Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist and one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, even calls it "the healing symbol", due to the metaphor's ability to provide us with images, which can transform unconscious patterns into forms assimilated and understood by our conscious mind. According to him, metaphor affects the human being at three levels: the mental, in which we interpret the meaning; the imaginative, where the transforming power is found; and the emotional, where we connect to the feelings embodied in the metaphor (Woodman, 1993).
The Adam’s Choice executive learning experience is structurally different from anything that has been offered in terms of executive training programs at our School. Its methodological approach takes the participant as a unique human being from a holistic viewpoint, whose learning happens at all levels of ones’ existence: body, mind and spirit. And that is why we don’t talk about a course, but about a journey, we don’t talk about classes, but about experiences and we don’t talk about teachers, but about experience designers. That is also why we don’t limit ourselves to a campus and, instead, look at the world as a big classroom with unlimited potential.
In order to better understand the richness and depth of the Adam's Choice executive learning experience, I invite you to look at what, for me, is my greatest source of inspiration: nature. We chose the apple tree as a metaphor for the participant, not only because it originated Adam's apple, which gives name to this project, but also for its beautiful and amazingly brilliant growth process, it being considered one of the most flexible and resilient trees in the world, due to its ability to adapt to the most adverse climatic conditions, ranging from the cold of Canada (bearing fruits even at temperatures below 30°C) to the tropical climate of Africa. And these are exactly the characteristics that make the apple one of the most consumed fruits in the world and the apple tree one of the oldest known trees. Charles Darwin once said:
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. Undoubtedly, something extremely necessary today, more than ever.
Thus, throughout the Adam's Choice journey, the participant will grow like an apple tree, going first through pruning, then through pollination, later on through the transformation of the flower into fruit and, finally, through the ripening of the fruit and subsequent harvest. And it is through this journey that the participant is challenged to create his or her own choices methodology, as we have called it, Choosenology, which should reflect one’s individuality and path to deep self-knowledge.
Pruning is a horticultural and silvicultural practice that involves the selective removal of certain parts of a plant, in the case of an apple tree, the branches, recognizing and defining those with the greatest potential for growth and sustainability. A pruned apple tree will gain structure and shape, grow healthier, and generate higher quality fruit.
In this first stage of the program - Define Your Path - it is time to define the participant's journey, to understand who one truly is, to evaluate how one balances each of the six human dimensions (physical, social, emotional, intellectual, spiritual and occupational) and to define those that need a greater focus and investment at this point in one’s life. I try to let go of what weighs me down, to flourish more vigorously.
Pollination is the transfer of pollen grains from the pollinating apple trees’ flowers (male) to the carrier apple trees’ flowers (female), subsequently allowing fertilization and the production of seeds. This act of transferring is done, almost always, by bees.
Like the apple tree, we human beings, also need an entire ecosystem to develop and empower our transformation. In this stage of the program - Nurture Your Soul - we provide this nurturing space, a space for sharing, inspiration, and development, through initiatives that serve both one’s individual and group journey. These are initiatives that follow an evolutionary process and that are interconnected: from a more individual perspective, there is peer mentoring (in which the participant is both a mentor and a mentee) and access to personalized content, and from a group journey perspective, being part of a small co-learning tribe with 5 to 6 elements, with access to exclusive, unique and original masterclasses.
Only pollinated flowers bear fruit. And it is after pollination that fertilization occurs, which gives birth to the seeds that will turn into an apple, causing the flower petals to fall. This transformation takes place from the inside out, just like the third stage of the program - Immerse Yourself. In this stage, the participant's mental state will be fully absorbed and involved by the immersive experience, which allows an alienation from the outside, releasing from the day-to-day limiting anchors and established beliefs and dogmas, to become a “blank piece of paper”, ready to learn. Through this powerful holistic experience, the potential to create new mental models, that enable structural transformation in one’s life, is created.
The harvest of the apple fruit should only be done after it reaches an adequate state of maturity, so it presents high standards of sensory quality. For the harvest, apples “must be ripe (and not ripened) and, therefore, firm, crunchy, very colorful and aromatic”. Without proper ripening, apples will have poor taste quality and will be more susceptible to the appearance of physiological disorders during the storage phase (Público, 2013).
As is the case with the apple tree, participants will also go through a growing and maturation stage, the period during which one will incorporate learnings through reflection, the development of self-awareness and the exploration of one’s new mental models and subsequent application in one’s life, having developed resilience and now being prepared to achieve Choosenology. The fourth and final stage of the program - Take Action - is critical as it prepares the participant to “harvest the fruits” of this whole development process, apples with the potential to generate new entire ecosystems.
Who doesn't want to grow like an apple tree? And, what impact can the harvesting of each of its employees have on an organization?