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Embracing the Sacred Feminine for a new leadership era

May 14, 2023

Weaving ancient Nature Wisdom with the Science of the New Time

This is a guest blog by Claudia van’t Hullenaar

Change is in the air

We are living in a time of transformation. There are forces at play in the world that are harmful and polarizing in addition to massive global challenges, sustainability crises, injustice, habitat loss and degradation, greed, me-ism, uncertainty and disruption, mental distress and unhappiness on individual levels. Do you feel or sense that things are falling apart or changing in hard ways?

A reversal of the world towards a New Earth 

At the same time, an increasing movement to care for our world is arising. We are living in the time that has been foretold by numerous ancient prophecies. This earth upheaval, ancient wisdom traditions, indigenous peoples and tribal shamanic societies long have known as a time of The Great Turning, a quantum leap in collective consciousness. The ancestral Andean Cosmovision speaks of the Pachakuti, a period of change and transformation, when the world is turned upside down which marks the transition to a new time. The ancestral Andean mystical traditions I am referring to, are based on the wisdom of Nature and the Cosmos and at its core it is about Life in sacred reciprocity with All Our Relations and deep love for our Mother Earth, in Quechua Pachamama, and all of her beings.

This process of evolutionary transformation has the potential to move us from our current paradigm of separation into an emerging paradigm of unity and wholeness, into an era of a wisdom society that values the sacredness of Life.

The need of balance and equilibrium for the Sacred Feminine

We are clearly living in a world of imbalances and the natural result is chaos, destruction, and uncertainty. To help shape a possible beautiful and thrivable future, we must create more inner equilibrium that includes bringing into harmony the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine.

The wisdom, presence, intuition, ability to connect with the natural world, and creativity associated with the feminine archetype, is known as the Sacred Feminine and embodies nurturing, loving, compassion, tenderness, care and fearlessness.

The Sacred Feminine complements the Sacred Masculine which represents positive aspects of masculine energy which include strength, integrity, logic, practicality, protection, and the ability to take action. To make it clear, it is not about gender. All of us, women and men have both feminine and male energies, representing aspects of the human psyche.

In the Andean mystical tradition, the physical embodiment of the Sacred Feminine is also referred to as Pachamama or Mother Earth. She is seen as a living being that sustains all Life on earth. We human beings are her children, she protects us, loves us, nourishes us, and allows us to flourish.

However, there has been an excess of masculine energy with the oppression and longtime imbalance in masculine-dominated societies for many centuries, where the shadow sides of the Sacred Masculine of dominance, intimidation, competition, rigidity, suppression of emotions, and disconnection from nature, led to let us believe that power comes from overshadowing others. Many of these perspectives and beliefs have shaped our social, institutional, cultural, and political systems. The aggrandizement of “The more is better”, “getting”, competition, power over, aggression, and individualism can be witnessed everywhere. The devaluation and diminution of traditionally feminine qualities, voices, perspectives, and skills has been prevalent in patriarchal structures and had significant and far-reaching impacts on the Sacred Feminine and women, perpetuating cycles of marginalization, objectification, violence, inequality, and spiritual disconnection. This in turn, had, and has a profound impact and has serious consequences for women, men, girls, boys, individuals, communities, and the planet.

Many of us women are struggling with unique developmental challenges and hidden power blocks which express in a myriad of ways like self-sacrificing, overgiving, shame-based and victim mentality just to mention a few, even if we have lots of outer success.

The return of the wisdom of the Sacred Feminine is essential. One urgent task in these times is the developmental growth and maturation of our adult selves and represents a shift in collective consciousness towards a more balanced, loving way of being and creating harmony and wholeness in the world.

Imagine if these two equally important polarities melted into each other, finding their full expression and supporting each other, as our feminine nurturance, love, and connection to life become fearless and our actions naturally determined, and our masculine clarity, discernment, and actions become tender, compassionate where the feminine is integrated. How would the world look like? How would all of our relationships look like?

Re-membering and embracing the Sacred Feminine and deepening our relationship with Mother Earth

I was long living in imbalance and disconnection with the Self. Too often I was unconsciously doing it the masculine way compromising myself in order to fit in, be seen as woman, leader, family and home manager, to be worthy and loved. It was very painful. On my ongoing own transformation journey, I re-connected, embraced my feminine aspects, worked with the shadows, and life started to open up for me in so many wonderful ways. The greatest gift has been to have been led to and follow the call to the sacred path of the Soul of the ancient healing traditions of the Peruvian Andes and Amazon. This awakening of the Heart journey is life changing. As I continue studying and training the compassionate depths of this medicine, the profound meaning of Ayni, the sacred reciprocity, embracing and honoring the Sacred Feminine, I see that this is a potent medicine in service for an awakening world in this time of transformation. 

The Andean mystical tradition is as ancient as profound. It is a deeply earth-honoring and earth-regenerative, soul-awakening and life affirming wisdom tradition, which has a deep reverence for the Sacred Feminine, Pachamama and all of Creation.   

Embracing the Sacred Feminine helps us to reconnect with a multidimensional natural world, and reminds us of our deep interdependence with all Life and offers a recalibration of values and worldviews that transforms our relationship with Self and the Universe.

Realizing through visceral embodied experiences that the Mother Earth is our Sacred Mother is an insight of profound significance. It changes everything and cannot be unseen anymore.

After several years of walking the path of the Soul going through breakdowns and breakthroughs, I profoundly see the world from a different perspective: from the wisdom of the heart and our Sacred Nature within. It is an irreversible shift in perception. And the journey continues with ever more amazements, deepening and openings.

I came to deeply believe that the future of our world depends on our reverence and love and care for ourselves, each other and Mother Earth. Once we realize and embody this sacred relationship, that she is a living and conscious being, and the source of our birth, love, and nurture, we will choose differently.

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“We are all indigenous children to Mother Earth.” Chief Phil Lane Jr.

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The importance of expanding one’s beliefs to create new stories

I have come to re-cognize and believe that to become true stewards to our beautiful planet and all of Life:

  • we need more loving and make Love our new bottom line
  • it takes courage to open and soften our hearts
  • healing starts with ourselves first, and that healing, growth, and transformation needs to happen on both a personal and collective level
  • we need to embrace, integrate and bring wise and compassionate feminine intelligence into the world
  • we need to put love and wellbeing of humanity and Mother Earth at the heart of business and leadership purpose, as well as in education and politics
  • a moral foundation and integrity is centered on the wisdom of the Heart
  • sustainability and climate change is also an inside job and journey
  • we have to become the embodied change we wish to see
  • knowledge alone does not bring the shift, it has to be integrated and embodied
  • it is an evolutionary journey from the inside out
  • this ancient yet new understanding must be shared and will reach those who are ready to receive

Addressing the pressing social, environmental and human concerns confronting humanity today, will require a shift away from individuality, indifference and competition toward cooperation and care. This can only happen if we finally give the inner dimension of our being the importance, space and attention it deserves.

Cutting-edge technologies, elaborated strategies, and business innovation alone will not make it. It begins with each and every one of us, within our own hearts, mind and spirit, within our families and within our communities and workplaces.

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“I think what we need at this crucial time is empathy … We need to think about our world in the sense of taking care of our world. Maybe culturally, historically, they are seen as feminine values.” Chilean Environment Minister Maisa Rojas, a climate scientist and an IPCC author.

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How we can start or continue developing ourselves

There are many ways, approaches and paths, wonderful mentors, guides, and teachers that can help developing a more loving, inclusive, and empowering relationship with ourselves, each other, nature and Mother Earth. Everyone who is ready will find their own way and preferred mentor. Research for a deeper understanding of the true nature of reality, new discoveries in various fields of science are profoundly resonant with what ancient wisdom traditions always have known. So, there are a lot of exciting things unfolding out there.

In view of the limited possibility here, I would like to share some brief ideas that come from my own inner journey, learning and practice supporting my re-membering and opening up to feminine energies:

  1. Simply “Be” more
  2. Be open to the possibility that there might be another way for any condition, relationship, event and situation 
  3. Cultivate self-awareness, be conscious, observe and learn, and befriend your inner world and mind
  4. Death and rebirth cycles are normal and part of life 
  5. Words have power – be conscious with your words
  6. Caretake yourself, be tender to yourself – it starts with you first – no matter who you are or what position or role you hold
  7. Be curious, be open to question and inquire, dare to expand your thinking   
  8. Commune with nature: be with Mother Earth, imagine her as a living conscious being, talk to her
  9. Appreciate ever always
  10. Use inner technologies like mindfulness practices and or meditation that help awaken one to greater awareness
  11. Practice, practice, practice – all the greatest mentors do the same
  12. Trust – there is a Higher Power that is bigger than your mind

It is time to go deep and work deep. It is time to address the longtime imbalances in our societies and it is up to each and everyone to choose to see with new eyes, open up to new perspectives and potentials on how we understand and see the world, the relationship with ourselves, each other and our planet and what impact that has.

What have your own experiences been on your path of growth and discovery on your life’s journey? What does this message open-up for you? What resonates with you?

To go deeper in transformational work in the field of business, I trained Transformational Coaching and Facilitation with the Institute for Women-Centered Coaching, Training and Leadership to weave the novel and the ancient with all my life and professional experiences.

If you are interested to learn more about how I can mentor and accompany you through a transformative approach to authentic and heartfelt empowerment (both for female and male individuals), please contact me directly.

If you are interested in joining an upcoming transformational workshop for women “Embracing the Sacred Feminine Power for a new leadership paradigm”, please send me a message on my website or on LinkedIn.

I am open to synergestic collaboration with like-minded progressive individuals or companies who are curious and want to bring forth new ways of addressing the challenges of our times.

In gratitude and appreciation.

Claudia van’t Hullenaar helps progressive organisations, leaders and women in sustainability to evolve from the inside out, see with new eyes and shape unitive pathways that create impact-focused action. She is an evolutionary leader, transformational coach and facilitator, holistic sustainability advisor, new paradigm storyteller, and a student and practitioner of Peruvian Ancient Nature Wisdom Traditions, Energy Medicine & Shamanic Healing Arts.

Claudia has extensive strategic sustainability and business experience including the industry of global meetings and events, tourism, and destination management. She spent more than 25 years in multi-disciplinary, cross functional, international businesses including an 11-year tenure in the corporate sector at Symantec, as well as in sustainability and consulting environments.

Claudia certified in various conscious and soul-centered leadership, personal development and spiritual transformation programs including a graduation from the Inner MBA, a leadership and business development program that integrates business and spirituality to achieve exceptional and meaningful results, focusing on inner development for conscious leadership, exceptional team building and business as a force for good. Peruvian-Austrian, raised in three different continents, Claudia lives, works and plays in English, Spanish and German. Claudia’s website is www.sustained-impact.com

Claudia on LinkedIn

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For those interested in a special 2-day overnight Regenerative Leadership Immersion with regenerative thought-leader Giles Hutchins at Springwood Farm, near London on 13/14th July – see here, places are limited.

You can join Leadership Immersions Group on LinkedIN here

The Essential Step Toward Regenerative Leadership Consciousness

April 20, 2023

Earlier this week I was asked on camera to share what I saw as the most important step on the regenerative leadership journey.

The essential step – put simply – is an embodied one. A shift in our awareness of how we experience life, and how we relate to our own selves (self-awareness) and to the living-systems we interact with (systemic-awareness). 

This shift welcomes-in a depth in our perception. This depth is the metaphysical dimension of life which has been and always will be here right in our midst regardless of whether we become conscious of it or not. Yet the more conscious we are of it, the more regenerative we can become.

The good news is, this depth of awareness occurs when we awaken our natural vitality – which can occur through all sorts of contemplative activities, exercises and bodymind coherence practices. (For practices on bodymind coherence see Leading by Nature). These practices help us find right-relation with our own selves, with others and with the systems we participate in –  self-other-system attunement. In-so-doing, our sense of self shifts from self-as-separate-from-and-in-competition-with to self-as-participating-within life.

Whilst it’s a personal shift, it informs and also is informed by a communal/organizational shift of organization-as-machine to organization-as-living-system

Its not as simple case of focusing on the self-shift then the organizational-shift, as we need both the communal and personal working in-tandem, synergising each other. If the organizational culture is too resolutely mechanistic, then it stifles the personal shift, and if the leadership ego is too inured in self-as-separate then it stifles the organizational shift.  Hence, self-awareness and systemic-awareness work together across the leadership team and the entire organization.

If it all works in-tandem then why is the first essential step an embodied one? Because without this remembrance of this inter-relational depth of life, a comprehension of the systemic nature of leader-and-organization is only ever head-based rote-learning. 

Mechanistic Materialism sees only utility and functionality. A regenerative living-systems perspective senses something intangible way beyond, behind, before the facts, forms and functions of physical nature. Rather than utility, we sense a vitality pervading life. This opens us to reverence and gratitude, giving life meaning beyond commodification.

This remembrance is a physiological-and-psychological undertaking.

Physiological – Neuroscience shows how dominant left-brained hemispheric activity along with high-beta brain-wave patterns result in a grasping transactional attention that objectifies, reduces, expects and rejects experiences.  Alas, this has become our dominant attention-habit during day-to-day business. For sure this narrowed-grasping can be a useful tool for getting-the-job-done and ticking the to-do’s, but it obscures our receptivity of deeper reality.  Through bodymind coherence practices we integrate head-heart-gut neurology, alpha-beta-gamma brain waves, hormonal cortisol/adrenal/serotonin/melatonin levels, dorsal/ventral attention systems, sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems, and left hemisphere/right hemisphere brain activity.  This bodymind coherence shifts our way of being (ontology) from heightened separateness into a sense of flow, co-creation and dialogue with life.  It also shifts our way of knowing (epistemology) from an overly rational-analytic head-based knowing into a more full-bodied intuitive/rational/emotional/somatic integral knowing – which I call ‘activating our super-nature’.

Psychological – We shift from passive-aggressive fight-flight parent-child tendencies into a more intuitive gestalt of being-with nature – or rather Leading by Nature. No longer forcing/supressing or being forced/suppressed. Instead sensing-in to the flow of things through an active receptivity.

‘Now here is my secret. It’s a very simple secret. It’s only with the heart that one sees rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.’ –  Antoine Saint de Exupery

Invisible to the Eye

Today’s worldview of Mechanistic Materialism prides itself on ‘what gets measured gets done’ – we quantize everything we can measure, and anything intangible and immeasurable is overlooked; it becomes invisible.  Yet the invisible realm of nature is a very real and potent presence in our lives, it’s the very ground that informs the essence of each living-system – including ourselves and our living-organizations.

Many of the living-systems principles I’ve seen these days applied to regenerative business major on the corporeal: the tangible forms, material/chemical flows and biological characteristics of living-systems, largely overlooking the metaphysical. 

‘Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.’ – Albert Einstein

I appreciate that exploring the metaphysical dimension is a bit controversial as it upsets the status quo scientism that can’t compute anything beyond the reductive scientific method. Its even more controversial to try and bring this metaphysical depth of living-systems into business management and leadership development. 

So why am I putting my 25yrs of business management, and 13yrs of nature-inspired regenerative leadership work out on to a rocky ledge, exposed to criticism and condescension? Because, how can we venture up the regenerative mountainside without this rocky ledge being traversed?  Just because its uncomfortable or challenging to come to terms with the metaphysical depth of life, does not mean we should shun it from our leadership lexicon.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying we ought to deprioritize reductive scientific examinations of living-systems. Certainly not. Great strides over recent decades have been made to advanced our empirical examination of living-systems factualising all sorts of fascinating insights that are super-useful. My point is simply that regenerative leadership consciousness draws from an awakened way-of-being and what’s essential to this is invisible to the eye.

Opening into the Invisible Depths of Nature’s Wisdom

Life is full of profound insights that challenge us in deep and partly unconscious ways. One such insight is that as we deepen our awareness of our own selves (self-awareness) we deepen our awareness of the relational interconnectedness of life (systemic-awareness).

Put another way, an awakened awareness of our individual essence happens hand-in-hand with an awakened awareness of the innate interdependent reciprocity of life. This reciprocity is not just about physical flows and forms, it’s also metaphysical – energetic and intangible. 

Think – Indra’s Net: living-systems participating within living-systems which participate within wider living-systems, reciprocating across both tangible-physical and intangible-metaphysical dimensions. Each unique individual essence finds its tune within the wider living-system essence which finds its tune within an even wider one (think – business ecosystem, society, Earth/Gaia).

Feel – The Dance of Life: tunes playing within tunes playing within tunes that inform diverse dancing-forms moving in unique ways while finding right-relation with the tunes-within-tunes, improvised-yet-choreographed unique-yet-unified, emergent-yet-evolutionary. And underpinning all this movement is a pervading stillness.  The way into the dance is through this stillness. How magical! 

‘Understanding the illusion only comes after the understanding of reality, not before. Until we have the experience of reality, in all its stillness, we are still lost.’ – Peter Kingsley

Our individual essence informs and is informed by our day-to-day moment-by-moment life experience.  How we attend to life has moral implications for ourselves and the very fabric of life we all participate within.  We co-create with life each and every moment.  How emancipating and humbling!

This interdependent reciprocity is first-and-foremost an embodied felt-sense – sensory and super-sensory – that opens us into the depth of nature.  Its not something to think about in the head, it’s something to feel through the heart.

Scientifically, quantum and complexity scientists have found the very fabric of reality to be metaphysical – quantum field, non-locality, entanglement, emergence, and so forth. As the brilliant physicist David Bohm recognised, ‘The true ground-of-all-being is the infinite, intangible, spirit that infuses all living beings.’  Physics underpinned by metaphysics.  Ignore the metaphysics and physics (and our perception of the physical) becomes ungrounded; we ignore the ‘being’ that informs the ‘doing’. Enter today’s malaise.  This is the root problem. Not climate change, not the money system, not capitalism, not corporate-machines, not individualism – these are downstream effects of an ungrounded perception of life.

Receptive-responsive-reciprocity

Life is an inner-outer dance to attune with through stillness yet packed-full of movement.

What is within us is within everything. Once we understand this truth, we step outside of the parameters of our individual self and come to realise the power that is within us. This shift in awareness is a very simple step that has profound consequences’ – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

In The Illusion of Separation (2014) I explore inner-outer living-systems reciprocity for individual (leader) essence and living-system (organization) essence.  The phrase I use for this inner-outer dynamic is receptive-responsive-reciprocity.

Receptivity:

This is an open-stance, undefended. Imagine dancing like no-one’s watching – unencumbered, alive, spontaneous, no judgement. The reality is people do watch, judge, critique, and we feel a need to manage other’s impressions of ourselves. We learnt the hard way in the school playground how to be cool by undermining our own authenticity. Unlearning/relearning a receptive undefended stance requires a journey of Knowing Thy Self, watching out for the usual protection-rackets and ego-posturing we’ve been habituated and acculturated by.  This is where leadership development starts and ends.

A psychologically safe yet powerful way I have found to welcome-in this open-stance receptivity is through nature immersions. When we are in nature we can ease-out of the defensive posture, and start to open into life, and awaken the heart-mind – far more easily than being in a corporate away-day workshop/hotel venue no matter how luxurious. Simple bodymind coherence practices in nature give an embodied experience we can then take back into the corporate environment. 

The more receptive we become, the more sensitive we are to systemic fluctuations, flows, undercurrents and constellations (systemic-awareness). Hence why team dialogue, deep listening and inquiry round the campfire is so much more impactful and authentic than a corporate hotel.

In Leading by Nature (2022) I offer chapters of practices to help cultivate this capacity into our way of leading in business. And in Regenerative Leadership, my co-author Laura Storm and I highlight the importance of Living Systems Being underpinning and infusing Living Systems Culture and Living Systems Design.  If we overlook this depth of being, then the regenerative culture and design work we do will inevitably drift toward Mechanistic Materialism.

Responsiveness:

Open receptivity allows for a responsiveness with life.  This is the shift in leadership dynamic from control-manage to sense-respond, which starts with an embodied felt-sense. To use psychological Transactional Analysis its discerning the difference when in parent-child and when we’re in adult-adult allowing generative space for dialogue beyond judgement.

Cultivating a sense-respond leadership dynamic welcomes-in reciprocity across the living-organization so the essence of the individual and the essence of the living-system synergise in-tune.

‘Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to sea.’ Lao Tzu

Reciprocity:

With receptivity (yin-feminine) and responsiveness (yang-masculine) we allow for an alchemy to flow through self-other-system. In a reciprocating ‘exchange’ (one might say ‘communion’ rather than ‘exchange’ as it is not a transaction but a commingling) the individual essence is drawn outward into the receptive-responsiveness and connects with the essence of the other we relate with, and also the living-organization’s essence. Through such a receptive-responsive-reciprocation one’s essence is in service of the evolutionary potential of the living-organization whilst also enabling developmental growth of self and other.  This self-other-system dynamic becomes life-affirming.  This is the magic of it all, our developmental future-fitness informs the living-organization’s future-fitness and vice versa.

Sure, we’ll trip ourselves up, get stuck in old-baggage, ensnared in tension, have a bad day, but even these challenges can provide manure for new development if we dare open-up. Nothing is wasted, everything is developmental, as revealing and painful as it may feel when our polished ego-image of ourselves gets triggered. It can take months if not years to cultivate this new dynamic across the living-organization, but its well worth the wait and work.

Learning to Fall in Love with Life

Essentially, this receptive-responsive-reciprocity is re-membering a deep love of life, a vulnerable expansive opening into reality that emancipates our sense of self, yet requires a trust in life.

Here’s a TED-style talk I gave over 8 years ago at a leadership conference on how this sense-respond leadership dynamic relates to both the metaphysical dimension of nature and the ancient Greeks’ expressions of love – agape (receptivity), eros (responsiveness) and philia (reciprocation). 

To take this first step of opening into the depth of life through receptive awareness, all we need to do is relax!

To be precise, not some sedated slumber slumped-out in front of Netflix, but an intentional attentiveness – active relaxation – that continuously coheres the bodymind.  I have honed safe yet powerful practices that are deeply nourishing for any leader and practitioner to engage in, which I take people through when on a nature-based regenerative leadership immersion at Springwood Farm, 60 acres of ancient woodland and Victorian parkland, dedicated to regenerative leadership coaching and training.  Much of my year here is taken-up with helping intact leadership teams and 1-2-1 sessions coaching leaders and practitioners (as well as on-line coaching I provide for people throughout the world who can’t travel here easily). You can listen here to a range of podcast interviews with some of the leaders and organizations engaging in this work.

‘Giles Hutchins is at the forefront of synthesizing new logics for business with the natural rhythms of life and the human mind that will revolutionize business.’ – Lynne Sedgemore CBE

Each year I do a one-day open-programme for leaders and practitioners from different organizations to experience this work, usually in May. This year’s one is now full, and so I have decided to host a special deep-dive overnighter experience on 13th/14th July, there are a couple of places still available for this. We shall be engaging with the practices for embodying regenerative leadership consciousness, opening deeply into real-life, and applying these insights to leadership/organizational development. Contact me through my website if interested and you can find more info about the July immersion here.   Some feedback from past participants:

‘Thank you for having me in this wonderful place, both in terms of the setting in nature and in myself.  You have created an environment that feels welcoming, safe and one where we have had the stillness to calm the superficial mind and access the deeper parts of ourselves, our true nature. It is an inspiration, an invitation to take this ‘into the world’, a gift to any one ready to discover who they truly are.’

‘A profound experience, beautifully held. An excellent mix of theory, reflective exercises and peer-to-peer learning, providing me the strength, resilience, direction and clarity I need of my leadership work.’

‘Intellectually stimulating AND existentially exhilarating!’

‘What I didn’t expect when I signed-up to attend a nature immersion retreat with Giles was the opening up of a whole new world. The experience opened my eyes to the energy and beauty of this amazing place, and life itself. I highly recommend this programme.’

‘Excellent immersive experience that not only taught me how to change, adapt and alter (where necessary) my leadership style but also gave me the freedom and space to explore myself and my organization.’

‘The mix of learning, dialogue and experiential work was perfect.’

To summarise, embodied experience for the regenerative leader opens us to the metaphysical depth of living-systems, whereupon our individual essence can find the systemic rhythms of the living-organization. Such embodied experience is both personal (contemplative and reflective) and communal (cultural rituals like regenerative feedback, dialogue and deep listening). This deepens the relational experience of the organization-as-living-system beyond the noisy-ego transactional nature of organization-as-machine.  The quest here is not a ‘bio hack’ to enhance efficiency to drive high-performing teams, but to deepen our relational awareness and sensitivity to self-other-system dynamics, a biproduct of which is agile, purposeful, high-performing teams in-tune with the mission of the living-organization, its customers and wider ecosystem.

For two quite different yet equally illuminating experiences of over-nighters at Springwood read:

Journeying into Ourselves, The Power of Nature Immersions by Christine Nicholson

The Insights Time in Nature Bring, Moving Beyond the Busy Mind by Yonnatan Ghemit

To finish on a quote from the poet and former Prime Minister Vaclav Havel (found in the ground-breaking book Designing Regenerative Cultures by Daniel Christian Wahl) which aptly sums up what this article is about:

‘A genuine, profound and lasting change for the better can no longer result from the victory of any particular traditional political conception, which can ultimately be only external, that is, a structural or systemic conception. More than ever before, such a change will have to derive from human existence, from the fundamental reconstitution of the position of people in the world, their relationships to each other, and to the universe…This is not something that can be designed and introduced like a new car. If it is to be more than just a new variation on the old degeneration, it must above all be an expression of life in the process of transforming itself. A better system will not automatically ensure a better life. In fact the opposite is true: only by creating a better life can a better system be developed.’

You can listen here to Daniel Christian Wahl and I discussing this quote and other related matters on the RSA’s Regeneration Rising podcast here.

Giles Hutchins is a pioneering practitioner and senior adviser at the fore-front of the [r]evolution in organizational and leadership consciousness and developmental approaches that enhance personal, organizational and systemic agility and vitality. He is author and co-author of several leadership and organizational development papers, and the books The Nature of Business (2012), The Illusion of Separation (2014), Future Fit (2016), Regenerative Leadership (2019) and Leading by Nature (2022). Chair of The Future Fit Leadership Academy and Founder of Leadership Immersions, co-founder of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation and Regenerators, he runs a 60 acre leadership centre at Springwood Farm, an area of outstanding natural beauty near London, UK.  Previously held corporate roles – Head of Transformation Practice for KPMG, Global Director and Head of Sustainability for Atos (150,000 employees, over 40 countries). He provides coaching at individual and organizational levels for those seeking to transform their personal and/or work lives. Giles is a keynote speaker on the future of business and regenerative leadership. He is also a Reiki Master, a certified advanced coach, holds a Diploma in Senior Leadership Development, a Masters of Science in Business Systems, is trained in advanced Integral Solonics leadership development, Spiral Dynamics, a range of consciousness-raising modalities and is a certified Harthill Leadership Development Practitioner.

Leading by Nature is THE handbook for regenerative leadership. A must-read for every business leader who genuinely cares about the future of humanity.’   Jayn Sterland, CEO of Weleda UK

“Giles Hutchins has for over a decade led the way with his championship of learning through nature. His new book Leading by Nature is a really important evolution of these ideas emerging into a philosophy of systems thinking/being – it’s bang on the money, a really important book” – Sir Tim Smit, KBE, Founder of The Eden Project

Please feel free to join the LinkedIn Leadership Immersions Group here

To take part in the 13/14th July immersion contact Giles here

For the latest episodes on the Leading by Nature podcast see here

Recognizing the Original Corruption and Finding our Way Home

April 10, 2023

My oh my, there seem to be a plethora of initiatives bubbling up these days across the leadership and organizational development (L&OD) terrain.  What with emotional intelligence, mindfulness, personal and organizational resilience, sustainability, social entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship, conscious leadership, evolutionary-teal organizations, net-positive strategies, regenerative design, biomimicry, ESG, corporate responsibility, circular economics, agile ways of working, self-managing systems, JEDI (justice, equality, diversity & inclusion), regenerative business, conscious capitalism, feminine leadership, and more, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. What common ground inter-relates all these initiatives? Are they all aspects of a general shift toward something?

Sometimes, amid the stresses and strains of leading amid these fast-moving climes, we can overlook the forest for the trees, missing the unifying theme within this bubbling cacophony of terminology. All these initiatives are part-and-parcel of the same evolutionary up-stretch in leadership and organizational development (L&OD) consciousness, from ego-centricity to human-centricity to life-centricity.

This L&OD evolution rides on the back of a wider system-worldview evolution. How we see the world, and our sense of place and purpose within it, is shape-shifting.

We are undergoing a metamorphosis no less. To use the caterpillar/butterfly analogy: the caterpillar is inured in a mechanistic mindset of the dominant status-quo which actually sets us apart from nature and corrupts our potential for harmony with life; the butterfly struggling to be born in our own selves and in our organizational systems is one that seeks integration and harmony with life, aka = a regenerative mindset. This ‘regenerative mindset’ is not new, it’s not something that’s be born out of a small group of practitioners over recent decades, its ancient and yet fresh, its timeless and yet very much of-this-time.  Afterall, this is about attuning with life on Earth – nothing more nothing less. Ancient minds have come up with regenerative insights thousands of years before modern minds started toying with the term.

Worldview:                         Mechanistic                                        Regenerative

Consciousness:                 Separateness                                    Relational interconnectedness

L&OD Metaphor:              Organization-as-machine             Organization-as-living-system

L&OD Dynamic:                 Control-manage                                Sense-respond

(source: G. Hutchins, Leading by Nature, 2022)

A shift from a mechanistic to a regenerative worldview can give us a nice-and-neat sense of what’s going on, but this technical terminology may mean precious little, in actual fact miss-the-entire-point, if it’s not recognized as an embodied lived experience.

So – what does this evolution in worldview really mean in terms of how we attend to life? That’s what we explore here in this article, with sign-posts for those who desire deeper exploration.

“The greatest voyage of our lifetimes is not in the seeking of new landscapes but in the seeing with new eyes.” Marcel Proust

For the vast portion of our human history we’ve lived in deep communion with nature, attuned to the way nature works. Not a rational-analytic quantized set of facts and figures of ecosystem services mapped into bioregions, but the practical know-how our ancestors possessed was underpinned by a deep qualitative, relational and psycho-spiritual attunement to the rhythms and resonances of nature. The physical AND metaphysical quality of nature went hand-in-hand.

For many centuries, science in the West and East drew from a metaphysical cosmology that understood a depth of dimensionality to nature. Humans were seen as innately part of nature’s ensemble and yet with the seemingly unique self-reflectivity to either fall-out of rhythm or learn to consciously attune with the wisdom of nature.  Harmony was the guiding principle for ancient traditions the world-over, and defined through a metaphysical comprehension of nature. For instance: Daoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Vedanta, Zen, Buddhism, Sufism, Tantra, and such like in the East and Alchemy, Hermeticism, Kabbalism, Pythagorean-Platonic, Gnostic, Druidic and such like in the West. All these traditions are shamanic in origin and centre around the practice of attuning with nature/cosmos in order to be in right-relation with life, just like the core shamanism found throughout indigenous peoples across the world today. All of these ancient wisdom traditions and present-day shamanic practices of indigenous peoples are rooted in a worldview of Animism where nature is seen as sacred – all life is informed by an animating spirit or primordial ‘tune’ which is both transcendent (beyond space-time) and immanent (here in-the-now).  Cultivating our consciousness to become more transparent to the transcendent and intimate with the immanent wisdom in nature brings harmony for self/other/world. Nature is experienced as not just ‘out there’ perceptible only to the senses as a purely physical dimension, but also metaphysical with a depth of interiority connected to ‘in here’ through an open heart whereupon we attune with a wisdom that enacts eternal myths and archetypal narratives amid everyday life-experiences.

To no longer sense the sacred metaphysical dimension of nature is to fall out-of-tune with nature, and in-turn corrupt our humanity, lose our way, become sick individually and societally, and forget who we truly are.

This ‘losing our way’ is a Journey of Separation that has defined the Western mindset over recent centuries. The separation of spirit from nature corrupts the science that flows from the 17th Century Scientific Revolution onwards. Today’s mechanistic science is flawed and yet lauded as the upholder of truth throughout society. As the Persian scientist Seyyed Hossein Nasr notes, today’s Western science is divorced completely from any ontological aspect other than pure quantity. The metaphysical aspect of nature is all-but overlooked, or even mocked as mere superstition.  Science today is utilitarian, a tool to support human utilisation of a de-animated nature for material betterment, whether it be dressed-up in ethical reasoning or economic motive. There can be no metamorphosis into ‘regeneration’ without a recognition of nature in all its fullness of depth.

Even our present-day Theory of Evolution – which most of us have taken-for-granted as set-in-stone fact, passing-it on to our own children without a thought to question it – is a theory based on this flawed science of Mechanistic-Materialism which ignores the essence of things, and condones all kinds of exploitation in the name of evolution-development-progress. As we expand our worldview, and begin once again to open our minds and hearts more deeply into nature, we are now noticing the gaping holes today’s Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution is littered with.

I have written extensively elsewhere about the Journey of Separation of the Western mindset and the purpose of this article is not to revisit the whys-and-wherefores of the desacralisation of nature in the West but rather to shine a light on the vitality of welcoming-in the metaphysical dimension of nature so our contemporary (r)evolution in worldview can become truly regenerative.

(For those interested in a comprehensive exploration of Western worldview development see The Illusion of Separation, and for a brief canter through Western worldview shifts of Animism à Greco-Medieval à Mechanistic-Materialism à Quantum-Complexity see this recent blog article.)

The beginnings of the twentieth century witnessed the breakdown of classical physics so foundational to Mechanistic-Materialism. Yet the spiritual force within the Western psyche was not potent enough to integrate this new science into a more universal and organic perspective – until now.

Throughout the 20th century and into this 21st century, discovery after discovery has aided the breakdown/breakthrough of a 400yr-old mechanistic worldview into a new one struggling to be born. For instance: breakthroughs in psychology – developmental, integral, transpersonal, depth, ecological psychology, etc.; in biology – facilitation ecology, Gaia theory, biomimicry, biophilia, etc.; in systems science – general systems theory, complexity theory, complex adaptive systems theory, living-systems theory, holistic science, etc.; in systems design – systemic design thinking, ecosystemic innovation, regenerative design, etc.; in L&OD – teal-evolutionary, deliberately developmental organizations, organizations-as-living-systems, regenerative leadership, etc.; and across so many other domains like health & wellbeing, economics, agriculture, urban planning, social sciences there are similar breakdown/breakthroughs. 

Yet when sifting through these shifts it can become all-too-easy to get absorbed by the facts, figures, frameworks, models and methods, busying ourselves with new principles and processes while overlooking the metaphysical ground-shift required in our consciousness: an ontological-shift in our very being from ‘self-as-separate-from-and-in-competition-with’ into ‘self-as-participating-within’ life.

Is the spiritual potency within the human psyche yet mature enough to integrate all this breakdown/breakthrough into an ontological metamorphosis that is grounded in a truly holistic and regenerative way of being-in-the-world? I believe this time has come. The metaphysical dimension of nature is becoming available to us once again, and welcoming-in the sacredness of life will tip-the-scales of this necessary (r)evolution in human consciousness.

Transcending-and-Including the Mechanistic Mind

In reawakening our capacity to connect with the metaphysical animating-force within nature, we are ‘transcending-and-including’ the mechanistic mind. The tools and capabilities we have gained through the Journey of Separation are not thrown-away but evolved into a deeper worldview context, a more life-centric rather than anthropocentric/humanist one. The reductive mechanistic tool we have honed through the Scientific Revolution (along with all the technological advancements in digitisation, medicine, transportation and so forth that we benefit from today) is still available to us, but as a tool we can pick-up and put-down rather than totalizing over our way-of-being. We transcend the allure of mechanistic dominance by reconnecting to the rapture of reality, and begin to gain perspective on mechanistic reductionism as a useful tool that can serve life, rather than life serving it – a tool that aids our regeneration rather than distracting us toward further fragmentation and separation.

To give an example for illustrative purposes: the rising interest in blue-green nature economics based on quantizing nature’s ecosystem services into a value-based model that attracts impact investment. If this is utilised by a Mechanistic-Materialistic consciousness then this quantization of nature ignores the intrinsic sacred quality of nature, with ‘ecosystems’ and ‘bioregions’ mechanised into quantized ‘services’ that serve human utility. However, this does not then mean that the quantization of ecosystem services is inherently wrong or degenerative, as it can be a tool that helps serve the Regenerative (R)evolution. To banish, polarize and judge the mechanistic in this way would be no better than the Scientific Revolution’s banishment of the relational and metaphysical dimension of nature. What the metamorphosis into regeneration holds-space for is an integration, a transcending-and-including of what came before it, not just a swinging of the pendulum against history in a purely ‘revolutionary’ dynamic, but a spiralling integrative metamorphic ‘(r)evolutionary’ dynamic that shape-shifts while learning and integrating earlier phases of the caterpillar into the butterfly. We have a mechanistic left-brain hemisphere for a reason and yet it ought to serve the more relational and nature-attuned insights of the right-hemisphere tapped into heart awareness/bodymind coherence.

Back to our blue-green nature economics example – if the rise of impact investment in ecosystem services is a tool that serves the quest for life-affirming futures then it is a useful tool for the regenerative journey ahead, as long as it finds itself within a deeper consciousness that respects life as inherently sacred and intrinsically qualitative (not just quantized/mechanized). The nature-economics tool ensures ecosystems are not valued at zero and so plundered without any mechanism of value-based economics to save it. Though to merely expand mechanistic domination for impact investment to plunder the last great frontier of capitalism’s exploitation of life is not a regenerative tool but a caterpillar-mind at work. Discerning the difference comes from an inner-knowing of what feels true to our being – an ontological undertaking.

So, we may see that the metamorphic movement is not a neat-and-tidy linear transition from mechanistic to regenerative, it’s more a spiralling inward-outward transcending-and-including integrative process of reawakening a deeper inner-outer awareness of nature’s animating metaphysical quality, while allowing the modern mechanistic tool to serve an expanding consciousness from ego-centric to anthropocentric to life-centric. 

It is clear to me that while the regenerative movement is gaining traction across myriad disciplines, more attention needs to be given to the metaphysical aspect of this necessary (r)evolution. A deeper awareness of psyche/nature/cosmos is rebirthing within us. Regenerative leaders and practitioners are being invited to open their hearts and up-stretch their bodyminds to attune with the inherent wisdom in nature, and truly embody the Journey of Reconnection beyond separation.

No worldview shift can be truly regenerative without deepening our transparency with the transcendent and intimacy with the immanent nature of reality within and all around us. This is at once a profoundly personal embodied experience and a relational-communal affair. Through the inward connection to the metaphysical essence of nature within and all around us (aka: ‘Nature’s Wisdom’) a simultaneous felt-sense immanence and super-sensory transcendence engages us with quality beyond quantity, and a force without form that informs all form. To gain an embodied sense of this is vital as we journey back home to our true nature.

Nature’s Metaphysics Applied to Regenerative L&OD

Metaphysical realisation is first-and-foremost an embodied experience, not a head-based formulation. With this caveat, I offer some words that can provide sign-posts into the metaphysical dimension of organizations-as-living-systems. The 4 E’s – Essence, Energy, Emergence, Evolutionary. There is a lot in these 4 E’s and it’s a topic worthy of a separate blog-article – watch this space 😊

For now, a very brief description of the 4 E’s:

Essence: accessing the metaphysical dimension by tuning-in to the essential nature within self and system.

Energy: Becoming conscious of and sensitive to the life-force patterns and rhythms infusing and radiating through self and system. So as to enliven, heal and renew the regenerative capacities of the living-organization.

Emergence: life unfolds through emergence – a ‘process of becoming’ more fully in-tune/in-flow by working with micro-emergence/meso-emergence/macro-emergence tools and practices.

Evolutionary: Contrary to popular belief, evolution is not a chain-reaction but a flow-response with spiralling phase-change sense-respond dynamics influencing the developmental capacity of self and system. We can learn to work with these evolutionary dynamics in order to better realise the evolutionary potential and purpose of the living-organization toward life-affirming futures.

As said, there is much to all this and words on a screen simply don’t do this justice. The primacy here is an embodied experience of Nature’s Wisdom. The simple intention of this article is to highlight the vital importance of welcoming-in the metaphysical dimension into the Regenerative (R)evolution.

To summarise:

We are living amid a once-in-a-civilisation metamorphic moment. The time has come to awaken from mechanistic slumber and remember the sacred sentience of life each and every day. This is not some wishful-thinking utopia. Movements across the world are already mobilising toward this deeper connection, and nothing less than the future of humanity is at stake (let alone the future of the vast proportion of biodiversity on Earth).

It’s also a time of great distraction with powerful forces pulling us toward transhumanist anthropocentric degenerative futures. Think of the billions (some estimate trillions!) being invested in alternate realities, algorithmic digitized transactions, smart devices continuously connected to a global infrastructure called ‘smart planet’, the exponential rise of satellites rocket-fuelled into orbit each month, and micro-sensors erected at every street corner to track-and-trace our every move for ‘surveillance capitalism’. This is not some dystopian rhetoric, it the reality right now on this planet pulling us further toward fragmentation and separation, if we so choose.

Yet the blackest hour brings the dawn; a time of rising awareness about the real depth of this reality we call life, whereupon we learn to work with the wisdom of nature rather than against it.

This dawn consists of a simultaneous inner-outer awakening – shifting our own inner self-awareness and our outer systemic-awareness of how living-systems really work beyond the confines of Mechanistic-Materialism. This inner-outer awakening is not simply an intellectual comprehension of living-systems-thinking, it’s a psychological and embodied undertaking; a metamorphosis that endures for months/years as our consciousness deepens in becoming more life-centric.

Through over more than 12 years of exploring regenerative leadership in practice, I have found that the most psychologically safe yet powerful way to aid this inner-outer shift is through nature-based immersions.

This is why I’m hosting a special 2-day immersion in the secluded ancient woodlands of Springwood Farm on 13-14th July (secluded yet within easy access to international trains/planes) to immerse in consciousness-raising practices, an overnight solo experience, and tools specifically designed to aid leaders and practitioners on their regenerative leadership journey.

If you wish to be a part of this small-group summer immersion you can find more information about it here – places are very limited and allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis.  Participants will gain a certificate at the end of the immersion certifying their engagement in this embodied experience.

The best leadership course I’ve ever attended.’ – Ian Ayling, CMO, Wilco

‘Life-changing.’ – Jayne Mayled, Managing Director, True Story

‘I felt I’ve been in the presence of a real master.’ – Simon Milton, CEO, Pulse Brands

‘Magical.’ – Sue Cheshire, CEO, Global Leaders Academy

Giles Hutchins is a pioneering practitioner and senior adviser at the fore-front of the [r]evolution in organizational and leadership consciousness and developmental approaches that enhance personal, organizational and systemic agility and vitality. He is author and co-author of several leadership and organizational development papers, and the books The Nature of Business (2012), The Illusion of Separation (2014), Future Fit (2016), Regenerative Leadership (2019) and Leading by Nature (2022). Chair of The Future Fit Leadership Academy and Founder of Leadership Immersions, co-founder of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation and Regenerators, he runs a 60 acre leadership centre at Springwood Farm, an area of outstanding natural beauty near London, UK.  Previously held corporate roles – Head of Transformation Practice for KPMG, Global Director and Head of Sustainability for Atos (150,000 employees, over 40 countries). He provides coaching at individual and organizational levels for those seeking to transform their personal and/or work lives. Giles is a keynote speaker on the future of business and regenerative leadership. He is also a Reiki Master, a certified advanced coach, holds a Diploma in Senior Leadership Development, a Masters of Science in Business Systems, is trained in advanced Integral Solonics leadership development, Spiral Dynamics a range of consciousness-raising modalities and is a certified Harthill Leadership Development Practitioner.

Leading by Nature is THE handbook for regenerative leadership. A must-read for every business leader who genuinely cares about the future of humanity.’   Jayn Sterland, CEO of Weleda UK

Leading by Nature is a must-read for those involved in the future of business.  I can’t recommend Giles’s work highly enough.” – Norman Wolfe, CEO of Quantum Leaders and author of The Living Organization: Transforming Business To Create Extraordinary Results

You can join the Leadership Immersions LinkedIn group here

Changing yourself to change the world: How can you become a regenerative business leader?

March 30, 2023

EXCLUSIVE from ‘edie’ www.edie.net written by award-winning senior reporter for edie, Sarah George original article was published here

Several pioneering businesses are pledging to deliver a net-positive impact on people and the planet. But will they be able to do so without first changing to their internal mindsets, structures and cultures?

Recognising that companies can often move faster than countries on climate, and accounting for the ways in which the climate crisis intersects with the nature crisis and with widening social inequalities, a growing cohort of visionary businesses are pledging to have a net-positive impact on people and planet.

The term ‘net-positive’ itself is not new. But the movement has certainly been growing in recent years, particularly due to the increased questioning of the purpose of businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic and other global challenges of the 2020s.

2021 saw former Unilever chief Paul Polman teaming up with Andrew Winston to publish a book on the matter, and Harvard Business Review publishing a net-positive manifesto. The net-positive movement has been gaining big-name business advocates in recent years, including Ikea, BT, Target and Levi Strauss.

As with many sustainability movements, net-positive visions had been pioneered by smaller organisations for years before these corporate giants really began to move.

But can a business of any size contribute to the regeneration of climate, nature and society without first transforming its internal cultures, structures and leadership styles?

Vivobarefoot’s founder Galahad Clark believes that the answer is likely ‘no’. He confesses to edie that he found that “in many ways, the company’s layout and its vision were at odds with each other for several years” after it was founded in 2012, aiming to be one of these smaller and bolder entities on net-positivity.

Vivo had stated a mission to bring people closer to nature from the outset, partly by literally selling them footwear which promotes grounding and is suitable for outdoor activities, made with a low environmental impact. But, as the global footwear market is highly fragmented and competitive, Vivo grappled to sell enough pairs. The team also did not necessarily set aside the time and headspace for the non-urgent but crucially important task of embedding its purpose beyond its products.

“In the very early days of the business, we were, arguably, in survival mode… learning business 101, as it were,” Clark says. “Once we were out of the woods metaphorically, it felt overdue to come into the woods for real.”

Organisation as organism

The ‘real’ woods that Clark refers to are based at Springwood Farm in West Sussex. Clark and his team regularly attend the Farm for what are known as ‘leadership immersions’, hosted by strategist and coach Giles Hutchins.

Hutchins elaborates on Clark’s point, telling edie:“VivoBarefoot’s mission is about connecting nature with human nature. Having an internal culture, an environment that does not encourage that would be a nonsense.

“Mechanistically, we turn purpose into a mission statement or a chart… deeper purpose is about how people and organisations gain meaning from everyday interactions.”

Hutchins is perhaps the UK’s longest-serving regenerative leadership coach, working with executives an impressive array of businesses including Unilever, Wilko, Sky, Capgemini and Toast Ale. Chief executives, board members and sustainability professionals from these and other organisations have

edie asks Hutchins to summarise what it actually means to be a regenerative business leader. He says that such an individual is “essentially attuning with the way life works, allowing themselves to get back into accord with nature”.

Hutchins elaborates: “There is a rising zeitgeist around the term ‘regenerative’, which is everywhere at the moment.. In things like regenerative agriculture, regenerative medicine or regenerative economics, we look at how living systems work and apply that knowledge. For a business as a whole, and for leaders, it’s a bit different. A key piece is being able to recognise that an organisation is not a machine, or a top-down hierarchy – it is full of human relationships.

“It sounds quite obvious, but it’s surprising how often we do think of a business like a machine made up of charts, functions, siloes. That creates a certain narrowing of our awareness.

“Sometimes, when we critique capitalism, we fail to critique the mindset that sits underneath it. In trying to change capitalism with a mechanistic mindset, we don’t get very far…. A lot of the environmental movement, which I’ve been in for most of my life, is getting caught [here].”

For Hutchins, a key part of the “mechanistic mindset” – thinking of a business or even a person as a machine disconnected from nature – is the compulsion to divide things into categories and hierarchies. There are managers and their subordinates. There is the sustainability team and the finance team and the strategy division, separate from the innovation team. In contrast, a regenerative business will have less of a vertical structure.

Another key division made in the mechanistic mind is that between the internal workings of an organisation and its impact on the world externally. Hutchins says: “The inner nature of an organisation, as a living system, is its culture. The outer nature is the value proposition – not just the product, but also community participation. They are absolutely connected.”

After all, old business cultures and structures, overseen by old-style leaders, are what have enabled businesses to externalize the true negative impact of their value chains for decades.

Over the past few years, there have been more than a few examples of business’s stated external value propositions being found to be at odds with their stated or perceived culture and governance. Four in ten fashion retailers withheld payments from suppliers during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite many stating commitments to better livelihoods for garment workers. Energy majors have been increasingly pushing adverts relating to their investments in low-carbon technologies, despite fossil fuels still accounting for more than 90% of their overall investment plans. The likes of P&O and British Airways have been hauled over the coals for mass firing and rehiring.

For Hutchins, a truly regenerative business is one that always “goes beyond the presentational”. Making a ‘race to the bottom’ is against the nature of a regenerative leader and their organisation, who would instead “not cut back on things that genuinely enable them to be future-fit”.

New kinds of value

We know that the general public are getting better at calling out businesses that are greenwashing and racing to the bottom, with regulatory structures improving at a pace to give consumers ways to better hold businesses to account. At the same time, businesses with strong purpose tend to out-perform their sector, with Unilever’s Sustainable Living Brands being an oft-cited case study.

We also know that investors are increasingly requesting environmental and social information from the businesses they invest in. Earlier this month, 746 investors collectively managing more than $136bn of assets wrote to some 15,000 companies urging better disclosure, via the CDP platform. Their call to action mentioned both that inaction builds up risks for the business and the whole system over time, and that bold action presents innovation opportunities.

Nonetheless, a business may still feel loathe to transform more in line with nature. Living in line with nature, in a personal capacity, is often referred to as ‘slow living’. And can a business afford to have this mindset in an increasingly fast-paced, increasingly digital economy? edie puts this challenge to Clark and to Hutchins.

Clark says: “Nature never rushes but gets everything accomplished. It’s time for us to embrace that.

“It is true that having a more networked organisation with less of a pyramid does make it arguably more complicated. But, I think, it’s worth it in the end. A lot more of our people are now closer to our customers, and, ultimately, we’re providing a better service to society.”

More broadly, beyond VivoBarefoot, Hutchins elaborates that a need to “drill down” and achieve record-breaking project after record-breaking project in rapid succession is a sign that a company is still in a mechanistic mindset full-time. But he emphasizes the importance, in a regenerative mindset, of only being able to tap into mechanistic thinking when necessary, rather than becoming stuck there all the time.

He explains: “Leaders have to be able to embrace fast-moving change. Cultures have to become more self-managing, because hierarchies become very burdensome in this time, creating a real drag.”

“The mechanistic mindset prides itself on efficiency and effectiveness, but our organisations today are woefully inefficient. And the biggest inefficiency is that we are managing others’ impressions of ourselves.”

For VivoBarefoot, the framework for regenerative thinking (which it calls ‘The Vivo Way’) links closely to its own advice on effectively wearing its shoes. It consists of upright posture (clear and robust governance), taking little steps (failing fast, remaining agile), relaxing and falling into rhythm (embedding regenerative culture through day-to-day work) and taking on sensory feedback (assessing for present and future opportunities and challenges, quickly correcting course).

A key part of implementing the ‘upright posture’ was conducting what Clark describes as a “radical restructure” of roles and responsibilities within the company. “Although some hierarchy remains,” the company’s latest annual report states, “we’re consciously shifting our individual and organizational relationship with power and control, from a parent-child to an adult-adult coaching culture”. The report argues that this “invites” staff to “bring more of themselves to work”.

‘Bringing more of oneself to work’ refers not only to their ability to be honest, making for faster failure and course-correction, but to chances to showcase and nurture different skills, Hutchins says.

“The mind has different capacities… which we close out when we get into mechanistic thinking. Insights. Opportunities to learn. Creativity. Chance meetings. Intiution.

“We’re not wasting time, we’re actually improving time by bringing in far more ways of knowing from our repertoire.”

Hutchins’ overarching conclusion is that businesses led in a regenerative manner are “not slower, just different”.

Clark adds that, although most can see the benefits of this way of working, human nature involves “clinging to what we are comfortable with”.

He says: “I am surprised every day… the most surprising thing is probably seeing people coming into the business from bigger organisations with more structure and more hierarchy in roles and needing to let go of this. A lot of people have spent their career feeling they are climbing up a ladder and they don’t want to be told to step down, even if it is to walk across the hall and start climbing a different ladder.”

“It’s certainly not easy. In many ways, it’s a more complicated path.”

Yet taking this path has clearly opened opportunities for VivoBarefoot to become a more entrepreneurial business. It recorded a 36% year-on-year growth in revenue in 2022 and announced numerous new innovation streams. For example, it is in the final stages of preparing to launch bespoke shoes in 2024, created using 3D scanning and printing, under an innovation known as ‘Vivobiome’. It is also going beyond products by offering health assessments, courses and coaching known as ‘VivoHealth’.

This was an article written for the sustainable business network ‘edie’ www.edie.net and written by award-winning senior reporter for edie, Sarah George original article was published here

For a podcast conversation of Galahad Clark and Giles Hutchins and also other leaders on the regenerative journey see here

For Giles Hutchins’ latest book Leading by Nature see here.

Diving Deep into Embodying Regenerative Leadership Consciousness

March 15, 2023

It’s a fascinating yet challenging time to be a leader and change-agent. We are in the midst of an old system dying and a new one being born, all amid unceasing transformation – change upon change upon change is the new-norm.  Yet as the genius Einstein knew, when we look deep in to nature we understand everything better; we see with new eyes and bring a different quality of consciousness to the solutions than that which created the problems in the first place.

Through over a decade of working on regenerative leadership and nature-based coaching, I have developed a range of practices, coaching-frames and processes that aid the journey of becoming a regenerative leader.   This necessarily involves a shift in consciousness which has to be embodied within ourselves first-and-foremost.  Such a shift in consciousness can be hugely rewarding and allow us to flow more resiliently with the rapid changes unfolding in our systems today.

On Thursday 13th July-Friday 14th July 2023, I will host a special one-off nature-based immersion at Springwood Farm, providing an embodied experience of what it means to become a Regenerative Leader and regenerative practitioner.  This overnight immersion will provide the deep-space for bodymind coherence and consciousness-raising practices that participants can apply to their own lives and leadership approaches beyond the immersion while immersing in a lasting and memorable experience in a well-held deep intentional-space. Drawing upon cutting-edge science, adult developmental psychology and ancient wisdom traditions, a range of powerful practices will be explored together and includes a 13hr overnight guided solo amid private ancient woodlands.

Participants will gain a Certificate from The Future Fit Leadership Academy at the end of the immersion certifying their engagement in this embodied experience.

The Immersion – Logistics:

Thursday 13th July: 9.30/9.45am Arrivals – refreshments upon arrival. Immersion commences at 10am

Friday 14th July: 3pm departures

By Car – RH17 6HQ

By Train – Come to Three Bridges station for no later than 9.30am, a cab will meet you there.

Springwood Farm – 60 acres of private ancient woodland with direct links to Gatwick International airport and Kings Cross St Pancreas International train station. See here.

Cost: £850 – To confirm your place email giles@ffla.co or connect with Giles through his website here – cost includes pre-reading material & practices, organic vegan food and refreshments throughout. You need to bring your own camping equipment for the overnight solo.

Pre-reading and preparation:  Once you have paid, your place is confirmed, and you will be sent preparatory material and guidance.  Other information will also be sent near the immersion with further information and guidance.

What can you hope to gain from the experience:  This will be a well-held deep space for a practical embodied experience of regenerative leadership consciousness for you as an individual – whether a leader, coach, practitioner or change-agent. You will engage in powerful-yet-safe practices, and be part of a small learning-group of like-minded yet diverse leaders and practitioners, and will be facilitated by Giles Hutchins for the entire two-days. Here are some of the things you can hope to experience:

  • Practical guidance on next-stage consciousness-raising practices and modalities
  • An embodied experience of regenerative leadership
  • Tools, processes and techniques to aid the journey toward regenerative leadership
  • Information on next-stage adult developmental psychology to aid the shift into next-stage leadership
  • Peer-sharing and facilitated group dialogue sessions
  • Pre-reading material and guidance before the workshop
  • A signed copy of Leading by Nature book (or any other of Giles’s five books)
  • Organic vegan food and refreshments throughout the two days
  • Personal certificate to certify your successful completion of the deep-dive immersive experience

Some quotes from previous immersions at Springwood with Giles:

‘The nature immersion workshop with Giles exceeded all expectations.  This is real space to develop strategies fit for the 21st century.’ – Stephen Passmore, CEO, Resilience Alliance

‘What an inspiring time in the woods Giles, a great balance of talking, contemplation, meditation, being in nature – Thank you so very much!’ –Participant, CEO of non-profit organization

“In these challenging times, Giles offers those of us in the ‘business as usual’ world both hope and the opportunity for deep connection with nature, spirit and ourselves. I highly recommend joining Giles for one of his immersion journeys of reconnection for a beautiful perspective on how we might do business differently and better.” – Will Adeney, Management Consultant & Nature Connection Mentor

‘Your immersion into nature opened our minds, opened our souls, to deeply connect with our place and purpose in life. With love and deep appreciation for your inspiration.’ – Sue Cheshire, Founder of the Global Leaders Academy

‘Feel I’ve had a day with a real master. What beautiful profound lessons’. – Simon Milton, CEO of Pulse Brands

After 14 months of lockdown, I joined Giles and others on a day-long ‘Leadership Immersion’ at Giles’ magical and awe-inspiring 60 acre ancient woodland in West Sussex.   Having read his book – Regenerative Leadership, I had high expectations. They were surpassed, magnificently.

Giles took us on a journey that saw complete strangers enter into a state of connection, high trust and intimacy – in a matter of hours.    We emerged nourished, energised, connected, centred and better equipped to deal with the challenges of life in the early ‘20s.    For those seeking answers around their personal and professional development – I can’t recommend Giles and his work highly enough. Richard Tyre, CEO of Good People

‘Giles’s blends business expertise, deep connection with nature and our living environment and experience in transformation, helping us think differently and progressively about work and organisational intent. He is magical in his ability to generate ‘safe spaces’ for conversations that matter’Caroline Gosling, Director, Rubica

‘Powerful and provocative – the most useful leadership course I’ve ever attended!’Ian Ayling, Director, Wilco

More reviews on Giles’ immersions can be found here https://gileshutchins.com/reviews/

More About Springwood Farm: a mix of semi-ancient and ancient woodland with wildflower meadows, 60 acres in total, private and secluded specially designed for advanced leadership coaching work, see some pictures here: https://www.leadershipimmersions.com/gallery

Here is a short video about Leadership Immersions:

About Giles Hutchins:

Giles Hutchins is a pioneering practitioner, advanced regenerative leadership coach and senior adviser at the fore-front of the [r]evolution in organizational and leadership consciousness and developmental approaches that enhance personal, organizational and systemic agility and vitality. He is author and co-author of several leadership and organizational development papers, and the books The Nature of Business (2012), The Illusion of Separation (2014), Future Fit (2016), Regenerative Leadership (2019) and Leading by Nature (2022). Chair of The Future Fit Leadership Academy and Founder of Leadership Immersions, co-founder of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation and Regenerators, he runs a 60 acre leadership centre at Springwood Farm, an area of outstanding natural beauty near London, UK.  Previously held corporate roles – Head of Transformation Practice for KPMG, Global Director and Head of Sustainability for Atos (150,000 employees, over 40 countries). He provides coaching at individual and organizational levels for those seeking to transform their personal and/or work lives. Giles is a keynote speaker on the future of business and regenerative leadership. He is also a Reiki Master, a certified advanced coach, and trained in advanced Integral Solonics leadership development, Harthill adult developmental action-logics, Leadership Development Framework, and other advanced modalities.  You can contact Giles Hutchins at https://gileshutchins.com/

This overnighter 13/14th July is a one-off experience for 2023, and places are limited.  Email giles@ffla.co if you wish to book a place or through the website https://gileshutchins.com/

“Giles Hutchins has for over a decade led the way with his championship of learning through nature. His new book is a really important evolution of these ideas emerging into a philosophy of systems thinking/being – it’s bang on the money, a really important book that will inspire all those whose role it is to champion resilience and adaptability, ethical commercial development, wellbeing in the workplace and the nurturing of a moral compass.” – Sir Tim Smit, KBE, Founder of The Eden Project

Leading by Nature is THE handbook for regenerative leadership. A must-read for every business leader who genuinely cares about the future of humanity.’   Jayn Sterland, CEO of Weleda UK

A truly exceptional and timely book that redefines the locus of power in relationship to leadership; leadership that seeks harmony and alignment with nature.    Giles reminds us to bring awareness/presence to everything that unfolds.    This book is the teacher we all need.” Sue Cheshire, Founder and former CEO of The Global Leaders Academy

Regenerative, Regenerative Leadership, Regenerative Business, Regeneration – What’s it all about?

March 13, 2023

We are nature and nature is us. Pure and simple. It’s only an imbalance in our perception – our state of consciousness – that lures us in to believing we are separate from each other and life on Earth. 

The cold reality today is, the dominant worldview pervading our businesses, institutions and societies is flawed, corrupted by an illusion of separation.  This logic sets ourselves apart from nature and each other. It’s deeply divisive and woefully inadequate, yet seldom questioned.

As entrepreneur and environmentalist Paul Hawken notes,

‘Our planet and youth are telling us the same story. Vital connections have been severed between human beings and nature; within nature itself; and between people, religions, governments, and commerce.  This disconnection is the origin of the climate crisis, it is the very root.’

As King Charles III of the United Kingdom notes,

‘When people talk of things like an ‘environmental crisis’ or a ‘financial crisis’ what they are actually describing are the consequences of a much deeper problem – a ‘crisis of perception’. It is the way we see the world that is ultimately at fault.’

As systems scientist Gregory Bateson notes,

‘The source of all our problems today stems from the gap between the way nature works and how we think.’

Regenerative Leadership closes that gap. It attends to the heart of the crisis of perception by finding right-relation inside ourselves and with life on Earth.

This involves a shift in consciousness – and it costs nothing, and is simple (though not necessarily easy). It’s our birth-right. It’s the essential purpose of what it means to be truly human.

From this regenerative ground we find our way out of illusion and into the way life works. Life, itself, is naturally life-affirming – its innately regenerative. So too is our human nature. If we right ourselves back into our own authenticity we become regenerative, naturally. This ‘inner turn’ is vital for any outer regeneration.  Try walking the path of regeneration without embodying this inner-shift and you slip back into illusion without even realising.

‘There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.’ Morpheus

Let’s keep this super simple for a moment, by starting with simple definitions:

‘Regeneration’ – Tending toward harmony with life. Bringing life into the centre of every decision.

‘Regenerative’ – Working the way life works. The process of tending toward regeneration (harmony with life).

‘Regenerative Leadership’ – Leading self and system toward harmony with life. Drawing upon both self-awareness (authenticity/wholeness) and systemic-awareness (sensitivity/wisdom) to cultivate the conditions for regeneration. A process of becoming more authentic and life-centric. 

‘Regenerative Business’ – An organization that seeks harmony with life. Both the inner-nature (culture) and outer-nature (value propositions and stakeholder engagement) are purposefully journeying toward regeneration (harmony with life).

Keep it simple!  Job done, now let’s go home.

Not quite so fast – as the journey home is actually the very regenerative journey we are exploring here, and its way beyond neat-and-tidy definitions, although defining things can definitely help. 

Essentially, ‘becoming regenerative’ is a full-bodied reconnection into the rapture of reality; an authentic connection into our inner-nature (the essence within ourselves) and outer-nature (the essence of the living-organization, community and world we participate in).  Connecting to inner-outer essence allows energy to arise, informing our flow with life.

‘Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.’ Lao Tzu

The vitality of the individual, team and organization enhance when connected to essence.  Aristotle’s eudemonia or ‘wellbeing’ emanates from inner-nature into outer-nature and vice versa.  This is the gift of regeneration right into the heart of day-to-day interactions and decision-making. Connecting to inner-outer essence enables right-relation that informs right-action shaping business strategy and tactics that seek harmony with life.

For many business leaders this can seem very far from what they’ve been taught at mainstream business schools or bootcamp 101 courses. But for a growing number of conscious leaders, this capacity to centre and deepen into self-and-systemic awareness forms the foundation for right decision-making: Making decision not just in nature but by nature. This is the art of regeneration – leading by nature, attuned with inner-nature/outer-nature and finding harmony with life.

We are born regenerative, and we die regenerative – but we get lost during much of our waking lives in a kind of slumber of sedentary-sedation inured in the malaise of our mechanistic-materialistic culture.

We ‘grow up’ and get acculturated. We start to think we’re separate from life: anxious, fear-filled, must-get-on, win-out amid the hyper-competitive marketplace. We start to lose touch with our own essence and with the essence of life. We grasp at life, seek to control, clutch at straws, apply artifice to get-on, and start believing our own illusion. Techno-fix short-cut solutions seem sure enough, not realising we are but lost in the labyrinth far from home, no longer able to read the stars or inner-compass, cut adrift, tossed this-way-and-that amid fickle ego-urges, false quests and superficial distractions. We start to lose our own sovereignty, give away our power to people we assume know how to run a successful company yet who don’t connect with the essence of the organization. Instead of emancipation, enslavement creeps-in.

So we need to journey – I mean really journey. Not some touristic voyeuristic excuse of a journey.

To explore, and not cease exploring inwardly and outwardly, and to arrive not at some new-found-land out-yonder aghast in-wonder, but to soberly arrive here into reality, and know it as if for the first time. Then the heart-beat within us knows the rhythm of nature, and can better serve the evolution of life. This is the ‘First Time’ the ancient Egyptians and other ancient peoples speak of – the space-time where Heaven and Earth meet, the centre point where movement and dance unfold. This is where regeneration begins and ends, and it’s the only place we find right-relation with our own selves and our organizational systems. Everything else is distraction.

Find tongues in trees,

Books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones,

And good in every thing.   William Shakespeare

To be explicitly clear here, regeneration is not about us fixing the world or even slowing down the negative impact we have on the world through greener-shades of consumerism. It’s about us learning to get back in tune with life, each and every day, remembering the wisdom that is already here, always has been, right before our noses, amid every tree, brook, stone, sunset and sunrise.

Regeneration, regenerative leadership and regenerative business are predicated upon a worldview shift from Mechanistic-Materialism to Quantum-Complexity (I explain this in detail in Leading by Nature and what this shift means for leadership and organizational development).

Mechanistic Materialism is a 400 year-old mindset born out of the Scientific & Industrial Revolution. We’re still running on it today; managing our businesses with a 400yr old operating system. Isn’t it ironic that the mechanistic mindset prides itself on being up-to-date yet it’s woefully out-of-date, proven wrong by brilliant scientists for a century already – think Einstein, Schrodinger, Bohr, Bohm, Meadows, Margulis, Midgley, Bateson, and many more.

The mechanistic story goes like this – humans are separate from nature, nature is a set of resources to be used for human betterment. Nature has no intrinsic worth other than to humans, simply a collection of things to be manipulated by us for us. This view posits that there is nothing in life beyond that which can be measured-monitored-controlled-managed. Gone is the life-force of nature, any sense of soul or sacredness. Life becomes de-animated, therefore ripe for our exploitation.

Evolution is viewed primarily as a competitive struggle for survival – Newtonian/Cartesian/Neo-Darwinian.  Masculine yang-assertion is prioritised over feminine yin-receptivity, outer-form/productization is prioritised over inner-depth/craftsmanship. Left-brain hemispheric and head-based thinking seek control and linearity, while deprioritizing the right-hemispheric full-bodied embodied/intuitive and emergent experience of life.

Many sustainability initiatives are caught up in this Mechanistic Materialism. Let’s fix the world so we humans can survive at the expense of nature. Let’s strip-out wildlife and plant monocrop trees for carbon-sequestration. Let’s flood bird sanctuaries and wetlands so tidal dams can enable green-electricity. Let’s geoengineer the weather to reduce the sun’s rays to help mitigate global warming. Let’s augment reality, wear smart-watches and smart-glasses to be incessantly connected to smart-grids for a smart-planet to track-and-trace our movements and choices for controlling carbon footprints… and so forth. These are the hallmarks of Mechanistic Materialism at work.  For sure it’s neat-and-tidy objectified-reductionism is a useful tool we can draw upon, but when dominant it’s dangerous.

We can draw upon the tool of technology and linearity without it usurping our inner-outer connectedness. Life is not something to be controlled but something to dance with, and become one with.

In our own psyches, Mechanistic Materialism creates an imbalanced tendency of human-over-nature; left hemisphere-over-right hemisphere; masculine-over-feminine; outer achievement-over-inner wellbeing. So much so, we probably do not even notice how divisive and corrosive it is to ourselves and our systems. With it comes heightened separateness, imposter syndromes and a constant background level of fear. This decouples us from our centre. We search for outer-satisfaction to mask over the inner-fear, and find addiction to superficial connection. Enter the contagion of consumerism we’re caught in today.  We think it’s OK (or even ‘progress’) when witnessing more and more people staring into screens when walking down the street, on the train, in restaurants together, at the park with their kids, and the breakfast table on a Sunday morning.  Disconnection is rising, with all sorts of mental health and wellbeing issues now rampant.  Today’s corporate-machine mentality responds with yet more apps and algorithms corrupting its own consumers in the name of ‘wellbeing’. We slip further into the labyrinth; further from essence and regeneration.

Please don’t misunderstand me, this is not a rage-against-the-machine, I love technology and the immense benefits it brings us, including the ability to reduce air-miles, connect us across boundaries, and find sustainable solutions that reduce negative impact. Yet let’s not be seduced into a sedentary-sedated stupor of superficiality where real connection to our deeper selves, each other and the present moment gets trampled by the titillation of social media, augmented second-life and consumer-app transactions.

The imbalance Mechanistic Materialism creates in the psyche unroots us from Earth/Universe, disrupting the yin-yang harmony of working the way nature works, taking us out of the path of regeneration. Chaos and dis-ease ensue.

Ancient wisdom traditions and indigenous peoples the world-over have long known this – take yourself out of harmony with nature, and we get sick in the mind and body.

For instance, ancient Egypt’s rich wisdom tradition conveys a struggle between Maat (the harmony innate within the rhythms of nature) and Isfet (corrupting distraction that pulls us off-centre and out of harmony into chaos). The quest of the wise person is to discern Maat from Isfet, to know when one is being led astray by the seduction of false connection and when one is on the path to regeneration.

Indigenous prophecies speak of a time when the forces of nature will be undermined to such an extent due to a distracting disease of the mind infecting vast swathes of humanity. The choice will be a simple one – wake-up and rebalance or chaos unfolds.  Such prophecies also say how this time of immense breakdown/breakthrough can also be a good time, of hope and opportunity, of new dawns and new steps if we are able to connected to our centre and banish struggle from our minds.

Prophecies or no prophecies, wisdom traditions or no wisdom traditions – this much is clear: imbalance is very real – let’s notice the tendency to prioritize the yang outer-achiever what-gets-measured-gets-done, the desire to compartmentalise and silo, to command-and-control.

In seeking to solve the climate emergency, social inequality or any of the other systemic challenges we face, if we lead with imbalance all sorts of wrong-footedness, confusion, stress and conflict creeps in that taking us away from the path of regeneration.  Keeping life at the heart of our decision-making is not simply a rational endeavour mapped out through planetary-boundary frameworks (though this is indeed an important step forward, and vitally needed) it’s a deep felt-sense of connectedness with the web of life that awakens in us as we reconnect with Nature’s Wisdom within and all around us. 

‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind its faithful servant; we’ve created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.’  Albert Einstein

In reality, we need to work with BOTH the rational-analytic tools and technologies we have today AND the deeper integral awareness of living-systems as emergent-ecological-quantum phenomena.  Yet as Einstein wisely notes, it’s the intuitive embodied connection that is primary, the tools and technologies serve it, not the other way round. Then, with this sacred gift activated within us, we begin the journey out of the labyrinth of our own illusions and find our way toward regeneration.

So, what does this mean for leadership?  Well, we need more than Responsible Leadership, Transparent Leadership or Sustainable Leadership – as these forms of leading do not necessarily involve a mindset shift from Mechanistic Materialism to Quantum Complexity.  For this we need Regenerative Leadership – a way of leading that enables the team/organization/community to journey toward becoming a ‘regenerative business’ – where the organization is recognised as a living-system deeply immersed in the living-systems of life on Earth.  This kind of leadership involves two dynamics – self-awareness and systemic-awareness:

1) Self-awareness (Know Thy Self) a path of deepening into our inner-nature and learning through our relationships with others. This is a developmental journey of becoming more of who we truly are, and living our dharma by serving life;

2) Systemic-awareness (deeply sense-in to the organizational system), not just mechanistically mapping-out structures, control mechanisms and decision-making protocols with our heads, but attune with the essence of the living-system, in a full-bodied way that necessarily activates our super-nature, head/heart/gut integration, embodied knowing, along with a practical (and scientific) understanding of how complex adaptive systems work through emergent and evolutionary dynamics.

The living-organization itself has its own life-force, its own evolutionary potential, and as regenerative leaders we work with this life-force. It’s a celebratory dance that challenges us every day at deep and partly unconscious levels. It’s not a day-job but a totalizing way-of-life that emancipates us from the slumber of sedentary-sedation.

This necessarily involves a threshold-crossing – a metamorphic shift in consciousness – for the leader.

Regenerative Business has two dimensions to it 1) the outer-nature of the organization – its value-propositions and stakeholder impact, 2) the inner-nature of the organization – its culture and everyday interactions for employees.  When these two dimensions intentionally seek to become more life-affirming then the organization is more authentic and can be said to be on the journey toward regeneration.

Let’s briefly explore each dimension:

1) Outer-nature – the way the organisation interacts outwardly with the world through its value-propositions, stakeholder relations and impact the organization has on its entire ‘stakeholder ecosystem’ (including wider society/environment). 

This is a journey, with stages or layers along the way – think Russian Dolls, each layer contains the previous layers nested within the business. We have earlier stages still present within the business at any one time, yet can operate from more advanced stages not just falling back on old constructs.

The traditional stage of ‘conventional business’ mindset (aka amber/orange – in integral/ego stage-development lingo) is helpful for cutting costs, managing and controlling the P&L, etc. the business basics essential to running the organization, but essentially ‘survivalist’ and short-term profit focused – think Milton Friedman and 101 business bootcamp.

Then, transcending-and-including into ‘sustainable business’ mindset (orange/green) with its recognition of the wider impact the business has throughout the stakeholder ecosystem (Responsible Leadership, Conscious Capitalism and B-Corp initiatives start to kick-in at this stage).

Then, transcending-and-including into ‘restorative business’ mindset (green) aka ‘net positive’ in recognition that minimizing negative impact is not enough and there are sound business reasons for creating shared-value across the stakeholder ecosystem, creating ‘net positive impact’.

At all these three stages of business mindset one can still be operating within a human-centric rather than life-centric perspective, and still sitting comfortably within Mechanistic-Materialism.

Though, once the organization starts moving out of conventional into sustainable and restorative/net-positive business, more and more people in the organization start to open their minds to regeneration. A rising dissonance amongst leaders dawns that mechanistic thinking is no longer adequate to deal with the interwoven systemic challenges of the day. And then the transcending-and-including from restorative/net-positive business into the next stage ‘regenerative business’ mindset (teal/living-systems) involves a threshold is crossed into a deeper recognition of the innate interconnectedness of the organization embedded within Earth’s living-system with rhythms and ways that we can learn to attune with in making life-centric decisions.

A common mistake today is to assume net-positive initiatives are the same as regenerative – they can be if a living-systems mindset is activated. But often, in my experience, net-positive initiatives can draw from a human-centric mechanistic ‘humans doing something to nature’ mentality. This is NOT the same as regenerative.  Hence, the importance of regenerative leadership to cultivate conditions for a shift in mindset out of mechanistic into living-systems, to wake-up from the slumber of separateness.

As said earlier – an organization is like nested Russian dolls, so while it may be journeying toward regeneration it still displays ‘conventional’, ‘sustainable’ or ‘net positive’ business tendencies as and when needed, but this is no longer the default go-to mindset.  A threshold is crossed in the consciousness of the organization. This is largely predicated on key people, like the founder and CEO, operating from next-stage regenerative leadership consciousness by having gone through a threshold-crossing in their own meaning-making from mechanistic into living-systems. Otherwise, we are merely gesturing toward regeneration, excited by the word, but not full-heartedly and courageously progressing on the regenerative journey.  Enter the phrase ‘regenerative rinsing’ (rather like ‘green washing’) where the word ‘regenerative’ and ‘regeneration’ are used without fully embracing the threshold-crossing required.

2) Inner-nature – this is about how employees show-up and engage amid the day-to-day working environment.  Traditionally this has been overlooked by the sustainable business narrative, with HR/Culture Leads going to completely different conferences and networking events, even using a completely different business lexicon to their Sustainability/CSR counterparts – two different silo’s within a corporate-machine competing for attention and prioritization.

For regenerative business the day-to-day culture is a vital part of the living-systems mindset. Here are 3 key qualities essential for the living-organization to become regenerative: Developmental, Emergence, Evolutionary (DEE) – all of which combine together to enable future-fitness, agility and authenticity in journeying toward regeneration. It’s simply good business sense, and far from creating a drag on business performance, increases adaptability, creativity and resilience.

‘In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.’ Margaret Wheatley

I unpack each of these DEE qualities in detail in the book Leading by Nature with supportive practices and tools. Here, I briefly summarise each:

Developmental – A developmental culture celebrates learning. The learning-edge happens in what I phrase a ‘psychologically safe yet developmentally challenging’ environment. It’s a culture than integrates reflection-in-action, coaching conversations and feedback.

Emergence – Emergence is the way life unfolds propelled by tensions. Creating the right space for tensions to become crucibles for learning, growth and evolution enables the life-force of the living-organization to thrive rather than merely survive amid volatile times. A simple yet powerful way I have found that helps teams work through tensions of divergence-convergence spawning emergence, is through practices like Dialogue, Deep Listening and Non-violent Communication, and a host of Liberating Structures – simple rules that liberate creative innovation and emergence. I provide some free-to-download tools on my website that help with individual and organizational emergence. 

‘We can’t impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.’  Donella Meadows

Evolutionary – As we embrace the Quantum Complexity worldview, we realize that the living-organization is continuously adjusting and adapting both within itself and with its external environment through relationships.  Just as we are learning to connect to our essence inside ourselves, the organization as it adapts and evolves is deepening its connection to its essence – its ‘reason-for-being’. The more we tune-in to the relational patterns and systemic dynamics of the living-organization the more we can sense-respond to what best serves the organization’s reason-for being. A practice I have found that helps with this is what I call Systemic Enablers which I describe in detail in Leading by Nature.

This DEE inner-nature of the organization allows it to thrive amid a constant state of flux. It aids a threshold-crossing beyond fear and separateness by embracing change in deepening who we truly are. This helps us live life more fully and become more true, organizationally and individually.

As the Quaker leadership specialist Parker J Palmer notes, this way of learning and operating opens us into life, whereupon time, and life itself, becomes more abundant as we learn to live more responsively to the wisdom of nature. We create space in our working relationships that welcome diversity while deepening into the ‘seed of the true self’ unlocking our innate potential as a force for good in the world.  This may sound idealistic or utopian, but what other option do we really have? Continue in our sedated slumber and ruin all our life-support systems, or awaken into how life really works? Besides, there are many good practical business reasons for walking the regenerative path. And there are a growing number of organizations embracing this journey because they know it’s true to their being – I provide examples in Leading by Nature, and also in this previous blog article.

Briefly, just two examples:

AXA Climate – its reason-for-being is to make regenerative business universal. It’s outer-nature is journeying toward regeneration by providing training, education and risk-management services that help clients join the regenerative journey. Its inner-nature is journeying toward regeneration by cultivating a life-affirming living-organization through practices and rituals that aid an agile, developmental and emergent culture. In the words of AXA Climate:

Reducing our negative impact on the planet is not enough. Our collective challenge is to switch from extractive companies to regenerative companies. To that end, we are transforming our business models, our organizations and our collective missions. And this transformation movement drives us. We are changing the paradigm: our companies are living beings, nested in the living world.

For a podcast interview with AXA Climate CEO Antoine Denoix listen here.

Vivobarefoot – its reason-for-being is to help reconnect people to the natural world and reclaim their potential. Its outer-nature is journeying toward regeneration by providing barefoot sustainable footwear, bespoke 3d printing and natural health education services, events and communities. It’s inner-nature is journeying toward regeneration by cultivating an adult-adult self-managing culture based on regenerative leadership principles informing a developmental, emergent and evolutionary living-systems mindset.  In the words of Vivobarefoot:

When we reconnect to the natural world, we reconnect to ourselves. It’s time to embrace a natural way of living, and let nature heal us. Vivo is on a mission to regenerate both human and environmental health.

For a podcast interview with Vivo CEO Galahad Clark listen here.

As the ancient Lao Tzu knew:

Open yourself to nature,

Then trust your natural responses;

Everything will fall into place.

What Lao Tzu points to is a shift in our way of attending to life, from one that seeks to assert control over life, to one that opens into the Way of Nature. 

This is the act of regeneration and it starts with an inner-turn into the stillness amid movement. No credit card required.  But a dose of Balance, Patience, Courage and Purposefulness will definitely help the journey unfold (see Leading by Nature for a comprehensive exploration into these essential regenerative leadership virtues).

The final words I shall leave to the poet:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

                                                                                T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, 4 Quartets

“Giles Hutchins has for over a decade led the way with his championship of learning through nature. His new book is a really important evolution of these ideas emerging into a philosophy of systems thinking/being – it’s bang on the money, a really important book that will inspire all those whose role it is to champion resilience and adaptability, ethical commercial development, wellbeing in the workplace and the nurturing of a moral compass.” – Sir Tim Smit, KBE, Founder of The Eden Project

Leading by Nature is THE handbook for regenerative leadership. A must-read for every business leader who genuinely cares about the future of humanity.’   Jayn Sterland, CEO of Weleda UK

A truly exceptional and timely book that redefines the locus of power in relationship to leadership; leadership that seeks harmony and alignment with nature.    Giles reminds us to bring awareness/presence to everything that unfolds.    This book is the teacher we all need.” Sue Cheshire, Founder and former CEO of The Global Leaders Academy

Giles Hutchins is a pioneering practitioner and senior adviser at the fore-front of the [r]evolution in organizational and leadership consciousness and developmental approaches that enhance personal, organizational and systemic agility and vitality. He is author and co-author of several leadership and organizational development papers, and the books The Nature of Business (2012), The Illusion of Separation (2014), Future Fit (2016), Regenerative Leadership (2019) and Leading by Nature (2022). Chair of The Future Fit Leadership Academy and Founder of Leadership Immersions, co-founder of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation and Regenerators, he runs a 60 acre leadership centre at Springwood Farm, an area of outstanding natural beauty near London, UK.  Previously held corporate roles – Head of Transformation Practice for KPMG, Global Director and Head of Sustainability for Atos (150,000 employees, over 40 countries). He provides coaching at individual and organizational levels for those seeking to transform their personal and/or work lives. Giles is a keynote speaker on the future of business and regenerative leadership. He is also a Reiki Master, a certified advanced coach, and trained in advanced Integral Solonics leadership development, Harthill vertical leadership development, as well as other advanced modalities.

Leading by Nature: https://gileshutchins.com/leadingbynaturebook/

Video :

Feel free to join the LinkedIn Community Leadership Immersions here https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13767578/

Menopause. An invitation? By Dr. Carolyn Eddleston

February 27, 2023

I am beginning to wonder if the menopausal journey is like a second adolescence; a time of tumultuous change, a transition into an upgraded mind and body. An initiation, a rite of passage.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, (TCM) there is a significant gate that is passed through every 7 years in females, and every 8 years in males. Hence boys usually reach puberty a couple of years later.

Despite the menopause being out of the closet, we are in danger of medicalising it, viewing it as an illness to be “cured” so we can get on with our frenetic lives, our lives on paper that read pretty well….

I am not belittling the myriad of physical, mental and emotional symptoms that can prevail, and sometimes consume this chapter in women’s (and their close others’) lives.  

We have few authentic role models for this wide spectrum of experiences, covering the peri-menopause, the menopause and life as a peri-menopausal being,

We now expect to live fully, well into our 80’s and 90’s. We expect a lot, and why shouldn’t we?

In many other cultures, this chapter of life for a woman is a celebration, an initiation into becoming the wise woman, the crone, the hag, the elder. It is a position to be revered.

In TCM, as the menses or monthly blood loss, cease, a new meridian or pathway opens up between the uterus and the heart. The  blood now feeds the heart, our sovereign leader, and makes us wise. How beautiful…..

I remember meeting countless wise, elder women practitioners in my late 20’s whilst living in New Zealand. I was struck by their steadiness, their powerful softness and presence, their unshakeable compassion, and their capacity for deep, active listening.

I bridge a gap in my work; 25 years as an NHS GP, and 20 as a Traditional Acupuncturist. (with a crossover of about 15 years for those of you doing the maths!) Such a privilege, witnessing hundreds of thousands of life stories.

I have observed that women who continue to push, strive, justify continuing hard work and effort, tend to struggle with many symptoms linked to the menopausal medical list. They push to stay the same. Same goals, same expectations of their physical bodies, same libido. There is a safety in controlling our external environments. Our external roles in life can become our identity.

I am fascinated by our internal environments. That secret world of thoughts, feelings, fears, aspirations, and the constant physical feedback we get from our bodies.

The heart in TCM is considered the sovereign leader, not the brain. It gives us constant soft whisperings that are received often as a gut feeling, an intuitive knowing. The heart needs lightness, fun, laughter…

Denying the soft invitation from the developing wise heart, may well be a problem.

Those of us who start to reflect, deeply listening to our own knowing, our own wisdom, get a chance to dive under the constant inner mind dialogue, often quite critical.

I am immersed in my own journey of initiation at 55, curious as to what is possible. With much support and more self-care than I had imagined, I am committed to navigating this final chapter differently. I feel ready to be bolder, brighter, softer, and an even more powerful creator.

Perhaps this chapter-in-life is an invitation to get to know ourselves more intimately as we transition into expressing ourselves more fully, stepping up courageously into the wise women that we are. I invite you to walk with me with an open heart into the unknown. We are the role-models for this generation. You are not alone.

This is a guest blog by Dr Carolyn Eddleston:

Dr Carolyn Eddleston- Registered Doctor, Traditional Acupuncturist and British Acupuncture council member. Carolyn worked within the NHS as a GP for 25 years. She observed that Western medicine excelled in life or death situations. Individuals with more chronic disorders or who failed to fit into a diagnostic box were left dissatisfied and with few treatment options. Traditional Chinese Medicine makes connections between various organ systems within the body in a way which Carolyn observed as a doctor but had no explanation for. Whilst living in New Zealand for 6 years she completed a 3 year, full-time Diploma in Acupuncture. The training transformed not only her own life but the way she understood health and illness. Her treatment style now focuses on supporting health rather than being centred solely on illness.

Essential Steps Toward a Regenerative Mindset

February 3, 2023

Any real and lasting shift in our business and wider socio-economic system is predicated upon a shift in mindset. As the much-admired award-winning former Chairman and CEO of Interface, Ray Anderson explained,

‘We have been, and still are, in the grips of a flawed view of reality – a flawed paradigm, a flawed worldview – and it pervades our culture putting us on a biological collision course with collapse.’

Our worldview affects how we perceive life and our sense of place and purpose within it.  Without a new understanding of reality, and the shift in consciousness this demands, we continue on a collision course with collapse. The time has come to get radical and deal with the root problem, a flawed view of reality.

Worldview Shift

We are living through the very moment that a four-hundred-year-old worldview is dying, and another is struggling to be born. This evolutionary breakdown-breakthrough ushers in a wholesale reconfiguration of commercial life, a new world of work, and a reinvention of the organization.  What’s the emerging future of this transformative time we are in? No one yet knows. Yet, we can see what’s dying – the old worldview of Mechanistic Materialism with its mechine logic – and what’s birthing – the new worldview of Quantum Complexity with its living-systems logic. 

An important aspect of cultivating a regenerative mindset is comprehending the wider context within which a challenge is situated.  So let’s explore the historic context of the dying Mechanistic Materialism and birthing Quantum Complexity.

A Canter Through Western Worldview Shifts

Spanning from around 100,000 years ago to around 10,000 years ago (8000 BC) evidence points to Homo sapiens living in deep communion with nature. The cultural norm in these aboriginal cultures was to uphold a deep sense of reverence for all life. Nature was perceived as sentient and sacred, with every living-being forming part of a greater whole.  Humans worked in harmony with the rhythms innate within nature.  Let’s call this worldview Animism.

For the animist, the spiritual energies encountered in the depths of the psyche were also working in the depths of nature. The ‘outer’ world of nature was an opening into the ‘inner’ world of psyche and soul. The boundary between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ was more permeable than experienced now, and there was an essential unity between humanity and nature.  The human soul participated in a psychic world common to all. By bringing one’s consciousness into harmonious relationship with deep archetypal patterns and forces innate within nature and psyche one achieved a sense of self-integration and true-nature/dharma.

For Animism, life is full of subtle energies active behind the scenes. Everything is perceived as made up of energy/spirit. This energy/spirit is conscious, and therefore everything is conscious; everything is part of a living, interconnected web of energy. Right-relation is found through practices that bring a deep empathy with, and reverence for, all things. Shamanic rituals, dance, drumming, journeying, vision quests and such like, help keep the ego-psyche open and permeable with these subtle energies for right livelihood. Nature is experienced as not simply ‘out there’, perceptible only to the senses, instead contains an inner soul-life that enacts eternal myths and archetypal narratives through natural processes and events amid everyday life-experiences.

Then in Europe, around 10,000 years ago there was a shift in climate and a shift in society, beginning what anthropologist Steve Taylor refers to as the Ego Explosion. Our sense of self-identity shifted from seeing ourselves as part of nature to a sense of separateness rising in the human psyche. This rise of ego-consciousness brought increasing self-agency and self-empowerment, along with a significant shift in how we operated and organized. With it, Animism in Europe gave way to the Neolithic and Agricultural Revolutions, the rise of Hellenistic Greece, the Roman Empire, Christendom, then the Middle Ages of Medieval Europe.  Let’s call this worldview, with its heightening ego-consciousness and increasing prioritisation of rational intellect over intuitive empathic connection, Greco-Medieval.

One of the key formative minds of the Greco-Medieval worldview was Aristotle. Aristotle’s ‘eudaimonia’ – wellbeing & happiness – is cultivated by connecting with one’s inner light (soul). Soul virtues such as ‘synesis’ (right-understanding, inner conscience, insight), ‘sophia’ (intuitive spirit-wisdom), and ‘phronesis’ (practical wisdom, mindfulness, prudence) help cultivate our inner-nature to find harmony with outer-nature.  The human soul is a portal into the World Soul or ‘Mind of Nature’. Aligning inner-outer nature provides for right livelihood, a morality found not through ethical codes of conduct, religious commandments or shamanic rituals, but through an inner-sense of rightness. No longer was the human needing to consult the gods or oracles for decision-making, instead one becomes an autonomous decision-maker. This comes with a drawing away from the archetypal forces in nature, and a focusing on the human soul as moral compass.

Aristotle’s ‘eudaimonia’ recognises the human soul as a portal into the spirit-realm innate within nature, yet puts the human soul at the centre of things. So, let’s call this Greco-Medieval mindset ‘humanist-animist’ as it recognises the importance of attuning inner-outer nature for wellbeing and right-livelihood (animism), yet prioritises human agency (humanism). 

Add to this the rising dominance of Christendom in the Middle Ages, and we see a further separating of the human psyche from nature. With it, the last vestiges of animism are banished from the Western worldview.

To be clear, this is not because the Christian teachings of Jesus encourage a sense of separation from nature, as his original teachings clearly emphasise the sacredness of all life. Nor because Christianity as a belief-system is anthropocentric, as many Christians throughout the ages deeply sense the sacredness innate in nature (John the Scot and Francis of Assisi being two well-known medieval examples), and many practicing Christians today would resonate with Aristotle’s ‘humanist-animist’ approach. Instead, it’s because a form of Christian fanaticism rose during the Middle Ages. As with many organised belief-systems at scale, power-control tendencies started to dominate the Church infrastructure. A quest for supreme control, rather than living the values of Jesus’s original teachings seemed to take hold. Inner-connection to the divine soul within us was deprioritised by the Church in favour of worshipping a transcendent God separate from nature and humanity. In a quest for total power, any vestiges of animism practiced amongst European communities were viewed as heretical and violently stamped out. The Crusades, Inquisitions and Witch Hunts burnt and tortured thousands upon thousands, and a previously harmonious relationship between Muslim, Christian and Jew was ruptured.  This prioritisation of worshipping a patriarchal transcendent God separate from nature and accessible only through the Church sowed the seeds of its own decline.

Enter another cultural shift hand-in-hand with a shift in climate around 400 years ago in Europe. The Reformation, Scientific Revolution and Industrial Revolution unfolded, all drawing upon an increasingly reductive and mechanistic perspective of life hand-in-hand with heightening ego-consciousness and separateness. ‘What gets measured gets done’ is the new maxim, and reductive objectified science becomes the new religion. Any archetypal immeasurable realm in nature is ignored as irrelevant or non-existent.  A split occurs between mind (spirit) and matter (energy). The dynamism of life, along with its emergent and evolutionary potential, is drained of sacredness. Nature is viewed as a collection of objects to be managed and controlled for human betterment. The evolution of life on Earth is seen as a process of selfish ascendency, separate species struggling for survival in a dog-eat-dog world devoid of meaning or purpose.  

This rise of Mechanistic Materialism takes over from the dying Greco-Medieval worldview, liberating us from the superstitious religious dogma of Medieval times, and yet substituting religious dogma for materialistic dogma. Any perspective of an animate consciousness or spirit-realm innate within nature is banished. Along with this banishment so too a deprioritization of receptive, intuitive and soulful ways of knowing, with the logical rational mind reining supreme.  The ‘humanist-animist’ approach of Greco-Medieval times morphs into a ‘humanist-materialist’ mindset. The human being is not just set apart from nature but from its own soul. It’s in the rational thinking mind that we find happiness ‘out there’ attained through the material ‘good life’ with ethics and morality found through adhering to rational-analytic moral codes mapped out by reason and science. This has come with all sorts of advancements we all enjoy today from the morality of human rights and liberalism to the technological advancements in modern medicine, transportation and digitization.  There is nothing inherently wrong with Mechanistic Materialism and yet it has had the effect of separating the human psyche from the sacredness of life and the insights of the soul. Without this sense of connection into the soul of inner-outer nature, all-too-easily we get consumed by the ego’s fickle wants and needs. Rather than a quest for harmony with life, or for wellbeing through right livelihood, the purpose of life orientates around satisfying material needs. Enter the rise of capitalist consumerism, egotism and individualism.  As Frankie Goes To Hollywood infamously notes – sex and horror become the new gods.   

It’s this ungrounding from reality that lies at the heart of our manifold social and environmental crises today. Trying to dealt with these challenging with the same level of consciousness that created them (Mechanistic Materialism) is futile, and wastes precious time, energy and resources. Enter the Age of Regeneration which draws upon a worldview of Quantum Complexity, the foundations of which have already been painstakingly laid by pioneers for us to build upon.

At the beginning of the 20th century, breakthrough scientific discoveries in physics were made by great minds such as Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, and Walther Nernst, all of whom profoundly influenced our understanding of how the universe works—and with them Quantum Physics was born along with a scientific understanding of the innate interconnectedness of life, and the presence of an invisible realm – the Quantum Vacuum or Field.

By the mid-20th century more ground-breaking scientific discoveries started to unfold, this time across the fields of biology, chemistry, cybernetics, and social science, made by great minds such as Gregory Bateson, Ilya Prigogine, Donella Meadows and Fritjof Capra, profoundly influencing our understanding of how nature works—and with them Complexity Science was born along with a scientific understanding of the emergent and evolutionary nature of life. Add into the mix the pioneering findings in developmental psychology, analytical psychology, depth psychology, transpersonal psychology, ecological psychology, integral psychology and spiritual psychology made by the likes of Carl Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, Clare Graves, Susan Cook-Reuter, Robert Sardello and Ken Wilber, profoundly influencing our understanding of the human psyche and soul immersed in an invisible realm that informs all form.

This emerging worldview of Quantum Complexity echoes our animist past yet is inclusive of the experiences and wounds endured through our Journey of Separation (Greco-Medieval and Mechanistic-Materialism). The self-agency, autonomous decision-making and freedom from earlier superstition and religious dogma is not lost, nor are the immense technological advances in medicine, automation and digitization we all enjoy today. What the worldview of Quantum Complexity invites is a deepening relationship with inner-outer reality in order to once again find accord with the way life works for our own wellbeing and for the wellbeing of all life on Earth. It’s a Journey of Reconnection; a process of becoming more of who we truly are; a fulfilment of our natural potential; a realization of Aristotle’s ‘eudaimonia’ by connecting with one’s inner light (soul); a re-animation of nature; a new understanding of and relationship with the subtle energies active behind the scenes of everyday life. 

We may call this regenerative capacity ‘systemic awareness’ which requires a deepening of ‘self-awareness’. 

We can’t just activate this next-stage consciousness with a flick of a switch, we must endure a journey of transformation that involves deep psychological renewal – a process of dying and being reborn, a threshold-crossing into a deeper state of being that morphs how we relate with our own selves, each other and the world around us.  My latest book Leading by Nature provides tools and practices to add this death-rebirth threshold-crossing. For instance, we can activate our super-nature by integrating our natural intelligences – intuitive, rational, emotional and somatic – and tap into the Mind of Nature where Nature’s Wisdom resides.

Quantum Complexity and the Mind of Nature

The mechanistic attempt to separate humans from nature is at the heart of our problems today.

Whether we like it or not, the reality is we humans are immersed in nature both physiologically and psychologically. 

Physiologically, over 90% of the cells in our bodies are not even human. Without the help of these non-human cells we would utterly fail at life. Without nature’s air we breathe, food we eat, and ingredients we use for clothing, housing, medicine and transportation, we’d be nothing.

Psychologically, over 90% of our human history has seen us spiritually connected within nature. Mounting scientific evidence shows how our psychological sense of separateness from nature is undermining our capacity to become more fully human. In re-establishing a deeper sense of connection within nature, evidence shows that humans not only enhance their creativity, compassion, concentration and collaborative capacity, they more readily tap-in to a deeper sense of meaning, purpose and wisdom.  The inner-psyche and outer-activity of our being-in-the-world attunes more readily and we overcome egotism, hyper-competition, fear, anxiety and othering (projecting a sense of in-crowd/out-crowd on to an ‘other’).

Mechanistic Materialism assumes that human-beings have minds that are totally separate from nature.  What Quantum Complexity research into consciousness shows is that mind pervades nature, and our individual minds have the capacity to create a sense of separateness through the ego – which is an important aspect of the psyche that enables us to function as autonomous individuals. This self-reflexive capacity of the ego is a tool we have as human-beings that enables us to gain perspective, focus in or pull ourselves out of the flow of life.

If we start to get too caught up in our own egos – egotism – then we forget who we truly are, and start to believe that we really are separate from nature. As Einstein knew, this creates a devastating delusion that cripples our humanity and starves our soul. It’s this sense of separateness that causes us to act in ways that are out-of-kilter with life on Earth.

A vital step on the journey toward becoming regenerative is in being able to recognise that we are not separate psyches bouncing around in a world of separateness, but rather we have egos to aid our self-agency and self-reflexivity so that we can learn and evolve, in order to work with the deeper rhythms and song-lines innate within the human soul and World Soul (aka Mind of Nature).

In his pioneering work on Holism & Evolution, Jan Christian Smuts emphasises how the individual mind attunes and reverberates with Universal Mind (aka Mind of Nature) – the systemic, social, ecological and universal relationality from which our individuality springs. The individual mind learns to open into the Mind of Nature and cultivates the capacity for ‘psychical sensing or intellectual intuition – a holistic sense of relating’ according to Smuts.  The psychoanalyst Carl Jung shared a similar perspective with his Pleroma or ‘collective unconscious’ (aka Mind of Nature) within which our individual mind is immersed, never separate from. Through a process of ‘individuation’ the individual can develop the capacity to become a truer version of oneself in finding accord with the Mind of Nature. Bateson too explored the Mind of Nature and the importance of inner-outer coherence, along with many other notable pioneers such as Whitehead, James and Bergeson acknowledging the importance of attuning with an animating force innate within life.

How Does Inner-Outer Nature Connection Inform Leadership & Organizational Development (L&OD) for Future-fit Business?

Adult developmental psychology studies indicate that leaders able to sense and work with the emergent and evolutionary dynamics of life are better equipped to lead 21st century future-fit organizations. Take developmental psychologist Clare Graves who painstakingly researched levels of consciousness across thousands of adults. What he called Tier 2 consciousness (the next stage of consciousness he witnessed emerging in adults across business and society) is hallmarked by the capacity to sense the systemic inter-relational nature of emergence in both natural and human systems. “Know how nature functions and you know how to behave [in Tier 2],” said Graves.

This gives way to the rising trend to learn from nature. Yet, even when seeking to learn from nature, we all too often get caught up in Mechanistic Materialism, which seeks to compartmentalize, categorize, and rationalize. We bring the same mechanistic lens to our biological explorations that desensitized us to nature’s relationality. While a reductive scientific understanding of nature along with a systematic set of nature’s principles is indeed useful (and certainly something we can draw-upon to inform the new L&OD logic), the challenge and the opportunity lie in shifting our consciousness into a more holistic attentiveness to the nature of life all around and within us. This endeavor is as fresh as it is ancient.

Chinese sages perceived the manifest phenomena of nature as conveying deep insights about how change unfolds in life. It is not the forms, functions, and designs of nature but the underlying rhythms of transformation which precede the forms that provide insightful wisdom. My nature-inspired coaching work draws upon the numerous wisdom traditions that understand the importance of the underlying wisdom innate in life—Ayurveda, Buddhism, Shintoism, Daoism, Confucianism and Sufism from the East, Alchemy and Hermeticism from the West, and Tantric and Shamanic traditions found the world-over.  This underlying wisdom of life is what I refer to as Nature’s Wisdom.

Nature’s Wisdom

The ability for our sophisticated, digitized, yet stressed-out organizations to attune with Nature’s Wisdom is the next frontier. It means aligning with life itself, nothing more nothing less. All of life—including human society, the organization, and the leader—is immersed in an ever-changing rhythmic and relational dance. When off kilter with the rhythms of this dance, chaos and fragility ensue; when in-tune, all parts find flow and the capacity to flourish. It’s the same for life within the organization as it is for life beyond the organization. Those organizations and leaders who learn to attune with the rhythms and ways of nature are the ones most able to adapt to change. 

Through many collaborative initiatives and my own practitioner-based fieldwork, I have spent more than a decade exploring nature’s principles as applied to organizational development. What I offer in my latest book Leading by Nature goes deeper than such principles. It’s a universal substratum underpinning how nature and human nature operates. It’s Nature’s Wisdom. We can live in accord with this wisdom through certain practices of learning how to sense and work with life’s subtle ways. It’s a learning journey that involves becoming more intimate with our own true nature (self-awareness) and with the relational behaviors and characteristics of the living-organization (systemic-awareness).

Let’s take a look at three aspects of Nature’s Wisdom:

  • Life is ever-changing: Change is happening everywhere all the time. In everything there is both stillness and movement. Movement is pervaded by stillness. Stillness gives rise to movement. The evolution of life spawns from this movement arising from stillness. This dance of life follows the pulsating rhythm of arising and expressing and doing (yang) and falling away and reflecting and being (yin).
  • Life is full of tensions: Tension creates the crucible for creativity. There is tension between the yang and yin, which is what impels nature’s creative advance. Sometimes there is a little more yang, sometimes more yin. This yin-yang tension creates opportunities for synergy and “dinergy.” Synergy is where two or more inputs come together and form something new through their tension of complimentary difference. Dinergy is where seemingly opposing perspectives, such as a clash of views, may feel uncomfortable yet if worked through something new can emerge beyond the initial perspectives. Learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortableness these tensions give rise to is an important leadership skill to acquire.
  • Life is relational and interconnected: Infusing all life is a universal field of consciousness that informs and interconnects everything. Scientists call it the Quantum Vacuum or Field. Each manifest aspect of nature, along with ourselves and our organizational systems, is distinct in its own right—holding its own boundaries, essence, and purposefulness—yet all are immersed in this Field.  Nothing is separate; everything inter-relates in varying degrees. The leadership team is nested within the organizational system, which is nested within its wider stakeholder ecosystem, which is nested within societal and ecological systems. All living systems, including human ones, thrive through reciprocity and give rise to systemic dynamics—pulsations, ripples, repercussions, flows, and potentialities.

While we might be able to intellectually comprehend these aspects, Nature’s Wisdom is revealed only through embodied experience. Future-fit leaders can cultivate this embodied capacity by embarking upon a transformational journey. I’ve honed a coaching-based practice that guides senior leaders, leadership teams, OD and change catalysts, and organizational cultures through advanced developmental learning journeys.  These journeys—whether taken in-person or virtually—are immersive in that they invite leaders to learn-through-practice by going inward into themselves and also into the inner hidden dynamics of the organizational system and wider stakeholder ecosystem in which they operate. These journeys are the lived experience of Leading by Nature.

“Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.” – Lao Tzu

The Journey of Separation & Reconnection Through the Lens of L&OD

As we have explored, the Journey of Separation out of Animism into Mechanistic Materialism bears witness to a rising separation of inner and outer both within ourselves (self-awareness) and outside ourselves in how we attend to life and its living systems (systemic-awareness). The inner-soul dimension of nature and the inner-soul dimension of the psyche become deprioritized with the rise of reductive science’s objectivizing focus on outer measurables and tangibility. Outer-doing trumps inner-being.  This affects not just our leadership consciousness but also how we perceive and attend to the organization. Rather than attending to the organization as a complex system full of human processes of relating, we start to compartmentalize and silo it into utilitarian functions and apply a machine mentality to maximized efficiency and effectiveness through outer-doing.  There is nothing wrong with this focus on the outer, and we need it to get-the-job-done. Yet the deprioritization of the inner impoverishes both the individual (self-awareness) and the living-organization (systemic-awareness) leading to a plethora of problems in our organizations today that end up in the very ineffectiveness the machine-mindset is trying to avoid (unproductive talking-head back-to-back meetings, people bringing only fragments of themselves to work, cultures of mistrust and fear, sapping of creativity and meaning, inauthentic brands, unsustainable behaviour, mental health and wellbeing issues, loss of talent, etc.).

An essential starting point on the regenerative leadership journey is beginning to sense the organization-as-a-living-system with inner dynamics (soul/essence, evolutionary purposefulness, developmental growth challenges; what I call ‘cultivating a DEE Culture – Developmental, Emergent, Evolutionary’ explored at length in Leading by Nature). This shift in awareness also entails a recognition that the ‘outer’ nature of the organization (its value propositions, stakeholder relationships and brand) is fully enlivened and authentic when in accord with the ’inner’ nature of the organization (its culture, values, essence and ways of relating). 

One of the products of Mechanistic Materialism has been the organization-as-machine sweating assets for short-term returns, often because of a pressure from lenders and shareholders for consistent upward quarterly returns regardless of the growth stages and contextual changes the organization experiences as it matures.

The outer-nature is projected in the most favourable ‘achiever’ way as possible, and the inner-nature is managed and controlled in what is perceived as the most ‘efficient’ way as possible.  Authenticity and alignment between inner and outer nature is not seen as a business priority within this narrowed machine view. Yet authenticity undoubtedly aids the future-fitness of the organization for a whole host of reasons – attracting and retaining talent, agile decision-making, unlocking brilliance and creativity across the business, improving customer retention, enhancing brand value, etc..

As well as a split between the inner (culture) and outer (brand) of the organization, Mechanistic Materialism has also encouraged a split within the inner and outer nature of the individual – inner-being has become impoverished at the expense of a relentless achiever-focus on outer-doing.

The task for ‘regenerative L&OD’ is to help the attunement of the inner-outer nature of the organisation/system and the inner-outer nature of the leader/self.  Its this integration of inner-outer nature within the individual and the organization that allows for regenerative business to find accord with Nature’s Wisdom and truly thrive amid the volatile times ahead while delivering life-affirming offerings that help humanity toward regeneration.

To orientate ourselves within any living-system, ecosystem, neighbourhood and society, we need to open into the inner-dimension of the system that informs its outer forms. Without this reorientation we are but lost in the labyrinth of Mechanistic Materialism.  Unfortunately, many well-intended endeavours in the climate change and CSR movement today are machinations of Mechanistic Materialism, further estranging inner and outer nature, while distracting essential energy from where its most needed.  Without attention being given to a regenerative mindset for leaders and organizations, we shall continue to lose ourselves in illusions of separateness.

Inner-nature and outer-nature are inextricably entwined. There is no separation. Everything evolves through continuous sensing-responding and energetic exchanges within the relational environment of everyday life.  Science now knows this and has proven it not just in the quantum and cosmological but also amid the complex systems of our organizations and neighbourhoods.

Through deepening our sensitivity to Nature’s Wisdom we allow our consciousness to become regenerative, and we heal the separateness within the human psyche and its division with nature. This Journey of Reconnection is not a return to ancient times, rather it draws upon the ego individuation and autonomy gained through the Journey of Separation in cultivating a more holistic consciousness that once again senses the inner-outer depths of nature and psyche within and all around us. 

Adult developmental psychology research shows us that as we go through deeper stages of meaning-making in our lives the ego simultaneously maturates and permeates. In other words, we do not need to dissolve our sense of self but rather deepen our sense of who we truly are, and in-so-doing our ego becomes more receptive and open to life; our way of experiencing life becomes less defended, judgmental, fearful and change-averse. We become more able to adapt to change, relate to different people and different situations with ease, and tap into the wisdom that each unfolding experience of life affords us.

This ego maturation and permeation does not subsume us in a grey miasma of uniformity, conformity and collectivism; rather, it allowing us to work with the grand symphony of existence while staying true to our unique tune. We celebrate individuation within harmonization as we reconnect back into real life.

Death/Rebirth Metamorphosis

To truly shift our consciousness a death/rebirth process is to be endured, whereupon psychic fragmentation and reintegration deepens our communion with the spiritual source of the human soul and World Soul.

This process of psychological death, dismemberment, reconstitution and rebirth is central to all the initiatory myths throughout the ages. It’s this process of death/rebirth that society is undergoing now, with all the uncertainty, frustration, anxiety, fragmentation, polarization and fear it can invoke.   The more conscious we become of this process the more we can work with the archetypal forces innate in inner-outer nature, and the more regenerative we become.  Afterall, ‘to regenerate’ is to die and be reborn while finding deeper accord with inner-outer nature.  This is the task of our time.

As the French writer Antoine Saint de’Expury once noted,

‘If you want to build a ship, don’t assign people tasks and get them to chop wood. Instead teach them to long for the immensity of the sea.’

The immensity of the sea is all around and within us – Nature’s Wisdom – a real and potent presence in our lives. Too often we get caught up in fixing things out there and forget what needs fixing first is in here. In attending to the inner-dimension within and all around us, we begin to see with new eyes a world that has always been and always will be sacred, sentient and sensitive to our true nature.  What we need now more than anything is to reconnect with the rapture of reality and remind ourselves of the magnificence of this existence. Then, the building of the ship becomes a labour of love, filled with passion and enthusiasm, and we cocreate futures that cultivate our true nature.

See here a one-off one-day regenerative leadership immersion for those who wish to gain an embodied experience of regenerative consciousness amid ancient woodlands – we are nearly full, so if of interest please apply soon.

Giles Hutchins is a pioneering practitioner and senior adviser at the fore-front of the [r]evolution in organizational and leadership consciousness and developmental approaches that enhance personal, organizational and systemic agility and vitality. He is author and co-author of several leadership and organizational development papers, and the books The Nature of Business (2012), The Illusion of Separation (2014), Future Fit (2016), Regenerative Leadership (2019) and Leading by Nature (2022). Chair of The Future Fit Leadership Academy and Founder of Leadership Immersions, co-founder of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation and Regenerators, he runs a 60 acre leadership centre at Springwood Farm, an area of outstanding natural beauty near London, UK.  Previously held corporate roles – Head of Transformation Practice for KPMG, Global Director and Head of Sustainability for Atos (150,000 employees, over 40 countries). He provides coaching at individual and organizational levels for those seeking to transform their personal and/or work lives. Giles is a keynote speaker on the future of business and regenerative leadership. He is also a Reiki Master, a certified advanced coach, and trained in advanced Integral Solonics leadership development as well as other modalities.

Leading by Nature is THE handbook for conscious leadership. A must-read for every business leader who genuinely cares about the future of humanity.’   Jayn Sterland, CEO of Weleda UK

A truly exceptional and timely book that redefines the locus of power in relationship to leadership; leadership that seeks harmony and alignment with nature.    Giles reminds us to bring awareness/presence to everything that unfolds.    This book is the teacher we all need.” Sue Cheshire, Founder and former CEO of The Global Leaders Academy

Leading by Nature gets to the heart of the shift in leadership that is now required to create a sustainable future for humanity.”  – Richard Barrett, Director of the Barrett Academy for the Advancement of Human Values.

“This book is a must-read for those involved in the future of business.  I can’t recommend Giles’s work highly enough.” – Norman Wolfe, CEO of Quantum Leaders and author of The Living Organization: Transforming Business To Create Extraordinary Results

“Giles Hutchins has for over a decade led the way with his championship of learning through nature. His new book is a really important evolution of these ideas emerging into a philosophy of systems thinking/being – it’s bang on the money, a really important book that will inspire all those whose role it is to champion resilience and adaptability, ethical commercial development, wellbeing in the workplace and the nurturing of a moral compass.” – Sir Tim Smit, KBE, Founder of The Eden Project

Feel free to connect with the LinkedIn Group Leadership Immersions here

See here a one-off one-day regenerative leadership immersion for those who wish to gain an embodied experience of regenerative consciousness amid ancient woodlands – we are nearly full, so if of interest please apply soon.

An Invitation -Recovering Your Own Eldership

January 25, 2023
A unique one-day, immersive experience with Giles Hutchins & Trevor Waldock
 Thursday 27th April 2023 

“When a society abandons its elders, the elders abandon themselves” Michael Meade
 
So many areas of our lives are screaming out for the elders – family, work, community, politics. Elders have always been part of the fabric of traditional cultures. They provide wisdom, perspective, meaning and guidance to both youth and aging, to communities and to nations. We in the West have abandoned that role in our language, our leadership, our personal, community and organisational life.  

Leaders are formed in the cradle of eldership’ sums up the importance of this rediscovery. (1)
 
Traditional cultures were much more rooted in a respectful dance with the natural world that they saw themselves a part of, not in charge of. What can spending a day in nature help us to discover and recover about the role and qualities of elders and how eldership can be recovered in our personal life and aspirations, and in our community life (both local, national and organisational)? Society and young people desperately need the recovery of elders and we aim to explore how we can play a useful part in this adventure. This is an opportunity to invest in becoming elder, not just older.
 
Trevor Waldock

Leadership developer, mentor, founder of the international NGO Emerging Leaders, author and elder, Trevor has spent the past 17 years looking at eldership and how we can recover it within our personal and collective lives, with a particular interest in helping young people to begin their lives with the aspiration of eldership.
 
Giles Hutchins
Giles is a pioneer, practitioner, executive coach, thought leader, author and keynote speaker.  Using his unique skills and perspective we will spend a day in the beauty of Springwood, his 60-acre woodland in West Sussex, to explore what nature can teach us about how we can recover the aspiration to eldership for ourselves and the local or organisational communities we are part of.
 
Cost? £350.00 which includes all refreshments and lunch. 
 
Cancellation? After 9th March 50% charged. After 9th April 100% charged. 
 
Location? Springwood Farm, West Sussex RH17 6HQ  (10mins in taxi from Three Bridges station)
 
Max numbers? We can take a maximum of 15 people, so book early. Payment required to reserve a place.
 
To apply, contact Trevor on trevor@trevorwaldock.net

Please feel free to pass this invitation on to others you think may be interested.

[1] Reuel Khoza
Trever & Giles

For further info on future immersions feel free to join the LinkedIn group Leadership Immersions

An Immersion – Embodying Next-Stage Regenerative Leadership Consciousness

January 10, 2023

It’s a fascinating yet challenging time to be a leader. We are in the midst of an old system dying and a new one being born, all amid unceasing transformation – change upon change upon change is the new-norm.  Yet as the genius Einstein knew, when we look deep in to nature we understand everything better; we see with new eyes and bring a different quality of consciousness to the solutions than that which created the problems in the first place.

Through over a decade of working on regenerative leadership and nature-based coaching, I have developed a range of practices, coaching-frames and processes that aid the journey of becoming a next-stage future-fit leader.

On Friday 5th May 2023, I will host a special one-off nature-based leadership immersion providing an embodied experience of what it means to become a Regenerative Leader, and drawing upon practices from Leading by Nature

The Immersion – Logistics:

9.30am Arrivals – refreshments upon arrival. Workshop commences at 9.45am

4.15pm Departures

By Car – RH17 6HQ .

By Train – Come to Three Bridges station for no later than 9.15am, a cab will meet you there.

Cost: £400 – To confirm your place email giles@ffla.co

Places are limited so if you are interested booking early is advised as its first-come-first-serve.

Pre-reading or preparation:  Once you have paid, your place is confirmed, and you will be sent preparatory material and guidance.  Other emails will also be sent near the immersion with further information and preparation.

What can you hope to gain from the experience:  You will form part of a small group of like-minded yet diverse leaders and practitioners, and will be facilitated by Giles Hutchins for the entire day. Here are some of the things you can hope to experience:

  • An embodied experience of regenerative leadership
  • Tools, processes and techniques to aid the journey toward regenerative leadership
  • Consciousness-raising practices and modalities
  • Peer-sharing and facilitated group dialogue sessions
  • Pre-reading material and guidance before the workshop
  • A signed copy of Leading by Nature book (or any other of Giles’s books if you already have Leading by Nature)
  • Organic lunch and refreshments throughout the day

Some quotes from previous one-day immersion workshops at Springwood with Giles:

‘The nature immersion workshop with Giles exceeded all expectations.  This is real space to develop strategies fit for the 21st century.’ – Stephen Passmore, CEO, Resilience Alliance

‘What an inspiring day in the woods Giles, a great balance of talking, learning, contemplation, meditation, being in nature – Thank you so very much!’ –Participant, CEO of non-profit organization

“In these challenging times, Giles offers those of us in the ‘business as usual’ world both hope and the opportunity for deep connection with nature, spirit and ourselves. I highly recommend joining Giles for one of his immersion journeys of reconnection for a beautiful perspective on how we might do business differently and better.” – Will Adeney, Management Consultant & Nature Connection Mentor

‘Your immersion into nature opened our minds, opened our souls, to deeply connect with our place and purpose in life. With love and deep appreciation for your inspiration.’ – Sue Cheshire, Founder of the Global Leaders Academy

‘Feel I’ve had a day with a real master. What beautiful profound lessons’. – Simon Milton, CEO of Pulse Brands

I joined Giles and others on a day-long ‘Leadership Immersion’ at Giles’ magical and awe-inspiring 60 acre ancient woodland in West Sussex.   Having read his last book – Regenerative Leadership, I had high expectations. They were surpassed, magnificently.

Giles took us on a journey that saw complete strangers enter into a state of connection, high trust and intimacy – in a matter of hours.    We emerged nourished, energised, connected, centred and better equipped to deal with the challenges of life in the early ‘20s.    For those seeking answers around their personal and professional development – I can’t recommend Giles and his work highly enough. – Richard Tyre, CEO of Good People

‘Giles’s blends business expertise, deep connection with nature and our living environment and experience in transformation, helping us think differently and progressively about work and organisational intent. He is magical in his ability to generate ‘safe spaces’ for conversations that matter’Caroline Gosling, Director, Rubica

‘Powerful and provocative – the most useful leadership course I’ve ever attended!’Ian Ayling, Director, Wilco

About Springwood Farm: a mix of semi-ancient and ancient woodland with wildflower meadows, 60 acres in total, private and secluded specially designed for advanced leadership coaching work, see some pictures here: https://www.leadershipimmersions.com/gallery

About Giles Hutchins:

Giles Hutchins is a pioneering practitioner and senior adviser at the fore-front of the [r]evolution in organizational and leadership consciousness and developmental approaches that enhance personal, organizational and systemic agility and vitality. He is author and co-author of several leadership and organizational development papers, and the books The Nature of Business (2012), The Illusion of Separation (2014), Future Fit (2016) and Regenerative Leadership (2019). Chair of The Future Fit Leadership Academy and Founder of Leadership Immersions, co-founder of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation and Regenerators, he runs a 60 acre leadership center at Springwood Farm, an area of outstanding natural beauty near London, UK.  Previously held corporate roles – Head of Transformation Practice for KPMG, Global Director and Head of Sustainability for Atos (150,000 employees, over 40 countries). He provides coaching at individual and organizational levels for those seeking to transform their personal and/or work lives. He is also a keynote speaker on the future of business and regenerative leadership, and guest lectures at international business schools. He blogs at www.thenatureofbusiness.org

The 5th May is a one-off one-day open programme for 2023, and places are limited.  Email giles@ffla.co if you wish to book a place.