Lyrebirds

I hear them most days, in the hills around our house. First you think it's just a kookaburra, but it isn't. Then a magpie, no. Next a black cockatoo. But none of these. What I'm hearing is the lyrebird — nature's greatest mimic.

Despite having its own song, it tends to mimic what it's hearing around it, whether it's a bird, the sound of a chainsaw or a squeaky door.

In organisations, the lyrebird is everywhere.

It's the team that repeats the strategy buzzwords perfectly. It's the leader who says what the room wants to hear — and does it in every room.

The words are hollow. Not owned or lived.

When an organisation runs on mimicry, the true voice fades. Not by force but by habit. The original song is too risky, too messy, too honest.

So it's not what gets said but what stops being said. The question no one asks. The doubt that gets swallowed. That's often where you find the reason things are stuck.

So the forest fills up with perfect copies, none of them real.

The lyrebird doesn't mind. It just does its thing. But organisations are made of people — and every voice unexpressed dims something in the person and the place.