Regenerative Leadership
Transforming the human presence and impact in Earth
Recently there has been a flurry of activity around the notion of regenerative leadership. This comes not really as a surprise within the context of the global trend of the reGeneration rising — what Paul Hawken called so aptly “a planetary immune response” to the crisis we are facing.
The awareness of the need for widespread regeneration of our social and ecological systems is steadily growing and with it we are also beginning to witness that ‘regeneration’ can mean different things to different people. In my opinion, it will not serve to tell people that their interpretation of regeneration is “wrong” and dismiss them.
How can we engage more people in the generative dialogue that can deepen our collective understanding of the deeper significance of regeneration and the transformative potential of regenerative practice as held in the work of Carol Sanford and the Regenesis Group?
How can we celebrate that every day there are more of us wanting to become active participants in the reGeneration rising and meet them where they are at, rather than dismissing them or insisting they have to start from where we might want them to be?
How can we increase our individual and collective capacity to become active agents of regeneration in our communities and ecosystems?
Last autumn the markenting giant J. Walter Thompson published a report entitled ‘Regeneration: The New Sustainability’ — a clear sign that the so called mainstream is waking up to the notion that not doing any more harm to our communities and ecosystems is by now no longer good enough.
We need to go beyond sustainability and aim to have a positive — a regenerative — impact on the systems we participate in. The J.W. Thompson report highlighted many inspiring examples of incremental change, of business doing things a little better and aiming to have some positive impact, but it fails in highlighting the need for deeper transformations of the entire playing field the exemplary companies mentioned are operating in
More and more business are making the bold claim that they are already regenerative enterprises. Personally, I sense those companies who committed to having a regenerative impact as their “direction of travel” rather than claiming they are already there have the necessary humility and honesty to embark on the long journey of transformation that will be necessary to create enterprises that truly add health and value for people and planet.
It is a long journey as it cannot be the doing of any individual or a company alone. Re-patterning the future regeneratively requires the transformation of the whole playing field, the redesign of our economic system and our monetary system, and — ultimately — the collective redesign of the human presence and impact on Earth.
The path towards achieving this is through myriads of locally attuned projects carefully adapted to the bio-cultural uniqueness of the places and bioregions we inhabit, and this requires global collaboration and solidarity. As a natural pattern, regeneration is glocal (not a typo) in its very essence. It is fundamentally scale linking — healing the world one heart, one place, one bioregion at a time.
Regeneration is about alining with life as a planetary process
Many people are currently speaking about ‘regeneration’ in the way they are used to speaking about the newest trends to get on board with in order to be a cutting edge consultant, company or leader. Yet the inherent potential of becoming regenerative is much deeper than that.
The notion of regeneration is deeply woven into the fabric of life and the evolution of “eternally regenerative Universe” as Buckminster Fuller liked to call it. Bucky tried to remind us decades ago that we are far less beings (nouns) here to hoard individual wealth and recognition, and far more doings (verbs) here to contribute to manifest life’s potential to be regenerative and decrease rather than increase entropy.
Life — as a planetary process — is syntropic. It temporarily — over the time scales of biological evolution — reverses the tide of entropy and acts as a neg-entropic force by creating more complexity, coherence and bio-productivity within the structurally closed and energetically open system integrity of our planet.
“Wealth is our organized capability to cope effectively with the environment in sustaining our healthy regeneration and decreasing both the physical and metaphysical restrictions of the forward days of our lives.”
— Buckminster Fuller, in ‘Operation Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1969
Once we understand ourselves as processes that are actively re-patterning relationships and reweaving the fabric of meaning through which we collectively contribute to bringing forth the world, we will understand wealth as something very different from the money or assets we own.
Bucky was one of the early visionaries to understand Universe as “eternally regenerative.” He saw humanity at a threshold: an evolutionary transition that would align our human patterns to the patterns of regeneration and renewal we can observe in the natural systems we participate in and have emerged from.
Our challenge and our latent potential is to free ourselves from the mindset of scarcity and competition and step into co-creating a future of shared collaborative abundance for all of humanity and the community of life.
One crucial aspect of this transition is to understand the limitations of the narrative of separation that has informed our understanding of who we are for too long and reconnect with our fundamental interbeing with the very fabric of life that our common future depends upon.
We have the inherent potential, as life, to aline with the the biotic community and to nurture the vitality enhancing patterns of life as a planetary process. As Janine Benyus has so beautifully summarized in a single sentence: “Life creates conditions conducive to life.”
Regenerative leadership — to me personally — is the process of aligning one’s own way of being, one’s actions, ways of communicating and being in relationship with the wider pattern of life’s evolutionary journey towards increasing complexity and coherence within the nested wholeness of community, ecosystems, biosphere and Universe we participate in. In doing so we add health and value to the continuously transforming and regenerating whole that brought us fourth and that we have co-creative agency in!
As both co-creative participants in and emergent properties of this continuously transforming wholeness we can consciously choose to manifest the potential of expressing our unique essence as expressions of life’s evolutionary journey.
“Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren’t any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn’t be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life’s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person. ”
— Buckminster Fuller
At this time of planetary crisis we are all called to step into regenerative leadership. It starts by leading our own lives regeneratively in service to our communities and to the wider community of life.
“We are great programmes of integrity with the capability to support the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe, and we are here for that purpose: to be in support of the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe.”
— Buckminster Fuller
The time to act is NOW! We have already failed to respond to climate change and social and ecological break down early enough to have guarantees for success.
Even if we do the seemingly impossible now and rally all of humanity with all its diversity of perspectives, worldviews and belief systems into a locally attuned and bioregionally and globally collaborative effort to undo the damage of centuries of exploitation of people and planet, we will not know for a few decades whether we responded in time to avoid cataclysmic run-away climate change.
Regenerative leadership can no longer be about positioning your company as a market leader celebrated for having some positive impact on society. The near future will be fundamentally different than the past and the present.
Much of the conversation about how to help corporations and companies become ‘net-positive’ and ‘regenerative’ is still stuck in assuming that the world in a few years or decades will be not fundamentally different from the one we live in today.
We have to get off these mental tram-tacks, admit that capitalism as usual is broken and structurally degenerative, and understand that redesignig the human presence and impact on Earth will go hand in and with re-localization and re-regionalization supported by global collaboration and solidarity.
Regenerative leadership will require us to avoid becoming complicit in more ‘predatory delay’ just because big corporate clients are only willing to engage in more incremental change. Let’s help them make incremental change— if only to keep them engaged and buy us some more time — but let’s not shy away from stressing the urgent need for transformative innovation and change.
This also means inviting many corporates to face the fact that they are too big not to fail and — as multinationals depending on global supply networks, fossil materials and energy — they are structurally degenerative and explotative. A deeper understanding of regeneration as a pattern by which life creates conditions conducive to life invites us to understand that death, dissolution, and collapse are part of nature’s “expert contrivance to create plenty of life.”
We have to question the very structures, patterns and cultural narratives that shape our current economic systems, corporations and societies. We have to co-create diverse locally attuned regenerative cultures everywhere! Time is running out! The window of opportunity is closing fast!
Join the reGeneration!
There is a healthy diversity of voices, approach, linguistic framing and even perspective among the resources (books, podcasts, videos) listed below. Some will speak more to you than others depending on your own situation and perspective. All will add value and insight if you are ready to play an active part in the reGeneration rising.
As Greta Thunberg, Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion are valiantly trying to impress on the world: We have run out of time for further posturing and delays. It is time to take response-ability and hone our individual and collective capacity to be active agents of the transformation that is now a neccessity of survival.
Beyond the calamity of the collapse and breakdown of systems that no longer serve — and tragically some of those that have served life for millions of years — beyond the undoubtably tough and traumatic decades ahead which we are now committed to due to the foley (deluded madness) of our past and present actions, there is a silver lining to the storm clouds that are gathering. If we do make it — against rapidly increasing odds — we will have made a significant evolutionary jump and reshaped humanity’s impact on Earth to be regenerative and healing rather than exploitative and destructive.
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Some inspirations for those ready to join the reGeneration
This is a brief list — in chronological order of publication— of some of the resources I would recommend to people who want to gain a deeper understanding of how they migh align their own creative agency with the healing of the Earth and her people. It is by no means a complete list, but should help you in exploring what regenerative leadership might mean to you, your organization and your community.
Regenerative Enterprises: Optimizing for Multi-capital Abundance, by Ethan Roland and Gregory Landua, 2015
“In a world of damaged ecological and social systems, with a fragile global economy and a rapidly changing climate, business as we know it must evolve or perish. It is no longer acceptable to create financial profits by extracting the foundational living wealth of our lands and waters. Enterprises need a new model with which to interpret the world, and a new process for whole-systems design and decision-making. The 8 Forms of Capital is that model. By articulating the multiple forms of capital with which we transact every day, it opens the door for an evolutionary approach to economics and profits.
Regenerative Enterprise defines the difference between degenerative, sustainable, and regenerative systems. It articulates the four factors of a regenerative enterprise, and the principles for designing regenerative enterprise ecologies.
The Regenerative Enterprise Institute also offers coaching and consulting services to enterprises and corporations that want to take the leap to regeneration” (Lulu.com)
Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Principles and Patterns will shape our Economy, by John Fullerton, 2015
“For the past few years, Capital Institute and its collaborative network have been on an evolutionary learning journey…searching for a path that will lead us beyond our current unsustainable economic system and the finance-dominated ideology that drives it.
What we discovered is a new way of thinking about economics and how we manage our free enterprise system, aligned with our scientific understanding of how the universe actually works and with our shared values. We call it Regenerative Capitalism” (Capital Institute).
Regenerative Development and Design, by Pamela Mang, Ben Haggard, & Regenesis, 2016:
“Regenerative Development and Design takes sustainability to the next level, and provides a framework for incorporating regenerative principles into your current process. In this book, Regenesis co-founders Pamela Mang and Ben Haggard explain what regenerative development is, how and why it works, and how you can incorporate the fundamental principles into your practice. A clear, focused framework shows you how to merge regenerative concepts with your existing work, backed by numerous examples that guide practical application while illustrating regenerative design and development in action. Regenerative design and development positions humans as co-creative and mutually-evolving participants in an ecosystem — not just a built environment” (Regenesis Group).
Designing Regenerative Cultures, by Daniel Christian Wahl, Triarchy Press, 2016
“This is a ‘Whole Earth Catalog’ for the 21st century: an impressive and wide-ranging analysis of what’s wrong with our societies, organizations, ideologies, worldviews and cultures — and how to put them right. The book covers the finance system, agriculture, design, ecology, economy, sustainability, organizations and society at large.
In this remarkable book, Daniel Wahl explores ways in which we can reframe and understand the crises that we currently face and explores how we can live our way into the future. Moving from patterns of thinking and believing to our practice of education, design and community living, he systematically shows how we can stop chasing the mirage of certainty and control in a complex and unpredictable world.
The book asks how can we collaborate in the creation of diverse regenerative cultures adapted to the unique biocultural conditions of place? How can we create conditions conducive to life?” (Triarchy Press).
The Regenerative Business: Redesign work, cultivate human potential, achieve extraordinary outcomes, by Carol Sanford, 2017
“Courageous leaders are calling for a disruptive yet effective way of working: one that unlocks new levels of innovation, financial results, and customer loyalty while building human capacity to contribute.
The good news is there is a proven, but infrequently taken, path. Carol Sanford shows leaders why today’s so-called business “best practices” undermine success — and, how to transform a business into something so flexible, so innovative, so developmental, it becomes virtually non-displaceable in the market” (Carol Sanford).
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, by Kate Raworth, 2017
“Humanity’s 21st century challenge is to meet the needs of all within the means of the planet. In other words, to ensure that no one falls short on life’s essentials (from food and housing to healthcare and political voice), while ensuring that collectively we do not overshoot our pressure on Earth’s life-supporting systems, on which we fundamentally depend — such as a stable climate, fertile soils, and a protective ozone layer. The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries is a playfully serious approach to framing that challenge, and it acts as a compass for human progress this century” (Kate Raworth).
Regenerative Leadership: The DNA of life-affirming 21st century organisations, by Giles Hutchins & Laura Storm, 2019
“The book explores a new way of leading and redesigning organizations and communities that is urgently needed. You will find the book packed with business cases, fascinating examples from nature’s living systems, insight from front-line pioneers and tools and techniques for leaders to succeed and thrive in the world of today” (Laura Storm). In the epilogue to this recent publication, Giles and Laura write:
“Regenerative Leadership is living and leading with Love. Love creates conditions conducive for life. Love feeds on and grows from Love. Love breeds virtuous cycles.”
— Giles Hutchins & Laura Storm
Forthcoming books to add to your reading list:
After editing the ground-breaking book Drawdown, Paul Hawken, who has been a pioneer in the rise of the reGeneration, is now working on a sequel entitled Regeneration, which will be published by Penguine in 2021.
Some podcasts that might be helpful:
Here are two conversations hosted by Jenny Andresson from We Activate the Future, who is also one of the insightful voices of the reGeneration rising:
The second edition of this conversation about ‘regenerative leadership will be held on August 17th, 2019:
Carol Sanford: The Regenerative Business
Gregory Landua: This is your brain on regeneration
Daniel Wahl: Designing Regenerative Cultures
Design-Led Systems Transformation
Some videos that might be helpful:
Human and Planetary Health: Ecosystem Restoration at the Dawn of the Century of Regeneration
The Regnerates
Some wonderful videos by the Regenesis Group:
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Daniel Christian Wahl — Catalyzing transformative innovation in the face of converging crises, advising on regenerative whole systems design, regenerative leadership, and education for regenerative development and bioregional regeneration.
Author of the internationally acclaimed book Designing Regenerative Cultures
