Designing regenerative organisations — part II

Findings from our research on regenerative organising and ways forward

In the previous introductory blogpost, we shared insights and learnings from the collaborative research process between Unearthodox and Greaterthan. In this brief post, we would like to showcase some of the findings and why we do not want to display them in traditional wide-spread knowledge-sharing practices.

What characteristics make a regenerative organisation?

This was the question we wanted to find answers for, or further questions. What did the literature say and what were the main learnings and practices of the case studies already working on this topic?

There is no one specific set of regenerative principles that we can share. Depending on the goal of the research team, the research question and the cultural background of the researchers (among other factors), we get to different sets of “summary principles’. For example, the five used by Springhouse (a progressive educational institution in Virginia, US) are: take care of vulnerability, cultivate personhood, build beloved community, learn from the Earth, love and serve others; or the ones used by organisational design researchers Abreu García and Franzato (2023) are care, attention and “understanding patterns and processes within the integrality of the organisation in its ecosystem”. To name a couple of examples.

We do not want to offer a classification of principles or practices, because that is how we deal with knowledge in western societies. That is why, as a result of the research, there will be no such list. The current plan is to work on an experiential process of Letters from the Sea, briefly explained in the previous post and, probably, a Codex, an old Inca and Maya inspired way of offering hints and pieces of information. We want to support curious explorers in cracking their own code, for their own context, on how to get onto the path or further develop their regenerative organising.

We do not want to offer a comprehensive list or principles, or taxonomy, but are happy to share some content-related learnings that have emerged through the example of centering the principle of relationality.

Centering relationality

To showcase the power of deeply grounding ourselves, our organisations and systems in an explicit different set of values, we can play with the implications of centering “relationality”, one of the biggest changes that the regeneration lens offers. This alone could turn organisations and societies as we know them upside down if applied thoroughly.

The meaning is simple: relationships are at the centre. Of course, we still need structures, processes and practices. But this is about being in relationship to self, to others, to nature. The implications are huge. In my Phd, I study self-organising from a relational perspective, I specifically study affect and emotions. Relationships are based on emotions. The art of regenerative organising is to centre our emotional selves, accompanying the rational part, not leaving her alone again to make sense of the world on her own, but inviting us as full human beings. Through this, new ways of knowing open up, and we can bring in the knowledge of our whole bodies, of which our brain is only one part. Regenerative organisational systems acknowledge and work with relationships, and weave this in processes and structures instead of making them play behind the scenes. By centering relationships, we discover that the wellbeing of all is interconnected, not only humans, and that nature is a part of ourselves too. This opens the doors to spirituality to help us make sense of the world, even universe.

At a very practical level, we could even translate the principle of “relationships” to “togetherness” as NGL does, an organisation we admire for their ability to translate principles into action. Instead of being a traditional collective or network that shares money and resources with its members depending on their contribution, they pool all their resources together and the resource flow (as they call it) gets distributed according to needs. Like this, everyone’s needs count. Everyone’s needs are like one’s own.

Partnerships are another key element of relationality, building trust across silos, getting into endeavours together because of shared values, instead of potential gains. Partnerships will be key so that we can overcome some limitations that our system solves through exploitation: nature has its rhythms and speed and if we want to not only maintain it, but also regenerate it, we will need partnerships across actors and industries to support regenerative systems that have their own pace, not an imposed one.

Relationships are also the core of a regenerative principle called “place-based”. This goes back to the days in which communities depended on their knowledge and relationship to the place they lived in in order to survive. This not only avoids natural exploitation, but it creates a dialogue between inhabitants and place, not making decisions for that place or natural element, but giving it agency and getting to a co-deciding process that includes all needs. Our societies have broken that cycle. As long as there is an incentive to exploit, regeneration is not possible, we need to root back into place. How do we do that in our global societies? There are principles like “cosmolocalism”, that connect place-based initiatives to global networks of collaborators, for example. We need to find ways to connect the possibilities that technology is offering us (DAOs, AI…) with old-wisdom principles so we can have a chance at dealing with the great challenges of our time. These are some of the characteristics and implications of regenerative organising only taking into account the centering of “relationality”. There is a lot more to it. Revisiting the discussion on “value” of the first blogpost on this research, one of the underlying challenges and needs is how we go from a traditional transactional way of understanding value, to a relational one. Value as our way, in our context, to make sense of our reality; as David Graeber defined it “a process or mechanism through which people assign meaning to their actions, incorporated within a broader social whole”.

Unearthodox and Greaterthan will continue exploring the possibilities and implications of regenerative organising. This was a participatory process and we will continue to involve different ecosystems in this inquiry. If you feel called to participate, drop us a line!

About the author — Alícia Trepat is a Greaterthan Partner and is currently researching self-organising and emotions in a PhD through the P2P Lab.

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