**NOTE: This event has been postponed to the fall. Watch the CCEDNet events calendar and newsletters for more information**
The Canadian CED Network is pleased to be a convening partner for this event
You are warmly invited to a Solarium, an introductory immersion in creating the conditions for regenerative leadership and change.
Why a Solarium?
Like a greenhouse, this day offers the space and time to cultivate the practices and conditions that support you as a leader, as well as supporting your work in your organization and your community. It is an opportunity to discover new ways of understanding your influence in complex community systems. And it will help you see and act on opportunities to shift your organization toward greater resilience and cross-system impact.
Why Regenerative Leadership?
Leadership that is generative has the capability not only of getting somewhere (leading) but of bringing something fundamentally new into being, creating a preferred future. Grounded in the principles and perspectives of living systems, it embraces uncertainty and invites learning and innovation. It is fundamentally collaborative. And in these ways and more, it is also regenerative – healing what has been damaged in our communities and ourselves by the structures we have inherited. More of a stance than a title or position, it may also be thought of as stewardship, and it can be practiced by anyone in any context.
Register for Solarium Toronto: The Art and Practice of Regenerative Leadership
Download the invitation flyer for Solarium Toronto
Key Outcomes
Our time together will contribute to several key outcomes:
- An experiential and conceptual understanding of ‘living systems.’
- A rich shared space for individual and collective reflection and renewal.
- High quality conversations with colleagues across sectors.
- New insights, models and practices for leading in complexity.
- Ways of seeing and understanding the collective impact of our work.
- Renewal of self, leadership capacity, and sense of purpose and possibility.
Why This? Why here? Why Now?
Ontario is in many ways a world leader in social innovation, purpose-driven entrepreneurship, collective impact initiatives and neighborhood renewal.
And yet, against this promising backdrop, there is a need for new frameworks to understand the dynamics and vitality of our organizations and the communities we are serving. As we move into new organizing patterns – with more participatory, collaborative and complex structures - we also need new ways of thinking and seeing. And we need practice grounds – dojos - where we can learn and prototype with others within our community.
There is also the need for a new lens on leadership. In a time when leaders no longer are the experts and often do not have the answers, the question becomes: what is leadership for? What is the future role of the leader? And how can a spirit of shared inquiry and continuous self-discovery illuminate a way forward towards navigating complex challenges with greater ease and a shared collective sense for what is being called for? How can everyone involved grow to be “leaderful”?
Perhaps most of all, leaders in every sector are noticing their need for time to renew, reflect and learn together, in a space that is nourished by nature and the arts.
These are the observations and questions that call us together at this time.
The Patterns of Living Systems
During our time together, we will move through four patterns - timeless patterns that have always formed the core of any living, creative, expressive system. In their scientific origins, they reveal that in every living system:
- There are individual parts that are inherently diverse in their contributions.
- Those parts are connected in dynamic relationship to each other and to context.
- Together, they form an emergent whole with new characteristics and capabilities.
- The entire process is self-organizing, set into motion by life itself.
As we engage with these patterns in our leadership work – cultivating these fertile conditions in our projects and organizations – important new insights and possibilities emerge.
Re-engaging with Place
Any living system is also rooted in and nourished by the place where it grows. We and our organizations are no exception, though this is often overlooked. For this reason, our gathering will bring together people who are united by their care for Toronto, drawing on our stories of relationship with place, and inviting us to craft new stories of what is possible. In this work, the living systems patterns take on new depth and offer a clear pathway to action:
- Homecoming: What creates the experience of homecoming and how do we each find our way there?
- Belonging: What are the patterns of belonging – with people and place – that we hold sacred?
- Regenerativity: What are the generative conditions that enable us to give birth to something new together?
- Transformative Celebration: How can our stewardship of what is alive within and around us open a path to transformative celebration?
Our Invitation
Within this Solarium, we invite you to explore what happens:
When we embrace a living systems understanding of ourselves, our organizations and our communities, with all the useful tactical insights that reveals;
And when we also explore the full, generative implications of the living systems perspective - that there is aliveness and creativity within and around us; that place, art and nature have vital roles to play; that we can (and must) shape and live into a compelling, unfolding narrative; that thriving is possible; and that complexity can be elegant and we can navigate it gracefully, together.
In all, this is an invitation into an epic narrative of aliveness, exploring the full implications of seeing the life in ourselves, our organizations and our communities. The practice of engaging a living systems framework connects us with how nature itself creates and sustains life. It invites us to create spaces that are hospitable to life in all its forms. We become allies with each other and our destiny in ways that intellect, tactics, and strategies alone cannot encompass. Our destiny is rooted in the rich soil of intuitive wisdom, the power of place, our dreams and aspirations, the gifts each person brings, and the collective intelligence that calls us to be together on this journey.
Your Hosts
Michael Jones is a leadership educator, thought leader, writer and a Juno-nominated pianist composer. He has been a Senior Associate with the MIT Dialogue Project, leadership faculty with The Banff Centre, a thought leader and leadership faculty with the Tamarack Institute, consultant/steward on the Leading for Transformation Dialogues supported by the Fetzer Institute and co-convener of the Wasan Dialogues on Creative Place-making in Muskoka ON. He has published The Soul of Placeand two other books in a series on Re-imagining Leadership and has recorded fifteen CD’s of his original solo piano compositions.
Michelle Holliday is a facilitator, organizational consultant, researcher and writer. Her work centers around “thrivability” — a set of perspectives, intentions and practices based on a view of organizations as living systems. To this end, she brings people together and helps them discover ways they can feel more alive, connect more meaningfully with each other, and serve life more powerfully through their work. This generally takes the form of designing and hosting transformative events, as well as delivering talks and workshops. Michelle also writes regularly, including a forthcoming book, The Age of Thrivability. Her research is summarized in a slideshow called Humanity 4.0, as well as in a TEDx presentation.
