Did you ever dissect a frog in high school biology? The main thing I remember besides the smell of formaldehyde was a bit of guilt because the frog was dead and would never live again. Dissecting a frog is an exercise in reductionism, seeking to understand an organism by breaking it down into its smallest, most basic components. The opposite approach would be a holistic approach, observing the living frog in its natural environment to understand how all its parts work together. Regenerative leadership is informed by the rhythm of life, the nature of living things The basis of regenerative leadership is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because the individual components interact and create entirely new properties. Systems should be viewed as wholes, rather than just as a collection of isolated parts. It is famously summarized by the phrase, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Parts of a system are int...
A walk outdoors is refreshing. Whether it is in the backyard, the neighborhood, a park, or a walking trail, being closer to God’s creation reminds us of the resilient, dynamic, and changing environment in which we live. Although our efforts in development and industry often tend to interrupt those natural rhythms of life, they persist. The same is true in human organizations. Organizations—businesses, churches, not-for-profits, communities, political parties—are living systems. However far they seem to have departed from God’s creation, they still exhibit the characteristics of living organisms. If we recognize this, we can encourage those inherent aspects of life to make them more integrated, dynamic, and life-giving. I was first introduced to this approach several years ago in a book by Steven Johnson entitled Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software , but more recently I was re...