Co-Leadership: The Regenerative Leadership System
A core tenet of the practice of future architecture is that no work product has a single author. Rather, we acknowledge the process and value of co-creation. In keeping with this principle, GoFA evolved its leadership model from a single executive director to a regenerative leadership system (RLS).
The RLS embodies the values of GoFA by:
Reflecting the diversity and underlying collaborative nature of Future Architects
Reflecting the values of the organization
Addressing the need for accountability
Allowing for both inclusive representation and decisive and timely action
Taking a developmental approach to supporting the individual potential of its members
The RLS also reflects GoFA’s intentional evolution from an organization to an organism in which growth, interaction and adaptation occur with fluidity. Its operating structure follows the regenerative approach of paradigms, frameworks and principles.
As future architects, GoFA members strive to identify emergent practices and document their processes and learnings. The ultimate objective of the RLS is to provide GoFA members with the opportunity to rotate into it, ensuring diversity and fresh viewpoints while balancing continuity. The documentation process includes share-outs with members; identification of key moments in the journey; and regular retros to discuss learnings.
The current structure positions two members of the team as the keepers of vision and community. The remaining four members come together as a cohort to merge strategy with day-to-day operations and execution. Within the RLS, there are no hierarchies of power or rank. The only hierarchy is that of good ideas, expertise, lived experience, practical experience, and knowledge. The RLS does recognize that some members have direct subject matter expertise on certain topics; the knowledge of those members is accorded some degree of priority.
Regenerative Living Systems
GoFA members are increasingly placing greater attention on regeneration as practitioners in their own systems change work. Member Mark Beam introduces the regenerative Paradigms, Principles and Frameworks articulated by various authors, including Carol Sanford and Ben Haggard, as a way to recognize the four dominant modern systems paradigms operating in parallel to shape contemporary context. The seven principles give rise to frameworks that act as scaffolding for aligning our social systems with natural systems. These tools helped inspire the formation of the RLS as expressed in Board Members May Lee and Mark Beam’s article, “The Guild of Future Architects: Prototyping the Regenerative Leadership System.”
The Four Modern World Paradigms
Evolve Capacity/Regenerate Life: Know by examining the dynamics of living systems. Foster commitment to the development of every person and team focusing on their potential to evolve themselves by contributing to the living systems in which they are nested.
Do Good: Make decisions based on moral choices that affect whole communities. Individual-focused rather than community-focused.
Arrest Disorder: Know by scientific method with sensorial inputs. The scientific method alone neglects the larger dynamic context of whole living systems.
Extract Value: Know by accepting the authority of those with power over us. In physical terms: get the most from materials by using them efficiently, and from resources we don’t have to worry about replenishing.
Principles of Regeneration
Wholeness (versus fragmentation)
Essence (versus category)
Potential (versus problem)
Development (versus determinism)
Nestedness (versus progressive aggregation)
Node (versus scale)
Field (versus transaction)
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