“How do things grow in nature? Do we drive them to grow? Do we say, ‘You must grow five inches a quarter or you’re out of here!’. No. Gardeners attend to the host of conditions that could prevent growth from occurring. They ensure that the seeds have adequate nutrients in the soil, ample water, a suitable temperature, and, once the plant starts to poke over the surface, sunlight and space to spread its leaves. We all know how to support growth, and yet we typically operate in exactly the opposite ways in our organizations. We try to force growth instead of creating the conditions for genuine growth and change“.
– Peter Senge, Author of “The Fifth Discipline : The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization
ONE TUSK 
“You prepare the soil, pick the right spot, then plant the Chinese Bamboo Tree. You water it and wait. But you wait an entire year and nothing appears. No bud, no twig, nothing. So you keep watering and protecting the area and taking care of the future plant, and you wait some more. You wait another year and nothing still happens. Okay, you are a persistent person not prone to giving up, so you keep on watering. You water, check the soil, start talking to the ground, maybe even click your heels in some kind of growing dance you read about in the National Geographic. Another year passes and still no sign of growth.
It has been three years. Should you give up? Someone told you that it might take a while to really see the fruits of your efforts, so you keep on keeping on. More water, more talk, more dancing. The neighbors are wondering. And another year passes. No tree.
You now make a decision. If there is no tree on this date one year from now you will stop watering. Period. So you begin year number five with the same passion as day number one. You water, you wait. You keep watering and keep waiting. You water some more and then, could it be? Is it really? Yep, there it is, something sticking out of the dirt. You come back the next day and WOW it has really grown! In fact you come back each day for about six weeks and finally the Chinese Bamboo tree stops growing—but it is over 80 feet tall! Yes, 80 feet in six weeks! Well, not really. It is 80 feet in five years.
The point is simple. If you had given up for even the shortest period of time, there would be no tree. It took almost impossible persistence. The Chinese Bamboo tree is there for one reason and one reason only—because you never gave up on it.”
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