This is going to be a long one.
What is Holistic Management?
Holistic management has its roots in the philosophy of holism. It is the holistic approach applied to management of systems.
Holistic management is a generalized decision-making framework developed by Allan Savory and Jody Butterfield. It can be applied to organizations, businesses, countries or even your own personal life. While this is true, it must be acknowledged that this framework was developed in the context of managing land (farmland, rangeland, wildlife preserves). Because of that, it is intimately connected to a number of land management practices that fall under the umbrella term, regenerative agriculture.
I sometimes use holistic management and regenerative agriculture interchangeably when describing my vision for the future. Holistic management is about making decisions. Regenerative agriculture is a set of tools that decision makers can deploy in their lives.
The Holistic Goal
The first step of creating a holistic goal is to define the whole to managed.
“Some people, for example, only loosely define the whole in terms of the land – a national park, a farm, a wilderness area, and so on – without mentioning the people who manage it or derive benefit from it. The fate of the land is so tied to the attitudes and beliefs of these people that only managing people and land together offers any hope of success.”
Holistic Management p. 60
The whole can be thought in terms of three parts.
- All of the decisions makers involved
- The resource base (all of the physical and human resources)
- Money
Once you have defined the “whole” to be managed you must form a holistic goal.
What we really needed was a goal that catered to immediate and long-term needs, human values, economies, and the environment.
Holistic Management p.67
The goal is structured in this way:
Statement of Purpose
Quality of Life
Forms of Production
Future Resource Base
Creating ownership.
My Holistic Goal
Statement of Purpose
Quality of Life
Forms of Production
Future Resource Base
Ecosystem Processes
- Water Cycle
- Mineral Cycle
- Community Dynamics
- Energy Flow
Tools