Watch Intro Video

Leading from the Roots

Nature Inspired Lessons to Build Healthy Businesses

Course curriculum

  • 1

    Chapter 1: Life in Organizations

    • Lesson 1: Course Overview - Why Learn from Nature?

    • Lesson 2: Living Systems

    • Lesson 3: Applications for Leadership - The Dynamics of Living Systems

    • Lesson 4: Reflecting on the Quality of Energy in Your Organization

    • Lesson 5: Reflecting on Energy in Organizations Handout (Downloadable PDF)

    • Lesson 6: A Summary of Dr. Allen’s Paper, “Optimizing Energy: The Theory of Action” - (Downloadable PDF)
  • 2

    Chapter 2: Nature Runs on Sunlight

    • Lesson 1: Lessons from Nature

    • Lesson 2: Nine Design Lessons Found in Nature (Downloadable PDF)

    • Lesson 3: Leadership Lessons - Organizational Photosynthesis

    • Lesson 4: Blog - Organizational Lessons from Water
  • 3

    Chapter 3: Nature Fits Form to Function

    • Lesson 1: Weak Forms, Strong Purpose

    • Lesson 2: The Ecocycle

    • Lesson 3: Thresholds of Rigidity and Scarcity

    • Lesson 4: Reflecting on Your Organization's Ecocycle

    • Lesson 5: Organization Ecocycle Reflection Sheet (Downloadable PDF)

    • Lesson 6: Blog - Paying Attention to Thresholds
  • 4

    Chapter 4: Nature Banks on Diversity

    • Lesson 1: The Fragility of Sameness

    • Lesson 2: Lessons from Nature

    • Lesson 3: Leaderships Lessons that Invests in Diversity

    • Lesson 4: Blog - The Link Between Resilience and Diversity
  • 5

    Chapter 5: Nature Curbs Excess from Within

    • Lesson 1: Lessons from Nature - Feedback Loops

    • Lesson 2: Leadership Lessons for Curbing Excess from Within

    • Lesson 3: Blog- The Relationship Between Organizational Feedback and Dysfunction

    • Lesson 4: Blog - What Nature Can Teach Us About Listening?

  • 6

    Chapter 6: Nature Depends on Local Expertise and Self Organization

    • Lesson 1: Nature’s Lessons

    • Lesson 2: Lessons from Nature - Self-organization

    • Lesson 3: Leaderships Lessons - Local Expertise & Self-organizing

  • 7

    Chapter 7: Leading from a Living Systems Mindset

    • Lesson 1: How Leaderships Changes in a Living System

    • Lesson 2: Lessons from Nature

    • Lesson 3: Changing our Defaults and Leadership Questions

    • Lesson 4: How to Answer the New Leadership Questions (Downloadable PDF)

    • Lesson 5: New Leadership Questions Handout - Answer for Yourself (Downloadable PDF)

    • Lesson 6: Characteristics of Living Systems Handout (Downloadable PDF)