GREENHOUSE OR GROVE? ERIN BARNES A HUMAN EDGE NAMED SUNSHINE COAST BUSINESS WOMENS NETWORK MICRO/SMALL BUSINESS WOMAN OF THE YEAR
On Friday 21 August 2026, A Human Edge founder Erin Barnes was named Micro/Small Business Woman of the Year at the Sunshine Coast Business Women's Network Awards. The category was sponsored by the University of the Sunshine Coast.
It is a proud moment for A Human Edge and for the founders and teams who have trusted us inside their businesses. In accepting the award, Erin asked a question that sits at the centre of our work:
Are we creating the conditions for a greenhouse, or a grove?
Her speech is shared in full below, followed by why it matters to how we work.
ERIN BARNES' ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
In the 1990s, scientists sealed three acres of Arizona desert into a self-contained world called Biosphere 2. Every condition engineered to be perfect. No droughts, no frost, no wind.
The trees grew faster than anything in the wild, then one by one, they fell. Comfort made them grow faster, but it hadn't taught them to stand strong over time.
In contrast, a redwood grove faces exactly what Biosphere 2 removed: challenge, and the subsequent need for adaptation. Every tree in it, exposed to uncertain and challenging conditions for centuries, which is exactly why a grove can stand two hundred feet tall. Roots spread fifty feet wide, fused with every neighbour's roots, so when a storm hits one tree, it holds strong, and so does the grove.
And so, I'm wondering. Right now, in our country, workplaces, communities and homes, are we trying to create the conditions for a greenhouse, or a grove?
Because despite better and more supportive conditions than ever, mental and physical health are still declining.
Capability, going unused, with underemployment and underutilisation touching close to a million and a half people who have more to contribute. Engagement, dropping, along with volunteering and charitable giving. Compliance keeps rising to make things safer. And yet, blame is rising with it, while accountability is heading in the opposite direction. Productivity is falling too. And this generation is the first in years to lose hope that the future will be better than the past.
This is a tree fed everything except the one thing that makes it strong: the conditions for adaptation.
Without challenge, purpose atrophies, and when purpose drains away, adaptation and human potential go with it.
In my twenty-six years working in behavioural science, human potential and commercial scale, I've never seen our sense of personal agency more fragile. This is what we're working on at A Human Edge. Embedded inside founder-led and scaling businesses with a people operations approach built for this era. One designed to build the systems, tool sets, mindsets, skillsets and behaviours to strengthen human AND workplace productivity, capability, agency and sustainability, in parallel. To help them stand strong.
I want to thank all of you in this room. You're the outliers. You're proof of what's possible when people choose challenge over comfort.
Together, I hope we can live and lead this upward rising of agency and purpose, one that isn't grounded in the commercialisation of this problem, but that brings back the fundamentals of what makes humans strong.
Rather than shielding people and manufacturing comfort, let's create the conditions for people to build their own agency.
I want to thank Michelle Hamer, Naomi Elliott and Min Swan for nominating me and for being women who create those conditions for agency. I respect you all enormously. Thank you to the Sunshine Coast Business Women's Network, for creating strong collective roots and celebrating courage. Renee and Judges, thanks for enabling an experience that makes us stop and reflect on what we're building, and why. Thank you to the University of the Sunshine Coast for sponsoring Micro/Small Business Woman of the Year. You understand strong local businesses are part of a wider learning ecosystem, creating opportunity and capability for people to see what they're capable of.
And finally, to my daughter Isah, and every other 'quiet' person here tonight. This is evidence you don't have to be loud to create impact. Keep stepping into being seen, courageously, and you strengthen yourself, and the grove.
WHY THIS METAPHOR IS IMPORTANT TO A HUMAN EDGE
The speech names the pattern behind most of the people problems we are asked to solve. Engagement, retention, burnout and skills gaps arrive as separate symptoms. Underneath sits one design problem: workplaces engineered for comfort, with little deliberate challenge built into roles, rhythms or development.
THE HUMAN SYSTEM
High-performance sport has understood this for decades. Athletes improve through progressive overload: load matched to capacity, recovery, then a little more load. Too little and capability stalls. Too much without recovery and people break. Agency at work grows the same way, through stretch people can meet, feedback close enough to learn from, and real recovery.
THE OPERATING MODEL
Most HR models were built for an industrial age of protection, compliance and standardisation. When roles are unclear, decisions bottleneck at the top and feedback arrives once a year, people have little room to adapt or own outcomes. Comfort becomes the default design, usually by accident.
HOW A HUMAN EDGE WORKS WITH CLIENTS
A Human Edge exists to strengthen workplace and human productivity, capability and sustainability in parallel. We embed inside founder-led and scaling businesses as their people operations function: designing roles around strengths and commercial impact, hiring on observable behaviour and values alignment, turning values into behaviours people can see, and building performance and wellbeing rhythms where stretch and recovery sit together. Our 5A's Workforce Innovation Model (Attract, Acquire, Align, Advance, Anchor) and The Whole Life Success Planner give that work its structure, for the business and for the people in it.
QUESTIONS FOR FOUNDERS AND LEADERS
Where has comfort been designed into your business, and where has capability been left to chance?
Which roles give people stretch they can meet, with feedback close enough to learn from?
What system produced your current pattern of engagement and accountability, and what would need to change for a stronger pattern to become the logical outcome?
THANK YOU
We are grateful to the Sunshine Coast Business Women's Network, the judges and the University of the Sunshine Coast.
If those questions land close to home, we'd like to hear from you. You can also start with our free Future-Ready Teams training.
ABOUT A HUMAN EDGE
A Human Edge is an outsourced HR, recruitment and people operations partner for founder-led and scaling organisations across Australia, based on the Sunshine Coast. We bring behavioural science, high-performance principles and commercial acumen to build people systems that are science-based, commercially intelligent and humanly sustainable. Founder Erin Barnes has 26 years' experience across behavioural science, high-performance sport, talent identification and business operations.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - erin barnes business woman of the year
Who won Sunshine Coast Micro/Small Business Woman of the Year 2026?
Erin Barnes, founder of A Human Edge, was named Micro/Small Business Woman of the Year at the Sunshine Coast Business Women's Network Awards on 21 August 2026. The category was sponsored by the University of the Sunshine Coast.
What does 'greenhouse or grove' mean in the workplace?
It contrasts two ways of supporting people. A greenhouse removes challenge and manufactures comfort, so people grow without learning to adapt. A grove builds strength through real challenge, adaptation and connection, so people and teams hold up under pressure.
What does A Human Edge do?
A Human Edge is an outsourced HR, recruitment and people operations partner that embeds inside founder-led and scaling businesses. It builds science-based, commercially intelligent people systems that strengthen workplace and human productivity, capability and sustainability in parallel.
Who does A Human Edge work with?
Founder-led and scaling businesses across Australia, from its base on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.
