Every company says that people are its greatest resource and sadly it's true-human resources are being exhausted and polluted as the as the environment. The Natural Advantage uses the evocative lessons of organic farming to show how individuals and organizations can achieve results whilst sustaining, not depleting potential.

The Natural Advantage addresses both the roots and fruits of personal sustainability, and shows how each of the seven interrelated and interdependent principles of organic growth has a perfect analogy to the world of work. For example, the organic approach starts by feeding the soil from which output grows naturally and sustainably. At work this means drawing energy from clean sources, like appreciation and inspiration, not from polluting pressures such as stress and fear. It means composting our problems so that waste becomes a major source of future growth – turning our negative feelings into constructive output.

Few of us would want to return to Eden without our house and car, so this book does not advocate a ‘downshifting', ‘back to nature' approach. What we need to do is forward to nature. From natual cycles of growth to achieving real quality, Alan Heeks lays out the organic way to win the work-life balance.

 

Alan Heeks is the founder-trustee of the Wessex Foundation, an educational charity and 132-acre organic farm, set on the Somerset/Dorset borders. After gaining an MBA from the Harvard Business School , he became a founder-investor in Caradon plc, which decame a UK Top100 company. He is a noted expert in sustaining high performance at work and the clients of his consultancy Working Vision include 3M , Mercury, Glaxo and Bp as well as small businesses and the prblic sector. He lives near Salisbury in the South of England where he enjoys owning a wood.