Human Systems Stewardship: Growth & Evolution

*If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to read the first piece in this series, titled “The End of Human Resources” (← click here), as it lays the groundwork for what’s to come over the next few months. You can find Parts 2 & 3 of the series here ← and here ←.

Have you ever watched someone at work keep getting promoted and thought, "Really? That guy? Again?”

You know the type… great at the thing they were originally hired to do, but increasingly out of their depth with each promotion that followed.

Hello, Peter Principle (←).

For the unfamiliar, the Peter Principle is the idea that people get promoted until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent. The concept has endured for a reason; we've all seen it play out.

But what I find more interesting, and what I want to explore, is what happens before people reach that point. What would it look like to build systems that continuously develop capability so that people, teams, and organizations can keep growing as complexity increases?

The capabilities that create success at one stage of a career, team, or organization are rarely sufficient over time. As complexity increases, new forms of judgment, adaptability, perspective, and leadership become necessary. Competence is the starting point for the next stage of growth, but it is not the finish line.

I’ve been part of countless talent reviews, calibration meetings, succession-planning discussions, and promotion conversations throughout my career. Many of them are little more than educated guesswork.

You can have your frameworks and matrices and boxes and grids, but the problem is that many of these tools assume evidence of growth. The number of times I’ve heard, “They’ve been here for a few years now, they’re due for a promotion,” is alarming. It’s like giving Leo the Oscar for The Revenant.

Growth isn’t the same thing as performance. It’s not the same thing as knowledge. Growth isn’t even the same thing as experience.

Someone can have 20 years of experience that’s really just one year of experience repeated twenty times. 20 years may have passed, but they might still carry the same blind spots, reactions, ways of thinking. And yet we spend huge amounts of time evaluating performance and remarkably little time truly understanding development.

Growth & Evolution is the third system within Human Systems Stewardship because the future will always demand capabilities the organization doesn't yet possess. The knowledge, assumptions, and ways of operating that created success yesterday are rarely enough to navigate what comes next.

This is not about an accumulation of knowledge, but about increasing ability to navigate complexity, integrate feedback, challenge assumptions, adapt to changing conditions, and expand contribution to the system. Essentially, this system governs how individuals, teams, and organizations evolve over time.

It also shapes how people grow through changing roles, increasing responsibility, new experiences, and evolving contributions throughout their careers.

Organizations can claim they value learning, but, in my opinion, most actually reward certainty. The people who tend to advance are often those who appear confident, knowledgeable, decisive, and self-assured. Over time, employees learn that having answers is safer than asking questions, and that projecting competence is often more valuable than developing it. (One of my biggest pet peeves is the term “Fake it ‘til you make it.” I despise it. “Hone it ’til you own it” is significantly more meaningful and sustainable. Real growth doesn't come from performing at an expertise level you haven't developed yet. It comes from building capability through practice, feedback, reflection, and experience, until confidence is grounded in something authentic. Learning isn't about looking capable. It's about becoming capable.)

The problem is that learning requires many of the very behaviours organizations inadvertently discourage. Learning requires admitting you don't know. It requires questioning assumptions, making mistakes, changing your mind, asking for help, and occasionally being wrong in public. Every one of those actions involves some degree of vulnerability. When vulnerability is punished, even subtly, people stop taking the risks required for growth. They protect what they know instead of expanding it. You can’t create a culture that penalizes uncertainty and expect learning to thrive within it.

The Growth & Evolution System

Think of this as the system responsible for how knowledge, experience, capability, and adaptation move through an organization.

Growth & Evolution determines:

• whether feedback creates learning moments or is weaponized

• whether mistakes can become insight

• whether expertise is shared or hoarded

• whether people can evolve beyond their current role

• whether growth is limited to just promotions/becoming a people manager

• whether people can develop through lateral experiences

• whether the organization can evolve beyond what made it successful

• whether the organization can adapt when conditions change

At its core, this system asks:

Can people, teams, and organizations increase capability in a meaningful way over time?

Capability is the practical outcome of development. It shows up in judgment, adaptability, decision-making, problem-solving, leadership, and the ability to navigate situations that don't have obvious answers. Learning contributes to capability, but the two are not synonymous. The goal of this system is not simply to help people know more, but to help people, teams, and organizations become more capable over time.

The clearest evidence of development is not accumulated knowledge, but an expanded capacity to think, decide, adapt, and contribute. A person who has developed can navigate complexity that once overwhelmed them, exercise judgment they didn't previously possess, integrate feedback more effectively, and contribute in ways that weren't available to them before.

The dominant approach to growth in organizations is built on a simple premise: if we provide enough information, development will occur. So companies invest in courses, certifications, conferences, learning platforms, development plans, and leadership programs, then hand responsibility for all of it to HR and/or L&D while expecting managers to somehow develop people in the margins between operational demands. Learning becomes something delivered rather than something cultivated.

Growth is not a program, a workshop, or a competency framework. It’s not something that can be downloaded into people and tracked through completion rates. Growth is a system, and like every system we’ve discussed so far, it reveals itself through behaviour. What happens at an organization when someone says “I don’t know,” “I made a mistake,” “I’ve changed my mind,” or “I think we’ve been doing this wrong”

Experience can be important, but it only becomes development when accompanied by reflection, feedback, adaptation, and practice. Otherwise, experience is just the passage of time.

When Growth & Evolution functions well, something very exciting happens. Knowledge circulates, feedback becomes useful, mistakes generate insight. People continue developing long after they have become competent. Teams become more adaptive. Organizations become more capable of responding to complexity, uncertainty, and change. Most importantly, capability becomes something the system continuously produces rather than something individuals are expected to develop on their own. The clearest evidence of organizational development is that learning, judgment, and capability no longer depend on specific individuals…they become properties of the system.

In practice

When Growth & Evolution functions well, it shows up structurally as:

• reflection dialogues instead of purely evaluative performance reviews

• mentorship networks instead of isolated manager development

• peer learning communities

• development pathways tied to contribution, not just hierarchy

• role evolution pathways that support growth beyond promotion

• internal mobility opportunities that encourage learning across functions

• stretch assignments designed to build capability before formal advancement

• coaching practices embedded into leadership expectations

• organizational retrospectives following successes and failures

• skill mobility across teams and functions

• opportunities for experimentation without disproportionate penalty

These mechanisms determine whether knowledge lives and dies with individuals or becomes available to the system as a whole. They determine whether organizations repeat mistakes or learn from them, whether capability accumulates over time, and ultimately whether adaptation is possible.

Once you start viewing development as a system rather than a collection of programs, many familiar HR activities start looking very different. Performance management, leadership development, succession planning, onboarding, coaching, mentoring, learning and development, career pathing, internal mobility, and promotions all live within this system. Under Human Systems Stewardship, however, they’re no longer viewed primarily as administrative processes to be managed or as programs to be delivered. They become mechanisms through which people, teams, and organizations develop capability.

Promotions, succession planning, career progression, etc. still matter, but the difference is that advancement is no longer treated as the primary indicator of growth. A promotion may reflect development, but it doesn’t define it.

Development is often framed as a ladder, with each rung representing a new title, a bigger team, or greater authority/scope, but capability rarely develops in a straight line. It grows more like the rings of a tree, expanding outward through experience, reflection, challenge, and learning. Some of the most significant growth a person experiences may never result in a promotion, but it fundamentally changes what they’re capable of contributing.

When organizations reduce growth to promotion, they create a system where advancement becomes the only visible evidence of progress. When Growth & Evolution functions well, people have multiple pathways through which to learn, contribute, and increase their capacity over time. Growth becomes bigger than hierarchy, and development becomes something far richer than climbing a ladder.

The Literacies Required to Steward This System

Growth becomes limited when our understanding of growth becomes limited. If we're trying to understand how people, teams, and organizations learn, adapt, and evolve, then we need to widen the range of voices informing that understanding. Different experiences reveal different aspects of development, and some of the most important insights come from people who have spent their lives navigating change, complexity, exclusion, disruption, and transformation.

(Please note that some recommendations are repeats…there’s a lot of great, multi-contextual information available).

1. Complexity Thinking

Complexity thinking is the ability to operate in environments where cause and effect are not immediately obvious and where no single person possesses the complete answer.

Recommended Reading:

Peter Senge: The Fifth Discipline ← click here

A foundational exploration of learning organizations and systems thinking. Particularly useful for understanding how individual learning and organizational learning influence one another.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. organizations learn through systems, not individuals alone

  2. Feedback loops shape behaviour over time

  3. Long-term adaptation requires seeing relationships, not isolated events

Leroy Little Bear: Various works ← click here

An excellent resource for understanding Indigenous perspectives on complexity, multiple realities, and interconnected systems.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Reality is relational rather than separate and fixed

  2. Complexity is a natural condition, not a problem to eliminate

  3. Different ways of knowing can coexist without requiring consensus

2. Adaptive learning

Adaptive learning is the ability to continuously update our thinking when new information emerges, instead of defending or doubling down on what we already believe or believe we know.

Michelle MiJung Kim: The Wake Up ← click here

A necessary examination of growth as an ongoing practice of self-awareness, accountability, and adaptation. Helpful for understanding why learning often requires discomfort, reflection, and a willingness to challenge previously held assumptions.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Growth often begins with awareness of what we can’t yet see

  2. Accountability can be developmental rather than punitive

  3. Learning requires a willingness to challenge existing beliefs

adrienne maree brown: Emergent Strategy ← click here

Good for understanding adaptation, emergence, experimentation, and how complex systems change over time.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Small actions can create large-scale change

  2. Adaptation is often more effective than rigid planning

  3. Learning emerges through experimentation and reflection

bell hooks: Teaching to Transgress ← click here

Good for understanding learning as transformation rather than information transfer.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Learning can be liberatory rather than transactional

  2. Curiosity and critical thinking strengthen growth

  3. Education should expand possibility, not simply transfer knowledge

3. Learning System Design

Learning isn’t automatic; it must be intentionally supported through structures, reflection, dialogue, and opportunities for practice.

Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed ← click here

An examination of learning as participation, dialogue, and transformation, not passive information transfer.

• Key Takeaways from this work:

  1. Learning is participatory, not passive

  2. Dialogue creates transformation

  3. Critical reflection is necessary for meaningful change

Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass ← click here

Such a great resource for understanding reciprocity, relationship, and alternative ways of knowing and learning.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Knowledge emerges through relationship

  2. Reciprocity strengthens learning and stewardship

  3. Attention and curiosity are practices, not traits

Shawn Wilson: Research Is Ceremony ← click here

Necessary for understanding relational accountability and Indigenous approaches to knowledge creation.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Knowledge carries responsibility

  2. Learning occurs within relationships, not outside them

  3. Accountability extends beyond outcomes to how knowledge is created

4. Regenerative Development

Growth is not simply about improvement; it’s also about increasing the capability of people, organizations, and systems over time.

Carol Sanford: The Regenerative Business ← click here

A fundamentally different approach to development that focuses on increasing capability instead of maximizing performance.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Development should increase systemic capability.

  2. Growth is more than scale, efficiency, or productivity

  3. healthy systems continuously evolve and regenerate

Mia Birdsong: How We Show Up ← click here

Understanding human potential, community capacity, and the conditions that help people thrive.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Human development happens in relationship with others

  2. Communities often possess untapped capability and wisdom

  3. Flourishing requires conditions that support contribution and growth

5. Complexity and Emergence

Organizations are living systems. They don’t change through control alone; they evolve through adaptation, relationships, and emergence.

Margaret Wheatley: Leadership and the New Science ← click here

A compelling exploration of complexity, adaptation, emergence, and organizational change.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Order can emerge without centralized control

  2. Adaptability is often more valuable than predictability

  3. Organizations function more like living systems than machines.

Mary Uhl-Bien: Complexity Leadership ← click here

An excellent resource for understanding how leadership supports adaptation, learning, and emergence within complex systems.

• Key Takeaways From This Work:

  1. Leadership can enable rather than direct change

  2. Innovation often emerges through networks and relationships

  3. Adaptability increases when authority and learning are distributed

What This System Requires of Organizations

Growth & Evolution means so much more than offering more training; it can’t depend entirely on individual motivation, annual development plans, or a manager who just read “Radical Candor”.

If the system only develops people when the right leader is in place, the system does not actually develop people. The organization itself must become capable of learning.

That requires intentionally building:

• reflection capability

• feedback capability

• coaching capability

• experimentation capability

• adaptive capability

• learning capability

What would it look like to build organizations where curiosity is valued as much as competence? Start paying attention to what happens when people admit they don’t know, make mistakes, change their minds, ask for help, or challenge assumptions. The willingness to reconsider what we think we know is one of the clearest indicators of growing capability.

If you want to join this discussion, please reach out to me; I’d love to collaborate!