Cultura: Why the Laws of Biology Still Govern How We Grow People, Teams, and Cultures

I grew up in the reclaimed agricultural lands of the Netherlands. Windswept polders where every square meter of land exists because generations before us fought the water and refused to give up. Although I grew up in a trading family in a small village, many of my earliest memories are tied to the agricultural nature of the landscape. The rhythm of milking cows before school, the excitement and hope giving sound of a grain harvester late into the night, the earthy smell of freshly dug potatoes landing in the storage shed.

And even today, after decades of working with leaders in more than seventy countries, I look back with gratitude on those days. Something in me remembers the deep simplicity of those rhythms. On the farm you learn quickly that life responds to care, it refuses to grow under manipulation. You can force activity, but you cannot force fruitfulness.

A deep sense of life’s rhythms has stayed with me. And after more than 30 years in intercultural leadership, organizational behavior, and culture transformation, I’m more convinced than ever that human systems function just like biological systems.

What makes a field thrive also makes a team thrive. What kills soil also kills trust. And what produces a healthy harvest in nature produces sustainable performance in organizations.

At KnowledgeWorkx we call this the Whole Systems view of culture. It’s one of the hidden engines behind Intercultural Intelligence. Culture isn’t a slogan. It’s not a set of values hanging on the wall. Culture is a living ecosystem, the soil in which people grow or wither. And like biological ecosystems, human and organizational ecosystems have laws that you can’t violate!

Ironically, we didn’t need modern science to figure this out. The answer is hidden in the etymology (the original meaning) of the word culture itself.

Cultura: The Original Meaning We Forgot

The modern word “culture” comes from the Latin cultura, which originally meant to cultivate, care for, or make fruitful. It comes from colere, a verb used in three domains that Romans saw as deeply connected: cultivating land, cultivating the mind, and cultivating devotion.

To the Romans:

• agri colere meant to till and care for the soil

• animi cultura meant to educate and shape the mind

• deorum cultus meant to honor and revere the divine

The idea was always the same: life flourishes when it is tended, shaped, and cared for.

During the Middle Ages, the word kept its agricultural meaning, while the Renaissance emphasized the cultivation of the human spirit. By the 18th century it became the word used to point to the shared values, symbols, behaviors, and ways of life of a people.

But the root meaning never disappeared. Culture, cultura, is the art of stewarding life.

And that brings us back to biology. If culture is fundamentally about cultivating life, then we should expect human systems to be governed by the same laws that govern living systems. And that is exactly what we see.

In the last 25 years, across coaching conversations, transformation journeys, leadership teams, and multicultural environments, I kept seeing the same patterns surface again and again. They mirror the same principles I learned as a young agricultural student at the Agricultural University in The Netherlands.

Let’s unpack these patterns and call them the Seven Biological Laws of Culture.

1. The Law of Rhythmic Life (Cycles, Rest, and Renewal)

Every living thing moves in cycles. Seasons come and go. Soil regenerates after harvest. Plants grow, bear fruit, rest, and then renew. If you try to force growth without honoring cycles, nature pushes back.

On farms this is obvious. You cannot rip out a crop and immediately plant another without giving the soil space to recover. You must rotate crops, let fields rest, and allow the natural processes of regeneration to take place. Without that rhythm, the land weakens and the harvest diminishes year after year.

The same is true in teams. When organizations run nonstop, always pushing, always accelerating, always demanding “more,” they lose the very vitality they depend on. Creativity dries up. Relationships become transactional. Reflection disappears. People no longer think; they merely react.

A healthy culture honors rhythm. It creates space for reflection, meaning-making, celebration, and renewal. Without rhythm there is activity, but not fruitfulness.And fruitfulness is the point.

2. The Law of Fertile Soil (Environment Shapes Growth)

If you grew up in a farming community, you learn quickly that the growing environment is everything. In traditional agriculture that environment is the soil, alive with microbes, nutrients, and organic matter. But the same principle holds in hydroponics, aquaponics, vertical farms, and greenhouses: whether your medium is clay, coco coir, nutrient-rich water, or a fully controlled climate, the environment determines the health of whatever you cultivate. Technology changes, but the law does not.

Plants in depleted soil struggle just as lettuce grown in an imbalanced nutrient solution struggle. In aquaponics, one weak link in the fish–bacteria–plant loop affects the entire ecosystem. In vertical farms, the “soil” becomes light, airflow, humidity, and precision feeding. When the environment is right, growth becomes almost effortless. When it’s wrong, no amount of effort compensates.

Organizations work the same way. The “soil” of a team is its relational environment, trust, clarity, values, psychological safety. You can hire talented people and create smart strategies, but if the cultural soil is toxic or barren, people merely survive. When the environment is healthy, however, people learn, collaborate, and grow with far greater ease.

The medium may differ, but the truth remains: change the environment, and everything else responds.

3. The Law of Light and Nutrition (Truth, Energy, and Inspiration)

Every organism seeks light. Plants lean toward the sun because light is life. Without it a plant becomes pale, fragile, and unable to thrive. Soil alone is not enough; you need light, water, minerals, energy.

In teams, this “light” shows up as truth-telling, clarity, meaningful information, vision, purpose, and inspiration. People lean toward the sources that give them meaning. When leaders feed their systems with transparency, integrity, and a compelling sense of “why,” the culture becomes vibrant.

But when information is manipulated, when truth is hidden, when the purpose is unclear, when inspiration dries up, people lose their way. They may continue working but not growing. They begin to resemble those pale plants stretching for light that never comes.

Healthy cultures nourish people with clarity. They make sure the “light source” is trustworthy, accessible, and life-giving.

4. The Law of Diversity (Resilience Through Difference)

Nature despises monocultures. A field planted with only one crop is fragile: one pest, one disease, one climate shift, and everything collapses. Biodiversity creates resilience. Differences strengthen the ecosystem.

The same principle drives Intercultural Intelligence. In organizations, monocultures look like teams where everyone thinks the same, comes from the same background, or solves problems in the same way. These teams may appear efficient, but they are brittle. They struggle under complexity because they only have one way of seeing the world.

Diverse teams, when supported well, are far more resilient. They can adapt faster, innovate more effectively, and respond better to disruption. Diversity isn't just a social ideal; it’s a biological advantage. It is the source of long-term stability in any system.

Intercultural Agility teaches leaders to harness this diversity: to turn difference into a catalyst for growth rather than a source of tension.

5. The Law of Sowing and Reaping (Cause, Effect, and Time Lag)

Farming teaches the reality of time lag. You sow in one season and reap in another. You cannot cheat the process. You cannot harvest in spring what you neglected in autumn.

Teams often forget this. Leaders sometimes want immediate results from behaviors that take months or years to produce fruit. But culture works slowly and accumulatively. Every conversation plants a seed; trust or suspicion, clarity or confusion, empowerment, or control. These seeds eventually grow into habits, mental models, and expectations.

If we sow fear, we reap silence.If we sow clarity, we reap alignment.If we sow development, we reap capability.If we sow integrity, we reap trust.If we sow respect, we reap collaboration

Culture is the sum of seeds sown over time. There is no shortcut.

6. The Law of Symbiosis (Interdependence and Mutual Benefit)

Everything in nature is connected. Trees share nutrients underground through mycorrhizal networks. Bees pollinate orchards. Birds distribute seeds. Symbiosis isn’t an exception: it’s the rule.

Organizations that forget this end up with silos: departments protecting their own priorities instead of serving the ecosystem. But when people rediscover mutual dependence, when marketing, operations, HR, finance, and leadership see themselves as interconnected: the system becomes healthier and more resilient.

Intercultural Intelligence strengthens this law by helping people see the world through others’ eyes. When you understand how others perceive, value, and navigate the world, you collaborate differently. You create space for synergy rather than suspicion.

Symbiosis turns isolated contributors into a thriving interdependent ecosystem.

7. The Law of Boundaries (Limits that Protect Life)

Nature is full of boundaries. Too much water kills as surely as too little. Vines left unpruned spread wildly but bear little fruit. Rivers without banks become floods.

Organizations also need boundaries, clear expectations, consistent values, moral anchors, accountability structures, and defined roles. These boundaries don’t restrict growth; they protect it. They create the clarity that enables freedom. Without boundaries teams drift, lose focus, and ultimately lose trust.

Healthy cultures are courageous enough to say “no” when necessary because they understand that boundaries are a form of stewardship.

Returning to the Heart of Cultura

When we step back and look at these biological laws, we realize they are not agricultural principles; they are human principles. They govern families, teams, leadership, and nations. They govern every context where life is present.

And this is exactly why cultura matters.Because to cultivate culture is to cultivate life.

Leaders who understand this shift from managing people to gardening ecosystems. They pay attention to soil. They watch for light. They celebrate diversity. They prune wisely. They create rhythms. They sow intentionally. They protect what is fragile.

They become culture creators in the truest sense, with less engineering and more stewarding.

And when that happens, people flourish. Teams flourish. Organizations flourish.

That is the heart of Intercultural Intelligence.That is the essence of Whole Systems Thinking.And that is the forgotten meaning of cultura; rediscovered and alive again.

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Over the last 20 years, KnowledgeWorkx has developed solutions that are global, locally relevant, holistic, and practical. Our innovative approach delivers more accurate analysis, which results in integrated and more effective solutions. Our solutions create a progressive and natural connection between national, personal, team, and organizational culture.

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