I seem to be quoting Daniel Wahl a lot recently — a natural byproduct, I suppose, of so much thought-provoking content in his excellent book, Designing Regenerative Cultures. However, it’s a passage from a blog of his (extra reading assigned on the subject of regenerative leadership) that’s really caught my eye this week. It reads…
More and more business[es] are making the bold claim that they are already regenerative enterprises. Personally, I sense those companies [who’ve] 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.
I don’t know about you, but that resonates with me a lot and elegantly captures a couple of important thoughts…
First, on the optimum word, humility: exemplified by the likes of Interface’s climb up ‘Mount Sustainability’ and Patagonia’s iconic ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ campaign several years back, I’ve long considered it a hallmark of sustainability leadership that leaders don’t tend to spend much time dwelling on, or crowing about, past achievements. Rather, their eyes are firmly set on the future and how far they (and the systems they’re part of) still need to go to reach true sustainability.
Second, on the framing of regeneration as a direction of travel: framing it as an outcome (aka one can claim to be ‘regenerative’ so long as goods outweigh bads) is surely to misunderstand its true nature as a different way of seeing and being. The philosophical underpinnings of this — that we need shifts in whole systems; that universal principles of living systems should be our guide; that, in complex adaptive systems, resilience and abundance are emergent properties of a healthy ‘interbeing’ with each other and the world around us — suggest that being regenerative is a constantly evolving process.
In other words, regeneration ain’t the destination. It’s a never-ending journey.
LIVE LONG AND PROSPER 