Regenerative Leadership: The DNA of life-affirming 21st century organizations

by Giles Hutchins, Laura Storm

This book by leadership and sustainability experts Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm provides an exciting and comprehensive framework for building regenerative life-affirming businesses. It offers a multitude of business cases, fascinating examples from nature’s living systems, insights from the front-line pioneers and tools and techniques for leaders to succeed and thrive in the 21st century. Regenerative Leadership draws inspiration from pioneering thinking within biomimicry, circular economy, adult developmental psychology, anthropology, biophilia, sociology, complexity theory and next-stage leadership development. It connects the dots between these fields through a powerful framework that enables leadership to become in harmony with life, building thriving, prosperous organizations amid transformational times. The book is a combination of theoretical frameworks, case studies, tools & Everything the leader needs to be successful in the 21st century. Regenerative Leadership – what’s it all about? While the future is uncertain, we clearly see an upward trend towards sustainable conscious business. And this is more than just a trend – we’re witnessing a new kind of organization emerging. An organization which is able to rapidly sense and respond to the ever-changing business climate by innovating how and why it creates and delivers value, and the way it engages internally and externally with its ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, resources, investors, society and environment. This new kind of organization is the organization-as-living-system that is designed on the Logic of life-affirming businesses that thrive from the inside out, by cultivating conditions conducive for life, internally and externally. These organizations nurture flourishing cultures while focusing on products and services that enhance society and the environment. Regenerative organizations will be tomorrow’s success stories.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Nonfiction, Sustainability

411 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 9, 2019

Reviews

[Kerri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a textbook for my community development class and it was...interesting. It's the most readable textbook I've ever had, but it was a bit....ugh, the word is escaping me. It had moments that were a bit too "cosmic" for me...still not the right word. Anyway, the call to action was loud and clear, and for that, I am grateful to have read this book. I have definitely made some sustainable changes in my life as a result.

[Al · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excellent ideas, poorly executed.

[Marc Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was looking for a book that summarized regenerative leadership and this book was highly recommended by colleagues, some of which have been on my podcast and that I highly value; John Elkington, Christina Figueras, Andrew Winston, Tristram Stuart, and Paul Polman.
This book was co-authored by Laura Storm and Giles Hutchins.

This book provides a much-needed set of tools based on the logic of life. Although regenerative has become a buzzword in the last 7y, it's been around the last 500y, since Leonardo da Vinci as a scientist that wrote about it in his observations of the world. Leaders receive the DNA to regenerate themself on this journey of activism or leadership, especially in environmental spaces. Leadership is needed in all organizations in order to take us into the 21 century and this book takes a very symbiotic approach providing working tools to regenerate ourselves for generations to come.

Laura Storm was my guest on episode 169 of my podcast Inside Ideas, where we talked about the book and Laura's regenerative journey. You can find the episode here: https://youtu.be/nqt0pK6vmEs

Or check out any of the links below:
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/an-acti...
https://medium.com/inside-ideas/laura...

[Eliška Švecová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very beautifully written book. It was eazy to read and with many examples to explain phenomen on company. Book provided also many notes where reader could find links to getting deeper in the problematic. I find missing to provide clearer explanation or message what exactly is regenerative leadership how to grab it in a real world. Even thout I understand that regenerative leadership is broad and not something exact as machine organisation leadership. In conclusion I recomend this book as something to start with not as playbook.

[Pierre-Boris Kalitventzeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult to rate a book 5 stars when it does not touch me deep.

That book did not have that impact on me.

What I like the most in this book is how the regenerative dimension of leadership is articulated in a way that is actionable in the organization.

In that sense, this goes beyond leadership. And at the same time, I miss a bit on the leadership side. Also because I believe that, in a context of second tier regenerative development, leadership essence is to be (re)-discovered.

[Neil Krikul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book gets a bit too spiritual for me towards the end, it's well researched and has gathered evidences from diverse disciplines to offer interesting perspectives and examples.

Reading this book is like going on a spiritual retreat, where you listen (via reading) to the author navigate through our self-development and self-reflection. After all, the ability to lead begins with leading ourselves.

[Mick de Waart · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were definitely some interesting insights and ideas in this book but—despite (or maybe because of) the all encompassing schemes provided by the authors—it felt like a hodgepodge of insights rather than a concise and coherent framework for the practice of regenerative leadership to me.

[Vanessa Angelina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some super insightful points made that will be useful for my PhD research. 🤓

[Gabriela Duarte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biblia das ferramentas regenerativas

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Braekeveldt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well written introduction to regenerative leadership, a path societies, communities and organisations will have to adapt if we want profits and planet to go hand in hand.