The Philosophy of Regenerative Coaching

Businesses today tend to look at themselves as if they were playing a football match. Players have 90 minutes to make more goals than the other team, or else they lose. Targets must be met, and players better keep running if they want to stay on the playing field. The coach is constantly yelling at his team, and players finish exhausted and sometimes even injured. 

If the life of an organization were to last 90 minutes, this all-or-nothing approach would make sense. But, in reality, organizations need to survive indefinitely, within the constantly changing environment of today. In this VUCA context, functioning in a way that resembles a living organism, like a tree, is far more logical than operating like a football team. Why? In the long run, staying healthy, growing at our own pace, and developing a strong root system, offer a much better chance at not only surviving but actually contributing meaningful long-term solutions for both humanity and the planet. 

Currently, most organizational practices operate under an exploitative mindset. That is not sustainable and is far from being regenerative. If it were, 52% of the workforce wouldn’t be experiencing burnout, the Earth’s temperatures wouldn’t be on the rise, and over 800 million people wouldn’t be hungry right now. To change this, the way in which organizations are run needs to change. Moreover, the way we approach ourselves and the planet needs to change too. We all need to go through a deep transformative journey, and leaders must be the ones to take the first steps. 

Beyond Sustainability

Being ‘regenerative’ means moving away from the exploitation of both natural and human resources, and, instead, holding the space for the evolution of consciousness and the unfolding of creativity. This is not the same as ‘implementing’ a sustainability initiative to reduce our footprint. Rather, Regenerative Coaching enables the transformation of the systems at their core in a manner that promotes the expansion of life. Essentially, Regenerative organizations are those that recognize that growth is intrinsically connected to healthfulness, inter-connectedness and cooperation. On the flip side, separation, mechanization, and competition are seen as limiting, and rejected on all levels. 

Regenerative Coaching enables human transformation. Processes, structures, and practices evolve simultaneously as a by-product of the collective shift in mindset. Awareness is at the core of Regenerative Coaching, for only those who are attuned to the way nature works can bring real change about. Hence, stepping into our role as Regenerative Coaches involves harnessing our capacity to understand complex, non-linear relationships, and co-creating adaptable, dynamic systems that reflect the totality of the voices within the environment. The regenerative mindset is one that thrives on complexity. It seeks to resemble nature’s infinite, web-like dynamics to enable agility, responsiveness and resilience within organizations. Put in evolutionary terms, it’s amid uncertainty that an organization truly develops its capacity to adapt to change; and it’s through this same process that the business inevitably ends up evolving and ultimately becomes capable of processing even higher dimensions of complexity. 

Ecosystem Synergy

No organization can survive on its own: every component of the system plays a role to cultivate expansion and growth. The more an organization acknowledges the entirety of the system it is operating in, the more agile its decision-making gets. Organizations are dependent on their community, their talent, customers, resources, industry, etc. For all of these to live up, the environment must be healthy and receptive. 

Regenerative Coaching supports the development of consciousness not only at the corporate level, but also at the social, environmental and spiritual levels of the operation. At the inner dimension, a regenerative organization provides a safe space where every single member is considered a co-creator of the organization’s transformation. Outwardly, a regenerative organization is highly aware of its relationship to customers, suppliers, “competitors”, society at large, and the environment. In other words, a regenerative organization takes responsibility for the impact of its activities and value propositions on all scales. When an organization understands the value of co-participation, and embraces diversity through the enrichment of all its facets and stakeholders, it strengthens its capacity to contribute to the evolution of humanity, and successfully overcome any crises.