00 – How to cultivate a culture that embraces nature-inspired solutions.

Key Takeaways:

“Nature provides us with proven strategies that can help us solve our organizational challenges.” — Ines Garcia

“By focusing on the edges, we can create opportunities for collaboration and innovation.” — Ines Garcia

“Redundancy is not a negative; it can be a source of resilience and strength in our organizations.” — Ines Garcia

Ways to Connect with Ines Garcia:

Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown:

 

Full Episode Transcript:

(AI helped us put this together, so if you see any weird grammar or missed words—just know we nailed it during the actual chat.)

Ines Garcia

Biomimicry, as Janine Bennion says, is innovation inspired by nature. 

And it’s this idea of, especially grounded in the life principles, how can we tap in the 3.8 billions of existence of strategies of fine-tuning things for what our challenges at hand and ground our solutions on those proven strategies rather than from a blank canvas, which is this cognitive layout, but find what works.

Sarah E. Brown

Hello everyone. 

Welcome to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women, where we talk about challenges senior female leaders face in being happy and successful at work. 

I’m your host, Dr. Sarah E. Brown. 

My guest today is Ines Garcia. 

She’s an organizational coach and the founder and CEO at GetAgile, dedicated to helping businesses to deliver better value and reduce waste, focusing on impact. 

Her new book, which we’re going to be talking about today, is Nature’s Blueprint for Business, Harnessing the Hidden Power of Edges. 

She offers hands-on programs for agile project and product professionals. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. 

Ines Garcia

Thank you for having me, Sarah. 

Sarah E. Brown

So tell us a bit more about your day job. Who are you helping and to do what?

Ines Garcia

Aha, well, how long do we have? I’m saying this because I have quite a diverse portfolio. I also work at the edges from organizational and agile coaching to circular economy, regenerative plant design, biomimicry, embedding biomimicry in what we do, and biomimicry being innovation inspired by nature. 

We may be able to get a little bit into that, but in essence, I help organizations and teams and individuals to deliver better value, to reduce waste, waste as being waste of time, finance efforts, but also materials and energy, and to focus on what matters. 

Doing that was leaving the place better than how we found it. The place being the products, the people involved, but also the planet.

Sarah E. Brown

So what inspired you to look to nature for business solutions?

Ines Garcia

You know, sometimes the most profound realizations come not from seeking the answers, but sort of recognizing patterns you experience all along. 

And back in 2021, I found myself at this sort of intersection of circular economy, agile, organizational coaching where you know i spent years helping teams organizations sort of navigating change building resilience discovering new new ways of working and despite efforts and progress I keep encountering the same fundamental challenges like teams operating in silos, organizations sort of struggling to collaborate across different boundaries, leaders seeking ways to innovate and grow that is sustainable. 

And I knew that the answers were not going to come from the same all thinking the same framework, the same methods, we’ve been sort of trying to upcycle and recycle for decades. I needed to look somewhere. 

So what if we looked at the natural systems? How do those organize themselves? How ecosystems coordinate complex activities? 

How forest maintains resilience through disruptions? How coral reefs support incredible biodiversity in a very resource-limited environment?

Sarah E. Brown

And so give me an example about how you apply one or more of these principles when you’re working with a client.

Ines Garcia

Well, many. 

And I think one of the things I try to do is bring that simple rules that nature bring into context. So, for example, one of the things I’ve been working on recently with an organization is this idea of triadic connections. 

And like, even from research of how our capillary system work, you get this very efficient way when nodes encounter other three nodes. 

And so this idea of having efficient yet with a touch of redundant information exchange can bring institutional knowledge to a new high. So you can still operate them. Even, for example, ants go to investigate in three. 

So there are very simple rules that repeat across nature that we could be tapping onto. 

It doesn’t necessarily mean we call this often as transformations and revolution. It could just be an evolution of what we do.

Sarah E. Brown

So did I hear you correctly that ants go out and look for things in threes?

Ines Garcia

Yes.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. So how do I apply that in business?

Ines Garcia

So often you find that we have these modules, departments, things that are quite siloed and separated. 

So what if we could be creating an enhancement of our process that would always have intervention of at least three individuals or three different disciplines. 

So that’s something that doesn’t necessarily require a big structural change. And what I’m doing with this organization at the moment is finding spaces where these triadic connections can happen. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay.Alrighty. So why did you want to write a book about this?

Ines Garcia

Oh wow. So why the book? 

Well, this is not my first book and I find that knowledge without the application sort of serves no one and I could share maybe research insights of those individual coaching sessions or conference talk or maybe some of the workshops that I do but these approaches are sort of reaches us, they have a certain tipping point of a reach, right? 

Of that one session, one talk at the time, or this one podcast at the time. And for me, being my fifth book, the writing process in itself wasn’t really unfamiliar. 

What it felt different that I wanted to, to achieve was sort of a sense that knowledge needs to come from reaching people at that format that could be refer back, could return to, could be implemented in their own place, not just sort of theoretical understanding, but practical, actionable guidance grounded in both the natural principles and the real-world application. 

So, the book is designed for readers to roll their sleeves and being part of having an embodied experience. I think it takes knowledge to a new height. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. And who do you see as your target readers?

Ines Garcia

Well, the book takes shape around the central challenge of how do we move from that theoretical agreement to tangible action. 

And you get everybody nodding very enthusiastically when you explain that organizations should operate like ecosystems. 

But what does it actually mean when we are on a Monday morning, we are facing a deadline, and three departments can agree on priorities? 

So I structured the book deliberately to bridge the gap between that sort of inspiration and implementation, where we explore the specific properties of edges that can provide within the natural systems, and how those can translate into principles for our human organizations. 

But theory alone doesn’t cut it. 

So throughout the book, what I have practitioners and, and they have different roles and different industries where we can get inspired that they are actually evolving how they operate within their businesses with this principle. 

So not just hypothesis and scenarios, but it’s just real people doing real work. I think it’s very helpful to ground us into what could it look like whilst understanding our context is everything.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay, well say a little bit more about edges because edges is in the title of your book. 

What is an edge and how do you apply that concept? 

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Now, back to this informative episode.

Ines Garcia

Okay, so edges are the spaces, the spaces in between. 

So, like notice the edges in your organization, the overlooked spaces where the teams intersect, where different disciplines meet, where your organization maybe encounters external partners and communities like your whole value chain. 

And the book is an invitation to see these not as problems and things to be managed, but as opportunities and spaces to be cultivated. 

An invitation to look at the natural world for the answers, looking through the window. 

For example, if you stop mowing a corner in your garden, you very quickly will see how that becomes a space of abundance. 

The abundance of collection of materials. Therefore, it will be much more movement and interaction with, you know, if you stop mowing a corner in your house, you will see how quickly resources collect. 

Therefore, there is more exchange and therefore there is more abundance. 

So that is the message with edges. We tend to think of teams, departments, elements, and we missing out to see the connections and the spaces. 

Music is also the silence between the notes.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay, so you gave the example previously about silos in businesses, and I don’t know if that is one example, but I would like to hear you talk a little bit about an example of where a business misses something, but nature gets it right.

Ines Garcia

When nature gets it right…

Okay, so let’s think about this. Maybe to explain a little bit of the structures that we use today. 

So, organizations themselves don’t have real boundaries, right? They’re just artificial cognitive ones. It’s a creation by us humans to help us to make sense of the diverse reality we live in. 

And one of the repercussions of those sort of defined cognitive boundaries, like where the team starts and where it ends, is the notion of that separation between those parties, those elements. 

And on organizational design, we tend to focus on that team’s structure, on the elements, the components that forms a whole, which is really an imagined order. 

So what if then we focus in the connections? How could those be resilient? How could be regenerative by design? Because these artificial structures, they often look at splitting and competing for resources, right? 

Gaining terrain, gaining influence, office politics, anyone? 

Those are very linear, very compartmentalized structures that don’t really encourage exchange and flow. 

And I would imagine that your listeners are interested in innovation, breaking free from control and tapping into each other ideas. 

So how can you create those spaces of abundance? That’s what matters. What if someone from finance have interest to have input into a new pilot program? Do we have the structures and the fluidity for that to happen?

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. I got it. 

And how do you balance the time constraint to get all of these people involved in all of these projects?

Ines Garcia

Well, great, because time, that I mentioned before, it matters. 

And I think, especially from my Agile background, what we find often is that when we come with jargon and all this sort of top-down, let’s do this, let’s restructure, it creates a lot of tension. 

And so sometimes the best thing you can do is find where there is intention to try something new, creating most often an Agile bubble suddenly we’ll get a lot of attention. Why? 

You’re delivering in a way that is much more fluid. You are getting things done. There is a much better environment and more joy in the work that we do. Very quickly we’ll get synergies around. 

I want some of that. And I think similarly with things like this, you need to find where are the leverage points that you have, where is the interest and how can you tap into those early adopters maybe.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay, and when you do that, the time then becomes irrelevant? Is that the idea?

Ines Garcia

Not necessarily that the time becomes irrelevant, but it’s how can you reduce disruption and tap into the existing potential. You get more done when you’re having good time, or you get more done where the energy is. 

And I think if we understand our own chemistry and things like that, it can help you creating the spaces and reduce waste of other things. 

Sarah E. Brown

That makes sense.

Okay. I get that. Well, switching gears just a little bit, what’s your take on climate change? Is the planet dying?

Ines Garcia

Is it? Because the planet is a finite planet, it’s operating in an ever self-renewal as our body does over 365 days a year. 

And at its core, it has the life principles and the ethos of it creates conditions that are conducive to life. So the ones that are to come to terms into that potential thriving and abundance is us humans, one species. 

So we ought to address our own behavior and the repercussions of the very systems that sustain our life on Earth. 

So for me, the message is leaders reflect how can you be creating a process that is energizing. We were talking about that energy that degenerates those beneficial intersections and microclimates. 

How can the very structures that we put in place can be resilient to fluctuations like flow management, like a river, right? 

Our ability to form and reorganize connections in response to learning, to injury, to stress.

Sarah E. Brown

So would it be fair to say that there’s risk involved, but if we get conscientious, then the natural healing properties of the earth, the resilience properties of the earth could take over if we don’t get in the way?

Ines Garcia

Potentially, yeah. 

Life finds its way. And I also think that the future is not to be predicted or forecasted, but first is to be imagined so that can be created.

And that’s also taking our own cognitive layer of humility, of asking, how does nature solve this? Not everything has to come from a blank canvas. The strategies that work, our problems have already been solved. 

They are in the R&D 3.8 billion years of existence archive. We should be tapping into this. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay.All right. Before we wrap up, there’s one more term in your book I want to make sure we cover. 

Define biomimicry and how it applies in business.

Ines Garcia

Okay, so biomimicry, as Janine Bennion says, is innovation inspired by nature and is this idea of, especially grounded in the life principles, I will encourage people to go and have a look at them, but how can we tap in the 3.8 billions of existence of strategies of fine-tuning things for what our challenge is at hand.

And ground our solutions on those proven strategies rather than as we were just saying from a blank canvas which is this cognitive layout but find what works. 

At the end of the day we are governed by natural laws regardless if we are aware of it or not, if we like it or not. So we should be asking, how does nature solve this? This is a function. 

What is the function that we’re trying to solve? Creating community, flow of information. So those are the things that we should be asking and looking outside for the answers because they have been solved. 

The answers to our problems in the living beings around us, not in the fossils.

Sarah E. Brown

So in essence, it’s the core message of the book.

Ines Garcia

That’s it, especially focusing on this edge effect, right? 

Even if you imagine a pond, when you increase perimeter, when you increase that edge, even though the volume is the same, you’re creating the spaces of exchange, exchange of ideas, of resources, and how those could be tapped into our own organizations, break free from archaic structures like hierarchies or organizational charge. Those are from the 1800s. We haven’t evolved them. It’s really up to us and it’s time to take our own practice up a notch.

Sarah E. Brown

So, Ines, is there one question I should have asked you that I did not that will help our listeners understand how looking to nature can help solve business problems?

Ines Garcia

Well, we talked about the examples of the capillary system, the ants going at three. 

I think one item we tend to think quite negatively, it’s not really a question, but I’m getting there. 

In organizations, we tend to think of redundancy as a negative thing and redundancy have its own reason of existence, like nature creates resilience by mainly three things variation, decentralization, and redundancy. 

So there are moments and spaces of streamlined redundancy that can help us to operate better, like the triadic connections we were talking about earlier. 

Sarah E. Brown

Got it. Well, Ines, thank you so much for being with me today. 

And for those of you listening, I commend the book Nature’s Blueprint for Business, Harnessing the Hidden Power of Edges. 

Thanks for listening to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women. If you like what you are hearing, please go to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave a review. 

And if you would like more information on how we can help women in your organization to thrive, then go to www.sarahebrown.com. 

You can sign up for our newsletter, read show notes and learn more about our podcast guests, read my blog, browse through the books, or contact us for a chat. 

Goodbye for now.

Sarah E. Brown
Sarah E. Brown