Safe Refuge, Part II: What We Protect May Leave Something Behind

Apparently, word has gotten around.

My garden has become a safe refuge for wildlife.

I did not apply for this designation.

There was no inspection. No certification. No little sign appeared beside the raised beds announcing that accommodations were now available.

Nevertheless, after a bird decided my garden was a suitable place to shelter during a storm, another visitor made an even more consequential decision.

A mother rabbit built a nest for her babies in my garden.

Her babies.

Let me add one important piece of information.

I have two large dogs.

Two large dogs with high prey drives.

So, naturally, when I discovered that a mother rabbit had looked at all the available real estate in the neighborhood and selected my garden as the nursery for her children, I had questions.

Ma'am.

Did you conduct a risk assessment?

Because I live here, and I have concerns.

Safe Does Not Mean Risk-Free

My first thought was that she had made a questionable decision.

Then I started thinking about it differently.

Maybe she hadn't chosen a place without danger.

Maybe she had chosen a place where the conditions gave her young the best opportunity she could find.

Those aren't the same thing.

And that distinction matters far beyond the garden.

We sometimes talk about creating "safe environments" as though safety means removing every possibility of discomfort, disagreement, failure or risk.

That's rarely possible.

Certainly not in business.

And apparently not in my backyard.

A genuinely safe environment isn't necessarily one where risk doesn't exist.

Sometimes it is one where risks are recognized and responsibly managed.

That changed my responsibility the moment I discovered the nest.

Once You Know, You Have a Responsibility

Before I knew the nest existed, my dogs using the backyard was simply part of our normal routine.

Once I knew?

The situation changed.

The dogs hadn't changed.

The rabbits hadn't changed.

The garden hadn't changed.

My knowledge had changed.

And with knowledge came responsibility.

I could no longer behave as though I didn't know something vulnerable was there.

That meant paying attention.

Changing routines.

Watching where the dogs were going.

Protecting an area that previously hadn't needed protection.

And, perhaps most importantly for someone who has learned many gardening lessons through the irresistible urge to investigate things:

Not messing with the nest.

Because sometimes stewardship looks like action.

And sometimes stewardship looks like restraint.

Restraint Is Also a Decision

Gardening has repeatedly challenged my belief that noticing something means I need to do something.

See something unusual?

Investigate it.

Wonder what's happening underground?

Dig.

Want more information?

Dig some more.

I have learned this lesson the hard way:

Curiosity does not always justify intervention.

Sometimes you already have evidence that the system is working.

The mother rabbit knew where her babies were.

The babies were doing what baby rabbits apparently know to do.

My job wasn't to become the project manager of Rabbit Operations.

My job was to recognize what was working and avoid becoming the disruption.

There is a leadership lesson hiding in there.

Not Everything Needs Our Hands on It

Good leaders are often rewarded for action.

Solve the problem.

Remove the obstacle.

Make the decision.

Create the plan.

Intervene.

But leadership also requires knowing when not to intervene.

Sometimes the team is working through something productively.

Sometimes someone needs enough room to solve a problem without having the solution handed to them.

Sometimes a process looks unfamiliar because it isn't our process—not because it is failing.

And sometimes our desire for visibility can become interference.

There is a difference between paying attention and hovering.

There is a difference between providing protection and taking control.

There is a difference between asking, "Do you have what you need?" and deciding, "I'll take it from here."

The garden keeps reminding me of that distinction.

And Then There Was the Parsley

Eventually, the kits grew.

The little family moved on.

The protected area of the garden no longer needed protecting. My dogs could return to their regularly scheduled programming, and I could stop running backyard security for a family of rabbits who had contributed absolutely nothing toward the mortgage.

Or so I thought.

Because after the rabbits left, something happened.

My parsley grew.

Not just grew.

It grew in ABUNDANCE.

The timing made me smile.

Now, I can't tell you that the rabbits were responsible for my parsley suddenly flourishing. A garden has far too many variables for me to make that claim.

But I can tell you what I saw.

Something vulnerable came into my garden.

I changed my behavior to protect it.

I allowed it to exist without constantly interfering with it.

It grew.

It left.

And afterward, something else in that same space flourished.

I don't need to turn that into a scientific conclusion to appreciate the lesson.

Maybe the Return Isn't Always Direct

We tend to think about investment in transactional terms.

If I put something in, what do I get back?

If I give someone time, when will I see the result?

If we invest in developing people, how quickly will performance improve?

If I create space for someone else, what does that produce?

But ecosystems don't necessarily work that neatly.

Neither do people.

Sometimes what we protect doesn't repay us directly.

Sometimes the person we mentor eventually leaves.

Sometimes someone needs support during a difficult season and there is no measurable business outcome attached to helping them.

Sometimes we create an opportunity for someone who eventually takes everything they've learned somewhere else.

That can make investing in people feel like loss if we're only looking for a direct return.

But perhaps that's too narrow a way to measure what we've created.

Because healthy environments produce effects beyond a single relationship.

The thing you protected may leave.

The environment can still be richer because it was there.

Safety Is Something We Maintain

There were always two large dogs in this story.

I couldn't simply announce that my garden was a safe refuge and expect nature to honor the branding.

If I wanted that tiny corner of the garden to remain safe, I had to manage the very real risks within my control.

Workplaces aren't so different.

An organization can say people are safe to speak up.

A manager can say questions are welcome.

A team can say mistakes are opportunities to learn.

But those statements mean very little if the environment punishes the behavior it claims to welcome.

People watch what happens.

They notice whose ideas are dismissed.

They notice what happens when someone says, "I don't know."

They notice whether asking for help changes how they are perceived.

They notice what we actually protect.

Safety isn't created because we say the right things.

It is created through what we consistently do.

The Garden Keeps the Receipts

I don't know why that mother rabbit selected my garden.

I can't assign human reasoning to her decision.

But I know what her presence taught me.

Something vulnerable existed in an environment where danger was also present.

My responsibility wasn't to pretend the danger didn't exist.

It was to recognize it.

Manage what I could control.

Protect what needed protecting.

And leave alone what didn't need my interference.

Then, when the rabbits no longer needed the space, they left.

No ownership.

No expectation of repayment.

No demand that they demonstrate the ROI of my temporary rabbit-protection program.

They simply left.

And the garden kept growing.

The bird taught me that something will seek refuge where it feels safe enough to weather a storm.

The rabbits taught me that sometimes something will trust an environment enough to grow there.

And the parsley?

The parsley reminded me that the return on what we nurture doesn't always come from where we expect it.

Maybe that's the larger lesson the garden has been trying to teach me all along.

Create the conditions.

Protect what needs protecting.

Know when your intervention is necessary—and when it isn't.

Don't demand that every investment return something directly to you.

Sometimes, your responsibility is merely to steward the environment well enough for whatever belongs there to do what it already knows how to do.

And while you're waiting to see what grows?

Manage the dogs.

And let the system work.