Regenerative organisations are ongoing evolutionary becomings

(un)learning in crews is an essential innovation practice for organisational futures

I’ve spent 28 years of my life in ‘work’ - within multiple contexts - for profit, not for profit, NGO, communities, in music, technology, culture, activism, place based change, conservation, climate, campaigning.

For 15 years I helped brands anticipate the future, connect to culture and supported teams to create products and communications that engaged people and persuaded them to buy stuff from that business.

I was good at it. 

In 2006 I fell down a climate change hole and I’ve never really come back up.

In the last 13 years I’ve helped companies win sustainability awards for eco-innovation, pioneered radical collaborations bringing unusual suspects together to re-imagine, co-design and prototype solutions to complex social and environmental issues. 

I’ve co-created platforms, campaigns and initiatives to support wider connection to the natural world at a global and local level.

There’s been so much (un)learning, many brilliant humans I’ve worked with, so many teachers and mentors I’ve learned from.

A stream of experimental projects which I liken to regenerative seeds planted, some of which continue to grow and evolve , some provide nutrients for others. 

But in the last few years I have come to believe that these sort of things will never be enough to move through the crises we are facing without a deeper transformative shift in consciousness alongside.

Without a letting go of many deeply ingrained ideas, stories and behaviours which shape the systems and ways we organise ourselves, see ‘normal’ and do business as usual on this planet.

Ways which are now dividing us and rapidly destroying the conditions for life itself.

At a societal level, I feel we are still nowhere near grasping the paradigm shift in consciousness being called for to adapt to what is coming down the line, because whether we like it or not, we can’t negotiate with the physics of climate and ecological breakdown.

Everyday I see so much possibility happening on the ground all over our home planet, extraordinary things that people are doing to bring life back, to heal and unify, to re-imagine how we can live in life-sustaining ways,  transformational shifts occurring with such limited resources, support and attention.

But I don’t sense this happening in many organisations. 

And we need organisations on this journey.

I’d argue that if we’re not innovating, communicating and going about our business grounded in a curiosity for the interconnectedness of all life, opening ourselves up to working with a vast diversity of intelligence beyond just the human knowing, in solidarity with our fellow humans and more than humans, strategising long term for a future we will not see and in the spirit of healing, care, co-operation and compassion then we’re just digging ourselves deeper into irrelevance and eventual collapse.

Becoming Crew which has been years in prototyping is the work I’m putting all my focus into now (alongside the podcast), and where I feel I can be of most service in these times with my fellow guides Evva and Mark.

It’s messy, complex, hard, beautiful, energising and the most creative and regenerative work I’ve ever been involved with.

Regenerative futures won’t arrive through campaigns, platforms and consuming our way there.

This future is emerging in extraordinary co-creative ways, through humility and showing our vulnerabilities, acknowledging our not knowing and working with our most alive and deepest questions that these times are calling for. 

Through the practices of care, compassion, co-operation, deep listening, remembering, imagining, experimentation and participation.

Through letting go of the cleverness that no longer serves us and cultivating the courage and practices to step into new ways of knowing ourselves, each other and our more than human family.

To open our hearts, where courage and deep creative knowing originates.

Working together as communities of change.

Holding and supporting each other.

As crew.

Evolving ourselves together.

As Bucky Fuller said …

“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”

Regeneration Sessions is our offer to help organisational teams begin this journey.

It won’t be for everyone.

Because we can’t think and talk our way out of these crises.

We have to embody the changes, to become the new stories.

So this offer is deeply experiential and there is some discomfort involved.

As well as possibility. So much possibility.

So if your team is feeling the uncertainty of these times and you know in your hearts that radical shifts are being called for then maybe this is for you.

If you’re curious about an (un)learning adventure with us in 2023 please connect for a chat.

We’re seeking four organisational teams to learn with us in 2023.

We’re here, we’re listening.

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