Regenerative Leadership: a book of questing and nurturing the emergent future
I knew when I first heard that Giles Hutchins was writing a fourth book that I would want to read it. His previous books, The Nature of Business, The Illusion of Separation and Future-Fit Business are well thumbed friends on my shelves. But this book — Regenerative Leadershp — written by both Giles and founder of the Regenerators collective Laura Storm, touched a new and different note.
Although it incorporates much of the previous knowledge and different ideas Giles has explored in his previous books, the beautiful combination of insights, language and storytelling which emerges from the synthesis of both a masculine and feminine viewpoint, is compelling.
I had come across Laura’s work through the World Economic Forum where she was a sustainability expert and Young Global Leader. She carries a deep and intuitive knowledge about living systems, but also a deep naturalness about incorporating spirituality and conscious development into business thinking and the boardroom. She is a breath of fresh air in her ability to not only express knowledge but to embody it emotionally and relationally.
Writing a book on your own is never easy. Writing it in collaboration with someone else is even more difficult. This is a book that tells not only the story of how organisations might shift towards a regenerative way of working that overcomes the degenerative economic paradigm in which we live, it also does it by demonstrating one of the key requirements of that transformation: bringing back into balance the questing drive of masculine psychology with the life-giving collaborative and nurturing energy of the feminine.
It is a tribute to the relationship that must exist between these two gifted makers of change, that they have moulded and crafted a book which achieves a regenerative tone where masculine solutions are blended with feminine insight and wisdom. The language seems to aim for that balance, and I think, achieves it.
It is also super easy to navigate! The enormously clever graphics allows readers who might be new to the subject matter to navigate the complexity dealt with in a way which I haven’t experienced since reading Reinventing Organisations (the illustrated version).
Applying living systems principles to organisational design isn’t the easiest of concepts to grasp. I love the way that Laura and Giles offer the opportunities for readers to dig deeper into a subject with interactive links (at least in the Kindle version) that overcome the linear nature of a book about interconnected complex issues.
If you are a leader on the edge of wanting to grasp the nettle to move forward from sustainability strategies that are ‘better than bad’ towards a regenerative world which is truly designed as comprising a set of inter-dependent, self-organising living systems that flourish and generate abundance by ensuring the thrivability of each other — this is a must-read.
You can find out more about Laura and Giles here
Laura Storm, Regenerators
Giles Hutchins
Regenerative Leadership.
Laura will be joining me on November 13th at a pre Meaning Conference workshop on Regenerative Leadership where you can explore what your own regenerative approach to leadership would look like. You can book a place here.
