4 Critical Shifts to Incorporate Regenerative Thinking into Your Life and Work
In this thought-provoking episode of We Are Not Doomed, host Jonah Geil-Neufeld sits down with Daniel Lawse, co-founder and co-owner of the Verdis Group, a sustainability and regenerative consulting agency based in Omaha, Nebraska. Lawse shares his journey from studying theology to becoming a leader in environmental sustainability, and how his company is helping large organizations shift from traditional sustainability practices to a more holistic, regenerative approach.
The conversation delves into the four critical shifts that Lawse believes are essential for creating a more resilient and thriving world: moving from short-term to long-term thinking, from separate to interconnected systems, from static to dynamic approaches, and from closed to open systems. Through engaging examples from his work with aquariums, zoos, and other complex organizations, Lawse illustrates how these principles can be applied to create meaningful change. He also discusses the importance of scope 3 emissions, the growing focus on climate adaptation and resilience, and how individuals can incorporate regenerative thinking into their daily lives.
Topics Discussed:
Daniel Lawse's journey from theology to sustainability consulting
The shift from sustainability to regenerative thinking
Four critical shifts for creating a thriving world: a. Short-term to long-term thinking b. Separate to interconnected systems c. Static to dynamic approaches d. Closed to open systems
Examples of regenerative practices in zoos and aquariums
The importance of scope 3 emissions in organizational sustainability
Growing focus on climate adaptation and resilience
The Seventh Generation Principle and its potential impact on decision-making
How individuals can incorporate regenerative thinking into daily life
The role of compassion and repair in personal and organizational growth
Optimism for the future based on organizational progress in sustainability
Links:
Episode Transcript:
Daniel Lawse (00:00):
Sustainability: I'm grateful that it is now normal. Back when we first started, we had to spend so much time explaining what sustainability was, but now that we're all there, it's like, okay, doing no harm is great, better than doing harm, but how do we actually do more good? How do we heal things?
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to We Are Not Doomed. We bring you interviews with industry and thought leaders, authors, journalists, and real people who are making an impact on climate change and sustainability. Every day We Are Not Doomed is produced by Puddle Creative, a full service podcast production company here in Portland, Oregon. I'm Jonah Geil-Neufeld, the executive producer. Today on the podcast I have Daniel Lawse. He's the co-founder and co-owner of the Verdis Group, which is a environmental sustainability regenerative consulting agency based in Omaha, Nebraska. And we had a really wide ranging interview about all sorts of things, regeneration, living systems for critical shifts that organizations and individuals can make to create a more thriving and resilient world. This interview kind of blew my mind, opened my mind to a lot of different possibilities that we could take as an organization, puddle creative, but also that I could take as an individual.
(01:23):
And he had some great stories and examples of the impacts that his organization has had and his clients have had in becoming more sustainable and regenerative. Daniel was a pleasure to have on the show. I really hope you enjoy this interview here it is.
(01:45):
So Daniel Lossie, welcome to We Are Not Doomed. Thanks for being on the podcast.
Daniel Lawse (01:50):
Happy to be here, Jonah. Thanks for the invitation.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (01:52):
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you all about the Verdis Group, which you are a co-founder and co-owner of, as well as just your career path in general in sustainability and climate change related fields. So you're in Omaha, Nebraska and it seems like you've been there for a long time. Went to college there and stuff like that. Just bring me through your career journey and how you got started in sustainability.
Daniel Lawse (02:18):
So I'm really fascinated by the relationship between humans and the environment. And when I was looking at environmental work years ago, it was kind of like, well, do I want to become a biologist or a scientist who's really deep within natural systems and living systems In that regard, kind of the hard science approach or the other place where I found myself drawn to look was in the design field, human built environments, architecture, engineering landscape, and I found myself lacking or I found those two kind of points on a spectrum lacking the space of what about our relationship with it. A turning point for me was when I read the book Natural Capitalism,
(03:02):
And this was a book that came out in the nineties, I read it in the early two thousands, and it really painted this picture about we can actually create a much better and more thriving world when we look at our systems differently and that more symbiotic relationship between people and the planet. It's solving problems holistically and systems thinking. That was another kind of framework that I encountered that was like, oh yeah, everything's interconnected. And so that was in college when I really began to hone in on, oh, sustainability is something, this relationship piece is something.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (03:40):
And so how did you go from in college learning about sustainability and wanting to find a way in this world that wasn't necessarily as a biologist to all the way to founding verus group? Walk me through that journey.
Daniel Lawse (03:55):
That's a fun one. So when you have a theology degree, people expect you to either become a priest or go and study theology and then teach it. I started down both of those paths I considered and decided neither was for me. I love the idea of a think and do tank instead of a think tank. And even though my title is chief century Thinker, the action part is equally important. I just can't have a title that's that long. And so I started to think how do I apply this? I went into an architecture firm, this was kind of funny, architecture engineering firm with my theology degree in hand. And I said, I'm here for a job in sustainability. This was early two thousands. Nobody had positions in sustainability. I was persistent and sat down with an HR person. I didn't just drop off a resume, had a conversation, and looking back, I'm like, this person was so kind and gracious to me.
(04:46):
They took my resume. They're like, this is fascinating. I think maybe you should go back to school and study architecture engineering if you want to work here. And I'm like, you don't understand. Now they have a whole sustainability division. I'm often ahead of my times it seems. So that made me realize, okay, if anybody wants to take me seriously about this passion of healing the relationship, I do need to get a degree that justifies and legitimizes that. So then I went and studied community and regional planning and got a master's in that. But again, there was no program for sustainability. So I had to really create my own degree in energy and sustainability planning. And through that process, I just got more and more knowledge. Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth was starting to get more conversation. Climate change was starting to be talked about, not a whole lot in the Midwest.
(05:33):
And that led me to focusing on Home Energy because what could I do as an individual in my own life? How do I walk the talk? I like to be authentic. If I'm going to tell other people to do something or advise them, I want to be able to say I can do it myself. And so I actually became a Home Energy rater and in that process started to look at more of a neighborhood scale and then worked for the University of Omaha doing a neighborhood energy savings program. And it was grant funded. So when you're in a grant funded position, there's great motivation to find something to do when the grant money runs out. And that's when I serendipitously started meeting with my current business partner. He and I have been together for over 15 years in our journey of discernment and then starting, we're celebrating 15 years here in a couple weeks of actual business, but we're like, how do we make a big impact that is about environmental impact in Omaha, Nebraska where climate change will get you shoved out of the room back in the mid two thousands, mid to late two thousands?
(06:31):
And that those conversations, both of us were deeply embedded in the community through Chamber, young professional councils, through Green Neighborhood Coalition, really just community advocates and organizers. And so we just came together, got started around this common purpose, and our first client ended up being one of the largest school districts in the country, Omaha Public Schools, with over 55,000 students at the time. And we were able to show them how they could save money because in Omaha you don't talk about climate change when it's 2009. You talk about energy savings and money savings, and we opened our doors.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (07:10):
That's awesome. So give us just the kind of elevator pitch of what Verdis Group is and what you do.
Daniel Lawse (07:17):
Yeah. We are a climate consultancy and we co-create a thriving and resilient world. We do that though kind of with two big buckets. One is through planning activities like climate action plans, net zero pathways. There's a lot of measurement and baselining of emissions and water use and waste, really good analytical stuff, but also the softer pieces of interviewing the people within the organizations. We love working with large complex organizations, hospitals, zoos, aquariums, airports, financial institutions. So the planning work is important because it gives people direction, alignment so they can act, but the implementation work is the other bucket of work we do. And that's equally important, right? It's hard to plan and not because then you just have a plan that sits on the shelf. And that was the number one thing, Craig and I said, we do not want to just sit around and write plans that sit on shelves. Everything we do has to be actionable. And our first partner OPS was foresighted enough, I guess I'll say.
(08:18):
They said, Hey, this is a great plan, but we don't have anybody in house to do this. Do you do implementation? And Craig and I are like, well, we don't have any other work lined up. Of course we do implementation. And so we figured that out and it's this beautiful feedback loop of we know how to implement, we know where the barriers are, we know how to motivate and integrate sustainability and climate action in organizations on the ground, and that informs the planning. And then the plans that we write are actionable. And so it's a beautiful feedback loop. We're not just a planning firm, which is awesome.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (08:49):
So maybe you have a couple stories or examples of some of the work done with clients, the impact that this work is having and just give people an idea of what that means on a day-to-day basis or a year to year basis.
Daniel Lawse (09:04):
Yeah, I love that question and there's so many to pick from. So I'm going to pick a few. Generally speaking, one of the things I love about our climate action planning process is that we believe that people participate in what they create. So we engage all levels of an organization across departments. We bring collaborative interdependent systems divisions together in this process that sometimes people are scratching their head, but we don't want to involve all those people. Trust us. This group is the right group to bring together. And so we help align sustainability activities within an organization by helping them. We co-create with them. We don't write a plan and then hand it to 'em and say, here's your plan. It creates a vision of where they want to go. So for example, the Seattle Aquarium there in the Pacific Northwest, they have so much going for them.
(09:55):
They were doing so many activities, but they didn't have a true organization wide aligned plan. People were doing amazing work in lots of different spaces. And if you talk to the folks there, they'll tell you this. And that's why they brought us in as like, we need to have an organizational plan that guides and directs and aligns all of us together. And through that process, not only did they create a vision with goals, they also shifted the language from sustainability to regenerative. So they hired us to do a sustainability plan, but because we do an emergent process where we don't actually know what the outcome is going to be until we get there, they realize that what they were talking about was a regenerative system. How do they become a regenerative aquarium? And so we helped them co-create a regenerative plan. We helped them implement it for about a year, and then they hired somebody in-house.
(10:47):
And so that person did a lot of the work, but they still had us come in and we're still partners with them supporting some of the governance functions, some of the innovations that we're seeing at other clients and partners. We work with over 30 zoos and aquariums across the country. So that's a niche space that we have where we can do a lot of sharing of best practices in that very specific industry where you've got the care of animals as a number one priority, you've got millions of people coming through the door, so you have a unique audience of lots of different people, great opportunities for education. So that's an organization level impact. And this is a good transition to a industry-wide impact. There's a group called the Aquarium Conservation Partnership, and they exist to convene and disrupt and innovate and push forward on a lot of conservation actions.
(11:36):
So they do policy work, which is amazing. They do DEIA work, which is amazing. They have these business commitments because they believe that you need to be able to walk the talk. If you're going to tell your guests to stop using plastics, you better model that yourself. So they have a plastics commitment. They created a climate commitment, and this is where we got brought to the table to partner with them. So over 30 aquariums now are measuring their greenhouse gas inventory, and they either have or will have shortly a net zero pathway target. So what year will they hit net zero emissions? And then they get support from us to help implement strategies and share strategies amongst themselves. And so again, we're facilitators in many ways, catalysts, if you will, bringing together groups, supporting groups that are already in existence like the A CP, aquarium Conservation Partnership to Achieve system-wide impact. And the movement in the last two years with this aquarium group has just been phenomenal. They're brilliant people. When they have the data about greenhouse gas inventory, they're like, okay, how do we do that? How do we reduce scope one? How do we reduce scope two, they're now working on scope three. The opportunities that arise because of this partnership and collaboration is just amazing to be a part of and be able to help support.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (12:50):
Oh, that's so cool. That's a great example too because you mentioned the millions of people going through the doors of these aquariums and it's an education opportunity. And so when you're impacting this organization, it's not just really that you're impacting the people in the organization, you're also impacting if they are walking the walk, they can talk about the stuff that they're doing and impact everybody who walks through the door. So it's really has that reverberation effect that just goes out and out and out.
Daniel Lawse (13:21):
And they are acutely aware of that, and they have brilliant educators who know how to take complex messages and create action items. Part of their climate commitment is exactly what you just said. It's developing some pilot language, a micro website to invite their guests, Hey, if you are motivated by what we're doing as aquariums, they want to walk the talk first. Here are some activities that you can do. And then there's a micro site and they can do commitments, and they're using behavior change supports. It's brilliant. I love the people that we get to work with in the zoo and aquarium space. And then we also work with other industry types, airports, financial industry, healthcare. We have a lot of healthcare too.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (14:03):
Yeah, it's cool to have such a broad client base too. I bet you get to learn about lots of different industries
Daniel Lawse (14:10):
And it's synergistic, which is beautiful.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (14:12):
So you mentioned regenerative, so I want to drill down into that. I think when people talk about sustainability in public lexicon, lots of people understand what that means, but I'm not sure that most people, if you said regenerative, they would mean like, oh, so you're producing more energy than you use. Is that what you mean? So what does it mean to instead of talk about a sustainability plan to go that next step to regenerative and maybe even using the example of the Seattle Aquarium to illustrate that point.
Daniel Lawse (14:45):
Yeah, so I'll start with simple and then get more nuanced. This is oversimplified, but it helps people get a handle on it. A regenerative system is one that gives more than it takes. Another simple way to say that is net positive, right? So when I think about nature, a regenerative system is a mature forest, one that's been around for hundreds of years. It's a mature prairie or a mature coral reef or even a mature desert. We don't think of them as often. It seems like there's less life there, but it's these ecosystems that have created symbiotic net positive relationships where forest, most people have some connection to forest. You think of a tree, it is taking water, taking carbon, it's growing, it's pulling things out of the soil, but it's creating micro habitats. It's creating microclimates, it's dropping its leaves and creating soil. So yes, it's consuming things, but it's giving back more than it's consuming in different ways. So we translate that then to what does that mean for an organization? How do we create a net positive or an organization that gives more than it takes? And to be honest, I don't think there's a straight answer for this because by definition what led me to regeneration was actually a reflection on sustainability. And this is where I get a little philosophical. Would you like a sustainable relationship with your loved ones?
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (16:10):
Yes.
Daniel Lawse (16:11):
Yeah, me too. But would you prefer a thriving one? And so sustainable feels like it is kind of this do no harm.
(16:19):
Regeneration is do more good and sustainability. I'm grateful that it is now normal. Back when we first started, we had to spend so much time explaining what sustainability was, but now that we're all there, it's like, okay, doing no harm is great, better than doing harm, but how do we actually do more good? How do we heal things? And so in that definition, there's this shift from sustainability is more of a noun. Regenerate is more of a verb, and so it's hard to actually define what a regenerative system is. It has to have all of these check boxes complete. No, it's always ongoing because a living system, a forest is dynamic, trees are dying, others are growing. Every organism is still giving more than it's taking over the course of its life. So what does this mean for an organization? The Seattle Aquarium wrestled with this, and from an energy and emission standpoint, it did become a relatively simple concept of how can we actually produce more energy than we consume or be part of a power partnership that's clean renewable energy. How do we produce more that than we consume? Aquariums have a small building footprint. A lot of them are on one pier or two piers over the ocean or a bay,
(17:30):
And so they can't generate all the power that they want onsite for them to use. So what can they do on site? Seattle Aquarium has solar panels on its roof. What can they do offsite with power purchase agreements or partnerships with local utilities to ensure that they're getting clean renewable energy and in fact increasing the demand and development and building of renewable energy to help make it so that we can let go of coal and natural gas and other fossil fuel-based energies. The zoo and aquarium space in a very real way probably have the easiest story to tell when it comes to regeneration because some of them are literally saving species from extinction. Some of them are literally breeding species in-house and releasing them into the wild. There's a giant international partnership with, I can't even remember how many different aquariums called Shar, and they're finding the genetic diversity of the animals that are being held in aquariums cared for in aquariums to get the breeding so that there's genetic diversity that's right for the repopulation of this place in Indonesia. Look that one up. It's amazing and it's relatively new, but they're doing that all over the place from frogs and amphibians to mammals and insects like all different species like zoos and aquariums are the arc of the 21st century.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (18:48):
Yeah,
Daniel Lawse (18:48):
I'm trying to think. There's other things. When we think about a regenerative system, it makes me think about, well, what are the characteristics of a living system and that people participate in what they help create. A living system is created by those organisms that are in it. They're in a constant state of change, which is why you can't say we've accomplished a regenerative system. You have to always be asking questions and have feedback loops. That's another characteristic that lets information flow so that we can adapt and change as both internal and external conditions change. So a characteristic of a regenerative organization is to have structures and systems in place for information to flow across departments up and down so that they can be nimble and adapt to changing conditions, even if that's not just for sustainability activities. It's inclusive. So this is where there's regeneration I think has more space in it for inclusivity. Then sustainability does. Sustainability definitely has brought that triple bottom line of people, planet profits to the core and sustainability without DEIA or inclusive practices isn't true sustainability, but regeneration leaves more space, I think, and more creative conversations about how do we do good for all? How do we invite all people to the table to have these conversations and create solutions to the challenges that we're facing? Another really fun thing about living systems is think of a system in nature. Can you make spring happen on command? Everybody at spring bloom
(20:22):
Nature is not steered or controlled, and yet how many human organizations are more of a command and control hierarchical like, you will do this, you will do that. I don't know about you, but as a human, I don't really like being told what to do. I'll do it if I have to, if that's the structure I have to play within, but I'd much rather be invited to participate in the co-creation of something together. When you do that, oh my gosh, the creativity, the passion, the purpose just ignites within people. So recognizing that that co-creative process of participation, that they're always in a state of change and those feedback loops are necessary help then set the stage for problems that we don't even know we're going to face.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (21:06):
Yeah, it seems to me like a lot of your clients are probably hiring you at the beginning to form a climate plan or regenerative plan, but then it sounds like you probably are changing even the cultures within these organizations by the work that you do.
Daniel Lawse (21:25):
I think our clients would all say yes to that. I definitely see it. I've often thought about sustainability as like sustainability of the mind is I know what to do. Here's a checklist, I'm going to do these things and then my organization's going to be good. That's more of that static. Do the things, get the rating, we're good, complete next versus sustainability of the heart, which is really living and embodying this mindset so that you will always be coming up with new things to do, adapting what you have been doing, and that's a cultural piece
(22:01):
And it's hard to articulate at the beginning of a project what transformations will occur, but when people truly engage with us in a meaningful way, they begin to see people shift not just from their heads, but also their hearts and how they show up. We've had clients tell us that the work that we're doing for the sustainability or regenerative or climate plan, they're now applying to their strategic planning. They're applying it to their department meetings because we bring a different way of thinking that they find refreshing. One other way of thinking about the work we do, it's change management, and I even cringe at the word management. It's leading and facilitating change
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (22:41):
As your journey as a company has evolved, you've obviously gone through something like Covid recently that probably shifted a lot of the way that you do work. You're probably not going and visiting these clients as often in person and you're doing more virtual stuff. But as we're now recording this right at the beginning of the second half of 2024, what's kind of on the horizon for you guys or what are you seeing amongst your clients as being like the next thing that people are really starting to grapple with?
Daniel Lawse (23:16):
That's a great question. Well, it's impossible to predict the future. That said, my title of chief century thinker comes from this idea that because we can't predict the future, we need to think about the unknowns in the future and take care of the places where we live today so that the generations that come after us have the environments in which they can thrive. So there's this tension between looking to the future for trends and future casting, but also having the humility to say, I don't really know. I'm not going to avoid your question though. I'm going to attempt to peek around the corner. One of the things that continues to grow is an emphasis on climate adaptation and resilience. We have turned the corner past mitigation only. We can't stop climate change in its tracks in a big enough way that we won't experience the impacts.
(24:11):
I mean, we're literally experiencing them. They have been for several years. It's getting more and more pronounced. The number of hail events that Omaha has had in the last six weeks is a record breaking that's impacting insurance claims, that's impacting employees who work in this space, who now have to deal with the insurance companies have to pay out their deductibles. All of these things have impacts on the businesses and organizations that we work with. So thinking about adaptation and resilience is becoming more and more important. It depends what part of the country, if you're a coastal partner of ours, some of the aquariums are thinking about it a lot more, with sea level rise than some of the Midwestern or landlocked communities and partners that don't feel the pain of climate change quite as distinctly right. Now. The other piece that we're seeing, which is so exciting, is the focus on scope three emissions. It used to be like What's scope one and two, and I hope your listeners know the difference. Those are things that you control. It's your natural gas, it's fossil fuels burned on site. It's your purchased electricity, steam, hot water, et cetera. It's things that you literally have control over. You can upgrade systems, you can make things more efficient. You can change your building structures as needed. Scope three are the things that you don't have direct control over, but you can influence. It's how your employees get to work. It's where do you purchase from and what are your suppliers in the supply chain doing for climate? And so when a big purchaser asks their supplier, what's your greenhouse gas inventory? And they say, I don't know, we've never measured it.
(25:43):
The customer says, well, we would really love it if you did. And if enough customers or big enough customers say that, now all of a sudden they're measuring their scope one and two, which everybody's scope three is somebody else's scope one or two. So it's kind of fun that we're, now, I'm going to say this in a funny way. We're getting up in other people's business, but really what we're doing is we're establishing partnerships saying, we care about you as our supplier. We care about the environments in which our communities work and live. So how about we work on this together? And so it's so exciting that Scope three emissions are now becoming a known topic with most of our partners, and they're developing strategies to reduce their scope three emissions through partnerships and collaboration, which is one of these things of one the four critical shifts is moving from separate ways of thinking to connected ways of thinking.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (26:30):
Yeah, I was just going to say in terms of the scope three thing, I think even in our industry, which is like we're a podcasting digital agency, I think you're going to get to a point where any bigger company that hires you is maybe going to ask that question. They might even have a criteria that they have to fulfill that all of our suppliers, you have to know your scope one and two emissions or something like that, and you have to have certain certifications. So I want to transition to something you touched on a little bit that I wanted to talk about, which is you have these four critical shifts that organizations or individuals could make in order to become regenerative or just more sustainable to create a more thriving and resilient world. So you want to talk about that?
Daniel Lawse (27:19):
Yeah, for sure. And I'm going to give credit where credit's due to Kathy Allen, she's the author of Leading From the Roots. She and I worked together on a lot of living systems work, and she wrote this beautiful book about living systems leadership. And these four critical shifts are something she and I have talked about often. And what we've noticed is that when you're shifting from a more static way of thinking and a less sustainable way of thinking to that more regenerative way, I'll name the shifts and then I'll give some examples. It's from short term thinking to long-term thinking. It's from separate ways of thinking to interconnectedness. It's from static to dynamic or in other ways like a mechanistic system to a living system. And the fourth critical shift is from a closed system to an open system. And this goes back to how we think matters because it informs how we speak and what we do and how we act, whether it's in an organizational capacity of making decisions within a business or in our relationship to the community. And that's a good example of that last one, from closed systems to open systems, it used to be businesses cared only about themselves. They felt like they had a pretty closed system. These are our parameters. What we do outside of our walls doesn't matter that much as long as we're following regulations.
(28:34):
And now because we recognize, you've probably heard the term vuca, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The world has always been those four things, but there's a growing awareness that those are actually increasing a little bit. Now because of climate change, because of the rapid pace of technological advancements, there's more volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity to the future than we've ever experienced before. So that one's almost forcing people to stop thinking in a closed system perspective and recognize we're part of a community. Our employees are not just cogs in a machine that come here and they do what they need to do. The divisions and the departments don't have to be these closed siloed places. So that's one shift. And all four of these are all interconnected because one of the shifts is from being separate to connected. That's another piece. It's fascinating to think about this from, I do a lot of practice of meditation and mindfulness have taught that for years and coached people on it to human psychology. One of the lies around happiness that we've been told is that we're alone. And when we recognize that we're not alone, our happiness goes up. So we are interconnected, but we don't recognize it often. And we have a lot of narratives that tell us that we're alone, whether we're a business, go do it alone
(29:51):
Or we're an individual. It's all up to you, Jonah. You got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But in reality, it's all about interconnection. I think of the mycelial network in the forest, the fungi, that shares information and resources between trees. Whereas when I was a kid, it was all about faster, stronger. Those are the ones, the survival of the fittest. And what Darwin actually said is survival of the best fit. So his quotes have been taken out of context. The best fit is usually collaborative if you look at nature closely. So when we shift from thinking about ourselves and our communities and our businesses as separate and recognizing the interconnectedness of all of this, that's a really critical shift. And if you really want to go far and have fun, tick, not Han a Buddhist monk says, we are the earth walking on earth.
(30:42):
I can't help but get goosebumps when I say that, right? I mean, I'm breathing in atoms that used to be trees and soil. I'm drinking water and eating plants and animals that have all been part of this earth. And for those in the aquarium space, we are the ocean. Swimming in the ocean, you got to know your audience. But it's this beautiful understanding of interconnectedness. And even when I get thrown off, it's because I'm not remembering these things and then I reconnect and recenter and I'm like, oh yeah, it it's going to be okay. We're not doomed.
(31:15):
Another critical shift here is this shift from a mechanistic system. And if you look at even the literature of leadership and management practices, the industrial revolution, everything was all about these machines and becoming more efficient and assembly lines. And there is beauty in machines. I'm not dissing machines, we're using them right now, but an organization and a community are not machines. We are more like we aren't more, we are living systems like ecosystems and ecosystems are more about the relationships. And so in a living system, you can't just take somebody out and replace them, and it's going to be the same. You can take out a part from a car that's broken and put in a new part and it works. So how do we think about our organizations as living systems and not machines? It changes how you lead. It changes how you manage it changes the types of meetings that you have and the way you think about, we should invite this person to the table, not because they necessarily have the title that needs to be at this table, but because they have positional leadership or because they have a view of this organization that isn't represented right now.
(32:25):
And it needs to be because the decisions we're making going back to the interconnectedness are going to impact this person or their area. And then the last critical shift that I mentioned first was from short-term thinking, long-term thinking. And this goes back to my title is given. I gave it to myself to remind myself to think in long-term, and it's a great conversation starter. But you've heard of the seventh generation principle, right?
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (32:51):
No.
Daniel Lawse (32:52):
So have you heard of the toilet paper brand?
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (32:55):
Yeah.
Daniel Lawse (32:55):
Seventh generation. So the seventh generation principle comes from the Iroquois Nation and other first peoples from the United States or from North America rather. And actually our founding fathers looked at a lot of these principles when they were designing our government, our constitution. But the seventh generation principle is this, what impact will our decision today have on people seven generations from now?
(33:24):
And it's impossible to know because that's like 150 years. But if we think about we can't know the exact impact, we can think about what impact will that have on the place today where these people will live. So let's care for the places that will care for our future generations. And this is the mindblower for me, is what would be different about the United States if our elected officials acted in seven generations instead of election cycles. It'd be a game changer. I don't care what political side you're on, if we just had our leaders think in seven generations instead of, can I get reelected? It would change the types of conversations we're having on the other side, the private sector. What would happen if our business leaders made seven generation decisions instead of quarterly profit decisions? So it's hard to get people to seven generations, but can we extend that time horizon even more? Like if you have annual planning, what happens when you extend that to five year or 10 year or do a thought experiment plan that's 20 years or 50 years out If you do quarterly profit analysis as a KPI for your business, what happens if we extend that time horizon out by two, by 10, whatever, and it changes the conversation, which is a beautiful thing.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (34:39):
Oh man, I'm so glad I asked that, that just my mind is going in so many, well, first of all, I feel like I'm going to be optimistic for the rest of the day because of that stuff you said. But also it just makes me think when you talked about how these four critical shifts are also intertwined, but when you started about companies think of themselves closed versus open, they're this closed loop. If we just stay in our lane, do our thing, increase efficiency, we're going to be fine. And I think part of the awakening that's happening with just climate change, things getting more volatile is that we've started to realize, oh, we were never, that worldview is just because we're depending on the environment to be like, it's always going to be around 80 degrees in the summer and it's never going to get too hot, or it's always going to be rainy the summer, but it's never going to hail seven times. And so now we're like, oh, wait, that world never existed that we thought was just going to be the same. And so it really, it's almost like nature has pushed us to lead this line of thinking, which I think is really cool. The other thing I was going to ask you about is just, we touched on this a little bit, but how individuals could even take this advice?
Daniel Lawse (36:02):
Yeah, I mean, pick any one of 'em. Going back to what you said about the worldview shift, the way I see it is this is the way reality is reality with a big R, maybe that's too bold of me, but the reality we live in, the natural system that we live in is connected. It is dynamic, it is open, and it is in this for the long haul. I mean, part of the practice of what we do with our partners is zooming in and zooming out. We need to be able to zoom out and see the big picture and understand that we are on this arc of evolution that's beautiful and it's messy and there's ups and downs and twists and turns, and we don't necessarily know where on that arc we are, but we're in it.
(36:45):
Our actions and choices from years ago have impacted the reality we have today and the choices we make today will absolutely impact the future reality and world that we inherit. So that's the big picture. And then zooming in, it becomes, what does this mean for us as individuals and for organizations? And this might be an oversimplification, and for the people who like the checklist, this might not feel like the right answer, but on the most basic level, when I think about all of what we do and the observations I've made and the readings and all the things, we make choices, thousands of choices a day, and all each of us has to do is ask ourself, is this choice I'm making right now healing or harmful? There are occasional neutral choices, but if you really get nuanced, almost every decision we make is either going to be healing or harmful, and you will never make a hundred percent healing choices don't. It comes down to that net out at the end of the day,
(37:51):
Am I making more choices that are more healing than I am harmful? And if we all do that, guess what? We are going to create a beautiful world. And it's in your personal relationships, are the words I'm saying healing to this person and helpful to this person I'm interacting with? Or is it harmful, intentional or unintentional, right? We're humans. I'm not perfect. Are the decisions that we're making in the boardrooms and in our team meetings, are they making the business better, the community better, ourselves better, or are we creating harm? So that's one piece of it that's really simple, but not easy. Probably the other piece is having deep compassion with ourselves because I am going to make missteps. I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to hurt people unintentionally. Sometimes if I'm really pissed off and off center, I might even do it intentionally. And then I have to get really good at repair. And repair is a skill that is practiced, owning up to it, taking accountability, saying sorry, and continuing to try to be better. And over time, every little choice we make adds up.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (39:01):
Yeah, no, that's beautiful.
Daniel Lawse (39:03):
That's not a checklist of drive less, ride a bike, active commute. I could give you that too, but that's the checklist that once your listeners do it, they're like, well, what's next? But if I give you a way to think, then you will always find ways to create a more regenerative and thriving and resilient life for yourself and the people around you and the workplaces and the communities in which you live and play and work
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (39:27):
Well. And that opens it up to be like, maybe I'm in a situation where I can't bike to work, and so you don't feel bad about I can't do the thing, so I'm not going to participate. It's like everybody can participate in this. Yeah, that's awesome. And from our earlier conversation, I think the one thing that I want to do immediately now is we have these as an organization. We have these kind of yearly planning meetings every year. And so just to start by having, let's have just one meeting where as a thought experiment almost, we say, instead of having a yearly planning meeting, we're going to have a seventh, seventh generation meeting and just see what comes out of that. So yeah, I could just keep going with this for a long time. So I just wanted to wrap up by talking, maybe bringing it back to personally, I know based on all this stuff we've talked about, I can tell that you are in general an optimistic person for yourself. What makes you optimistic for the future when you get out of bed in the morning?
Daniel Lawse (40:36):
I love that question. I'm not always, first of all, I have my moan moments of like, oh, shoot, that's not good news. The things that bring me hope and that give me confidence that we are not doomed is when I have conversations like I'm having with you. When I have conversations with our partners and I see so many people getting it and doing it
(41:03):
And asking for more, saying, how else can I do this? It's interesting. Individuals in general, I don't have bad conversations with, and I leave hopeful when I zoom out and think about collections of people or entities. When I think about our partners, I am so inspired and hopeful because our partners are taking leaps and bounds. You look back five years on some of the projects that we've been working on, and organizations that started with a little bit more trepidation and uncertainty or lack of alignment are now aligned. They're clear. They have roadmaps. They know what they're going to do. They're doing it. They're great at execution. And so holy buckets, the difference is amazing.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (41:47):
Yeah. Daniel, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks for taking your time to talk with us today. You've definitely changed my world a little bit here. I'm thinking about a lot of things, but just before we go, let people know where they can find you and where they can find the work that the Verdis group does.
Daniel Lawse (42:08):
Yeah, so all of that philosophical stuff we talked about informs how we show up and how we partner with our clients, with our partners, because we believe deeply in engaging and meaningful action that does create a better world, a thriving and resilient world that we want to co-create with you. So I love that we can take that level of worldview and philosophy and bring it down into something tangible for our partners. And if you want to read case studies or check out the brilliant people on our team, you can go to verdis group.com. That's V-E-R-D-S group.com. And if you want to set up a short introductory call with me, it's verdis group.com/lets connect. I'd be happy to chat a little further with some folks if you want, but our website has a lot of great information if you're looking for some organizational changes or partners who can help you get alignment and integration with your sustainability climate and hopefully regenerative programs.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (43:09):
Perfect. Awesome. Daniel, thank you so much again for being on the podcast.
Daniel Lawse (43:14):
For sure. Thank you, Jonah, for this invitation and for bringing hope to people and reminding us that we aren't doomed and that it really is up to us. You have so many great guests and great questions to help uncover why we aren't doomed. I appreciate the opportunity.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (43:28):
Thank you. Thank you to Daniel Lawse for being on the podcast, and thank you for listening to We Are Not Doomed. I'm Jonah Geil-Neufeld with Puddle Creative. To find more episodes of the podcast, head on over to WeAreNotDoomed.com. You can find us on Spotify, apple Podcast or your favorite podcast app in Until next time, have a wonderful week.