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On leadership…

OK, it’s January, so in the UK all is dark, cold and grim. Actually, as I reluctantly survey the morning’s news, most of the planet feels dark, cold and grim, regardless of season. Maybe that’s just my mood: January Blues. 

But as an increasingly belligerent world flexes its muscles I’m thinking about what it can teach us about what we (and here I’m talking about Felton Road) should learn from our changing world, especially with regard to leadership. 

The last decade or so has seen a fundamental reappraisal of what a human body is. Traditionally, we have each been viewed as a unique single specimen, a complex swirl of biochemistry that creates an incredible mix of physical skill and intellect. Now, it appears that we are a colony of countless billions of creatures, all bound upon a journey inside this thing we call a body. Not long ago, anything else living in or on ‘us’ was regarded as a parasite, maybe it could be ignored, but better to kill it to be on the safe side. Now it is understood we can’t survive without our population; it feeds us, protects us from disease, plays a part in almost all our daily needs, and if we are to prosper, we need to nurture our horde of fellow passengers; if we nurture them, they will do the same back. But should we be a kingdom, or a democracy?

Nature has a way of repeating itself fractally at wildly different scales. At the big end we are still learning how complex and fundamental our global ecosystem is, how little we understand how to work with it, but how vital it is that we do. I have no authority at a global level, my personal remit mostly covers those hectares that we ‘manage’ (now, there’s a dangerous word!). 

We still have only the most meagre understanding of what our ecosystem is and how we can help, or at least stay out of the way. Like all administrators, we are most focussed on threats, and we have only slowly learned that dictatorship and powerful weapons rarely give the results we seek and, even less, the results we need. But, at least we hope our thoughts are headed the right way: be curious, always seek to know more, don’t jump to conclusions and, maybe our most important discovery: be very careful what you kill, you may be opening the way to something much worse. 

Just as with our land, so it is with our wine. Wine is a colony. Like all fermented foods we use a population of other creatures to do our work for us. Just as with farming, winemaking has steadily moved away from the idea of killing the must, then adding artificially bred creatures to do the job ‘better’. It has increasingly leaned towards understanding that the natural microbiome of our winery and our fruit has all we need and much that we cannot find from a laboratory product. There is a parallel here; of moving from an army of identical robot stormtroopers, all obeying our command, to the more chaotic but far more rewarding vision of benign democracy. Like all administrations, there will be unruly and occasionally dangerous subjects and we need to manage them and curb their excesses. But even the troublemakers can have a place in complexity, as long as they don’t run riot. Importantly, our sorts of wines are not simply alive when fermenting, but have a small ongoing population of microlife, even after reaching the bottle, being unfined and unfiltered. We have to relinquish absolute control and replace it with watchfulness. We don’t want wines turning feral once in the hands of our customers, but killing them is too high a price to pay for security.

You will have noticed that a great deal of what I have been writing is something of a parable for the geopolitical situation we see around us. From a global colony, to a local, to our wine, then finally to the colony that is yourself, we are a ‘Russian Doll’ of communities that all need the same sort of nurture. At each scale, these colonies need wise and benign leadership. We don’t fully understand any of them, so curiosity is of the greatest importance. I am reminded of the words of Betrand Russell: “One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

Our real enemies aren’t political, they are the false dogmas of certainty. Embracing our need to learn, to collaborate, and to embrace our curiosity, are the best way to achieve most of our goals.

Nigel

Winemaker's comment
Nigel's musings
Blair Walter
Nigel Greening
Winemaker's Comment
Nigel's Musings

On leadership…

OK, it’s January, so in the UK all is dark, cold and grim. Actually, as I reluctantly survey the morning’s news, most of the planet feels dark, cold and grim, regardless of season. Maybe that’s just my mood: January Blues. 

But as an increasingly belligerent world flexes its muscles I’m thinking about what it can teach us about what we (and here I’m talking about Felton Road) should learn from our changing world, especially with regard to leadership. 

The last decade or so has seen a fundamental reappraisal of what a human body is. Traditionally, we have each been viewed as a unique single specimen, a complex swirl of biochemistry that creates an incredible mix of physical skill and intellect. Now, it appears that we are a colony of countless billions of creatures, all bound upon a journey inside this thing we call a body. Not long ago, anything else living in or on ‘us’ was regarded as a parasite, maybe it could be ignored, but better to kill it to be on the safe side. Now it is understood we can’t survive without our population; it feeds us, protects us from disease, plays a part in almost all our daily needs, and if we are to prosper, we need to nurture our horde of fellow passengers; if we nurture them, they will do the same back. But should we be a kingdom, or a democracy?

Nature has a way of repeating itself fractally at wildly different scales. At the big end we are still learning how complex and fundamental our global ecosystem is, how little we understand how to work with it, but how vital it is that we do. I have no authority at a global level, my personal remit mostly covers those hectares that we ‘manage’ (now, there’s a dangerous word!). 

We still have only the most meagre understanding of what our ecosystem is and how we can help, or at least stay out of the way. Like all administrators, we are most focussed on threats, and we have only slowly learned that dictatorship and powerful weapons rarely give the results we seek and, even less, the results we need. But, at least we hope our thoughts are headed the right way: be curious, always seek to know more, don’t jump to conclusions and, maybe our most important discovery: be very careful what you kill, you may be opening the way to something much worse. 

Just as with our land, so it is with our wine. Wine is a colony. Like all fermented foods we use a population of other creatures to do our work for us. Just as with farming, winemaking has steadily moved away from the idea of killing the must, then adding artificially bred creatures to do the job ‘better’. It has increasingly leaned towards understanding that the natural microbiome of our winery and our fruit has all we need and much that we cannot find from a laboratory product. There is a parallel here; of moving from an army of identical robot stormtroopers, all obeying our command, to the more chaotic but far more rewarding vision of benign democracy. Like all administrations, there will be unruly and occasionally dangerous subjects and we need to manage them and curb their excesses. But even the troublemakers can have a place in complexity, as long as they don’t run riot. Importantly, our sorts of wines are not simply alive when fermenting, but have a small ongoing population of microlife, even after reaching the bottle, being unfined and unfiltered. We have to relinquish absolute control and replace it with watchfulness. We don’t want wines turning feral once in the hands of our customers, but killing them is too high a price to pay for security.

You will have noticed that a great deal of what I have been writing is something of a parable for the geopolitical situation we see around us. From a global colony, to a local, to our wine, then finally to the colony that is yourself, we are a ‘Russian Doll’ of communities that all need the same sort of nurture. At each scale, these colonies need wise and benign leadership. We don’t fully understand any of them, so curiosity is of the greatest importance. I am reminded of the words of Betrand Russell: “One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

Our real enemies aren’t political, they are the false dogmas of certainty. Embracing our need to learn, to collaborate, and to embrace our curiosity, are the best way to achieve most of our goals.

Nigel