Ecological Organisations: A Design Lens (2.0)
An unfolding of the Ecological Organisations Framework into a new shape
As I sit here writing this, I am holding the history and fullness of this work: the legacy that is its soil, my journey as its source, and the way that this work has become, for me, a living portal into more fascinating, satisfying, and expansive enquiries into being ecological than I could have imagined.
I’m also holding the depth of relationship this work has brought into my life, as well as the incredible care and attention it has received. There is gratitude especially to the dear humans that directly helped its second shape unfold through their thoughtful and generous feedback: Andrea Langlois, Michelle Holliday, Kristen Pavle, Tabitha Jayne, and Matt Lloyd-Rose (in order of time frame only), as well as my dear husband, W, my most trusted advisor and designer. Thank you also to this land here in Devon, in which I am walking myself home and which offers me doorways into deep time and a multispecies present. As dear Michelle often says: thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you also to the members of the now disbanded Ecological Organisations Constellation for trialling bringing this into a community holding.
Here it is: from the Ecological Organisations Framework 1.1 to Ecological Organisations: A Design Lens (2.0).
I’ll keep this introduction focused on what I consider to be the most meaningful changes. You’ll also find a link at the end to the new ecological organisations website, an online depository for all things ecological orgs.
To dive into the lens and explore in more detail open up the PDF so you can zoom in and out.
The Most Meaningful Changes
1. A necessary change of name.
Over this last year, a growing disquiet has arisen in me about the story that the name The Ecological Organisations Framework carries. It implies that there is only one way that an ecological organisation could look and feel as a living system. Worse, The EO Framework unintentionally claims ownership of this one way, blocking the idea that there will be other pathways or lens into ecological organisations, other ways an ecological organisational system could be arranged. This is the opposite of what I believe this work is about.
I’ve also struggled with the term Framework. It speaks of static foundations or clear blueprints and the longer I am in relationship with this work, the more I see that it is, instead, a lens we can choose to look through. Not only is this lens one of many lens we might look at an organisation through, the moment we start to make changes to that system, we are enacting design choices.
Lastly, the term design lens holds critical recognition that when we engage in organisational design we are humans in relationship with something more than the sum of its parts, something other-than-human and animated, i.e. a living system. To reflect on an organisation’s design, to notice the ways an organisation’s systems and structures and flows manifest and relate, is to recognise that there is a space between the human gaze and a living system while also recognising how deeply interrelated we are.
2. Moving beyond my framings while fully sourcing this work.
Another disquiet grew in relation to my framing of some of the core elements in version 1.0, especially ‘Embodying the commons’ and ‘Moving closer to right relationship’.
The work would keep nudging at me, whispering that, while right relationship and commons are wonderful framings, they’re framings that make sense to me and which I enjoy holding. The role of this work, however, is not to invite organisations to be like me but to invite organisations to discover and choose the framings that make sense to them and which they enjoy holding. Framings that are born of place, neighbourhood, culture, regionality, local ecosystems, and more.
Yet, interestingly, when I tried to pull all of my influence out of this work, to remove myself from it as much as possible, the feedback was clear: I had lost the essence of this work. I had made it lifeless. I discovered that there was no way to pull myself out of this work and for the work to hold its shape. It is sourced from my DNA and without that DNA, it can’t tell the same story.
However, by noticing where I had unintentionally focused on my own framings, and instead looking at the underlying ecological element that sat beneath my framings, I could bring attention to the underlying enquiry in a way that stays of my DNA but aims to support organisational language and framings that are born of each organisation.
3. Choosing worldviews and cosmologies.
Another disquiet was not including something highlighting the importance of noticing and choosing worldviews and cosmologies1. When I shared version 1.1, I was specifically thinking of the important work of decolonisation, as I wrote about in the origin article. There was disquiet in the idea of including this necessary work, and disquiet when I decided to exclude it. That disquiet returned every time I looked at version 1.1.
Every day, nearly everyone on this planet is daily affected by a maelstrom of worldviews and cosmologies. Whether conscious or unconscious, highlighted or hidden, organisations hold, and act from, worldviews and cosmologies. They’re evident in organisational purpose, values, vision, and mission (and in what’s excluded). They’re evident in how an organisation is organised and in its actions. They’re evident in how an organisation’s members, clients/customers, neighbours, the more-than-human, and surrounding ecosystems and social systems are treated, and in all the big and small organisational choices about finances, investments, policies, and legal structures.
All organisational decisions are shaped by individual or shared worldviews and cosmologies. What can be more imperative than for organisations to understand and elucidate the worldviews and cosmologies shaping their ideas and actions, and, if needed, choose reimagined organisational worldviews and cosmologies with care and council?
4. Rooting non-extractive foundations.
Another disquiet was the lack of financial reality in the first version. As above, that exclusion was also deliberate; at the time, I couldn’t see any financial paths for organisations that weren’t so rooted in extractive systems and practices, regardless of how well-intentioned, that they wouldn’t align with being ecological.
When I created version 1.1., I had spent two years working within and alongside crypto-financed and regeneration-intended projects and I knew firsthand how near impossible it was for caring, bright, and insightful people to root organisational foundations that didn’t rely on, or recreate, extractive and damaging systems and norms. Everywhere I looked, there were the same patterns: organisation decision-making driven by the need to satisfy investors or to earn incomes for their members, so-called regenerative financing or alternative currencies like crypto relying on fiat markets and investment. Understandable behaviour, but not ecological.
While I can imagine a future where organisations don’t need to have investors or finance or pay members an income so they can live, that time isn’t this time, and this work cannot ignore the reality that most organisations are deeply interwoven into and reliant on current, dominant financial systems, even if they would choose not to be.
My hope is that highlighting the importance of ‘Rooting non-extractive foundations’ will open up a flow of enquiry into the ecological foundations we can start rooting today, even if all we can do is prepare the soil for future generations.
5. Attuning to a multispecies and multigenerational world.
As I sat with the evolved lens as it started to take shape, it became clear that there was a deeper story beneath ‘Integrating the more-than-human’: that of ‘Attuning to a multispecies and multigenerational world’.
More than just integrating the voices of the more-than-human, there is a deeper story that tells of humans as living within a multispecies world. This story doesn’t elevate humans to being better than or masters of, nor reduces humans to being beneath or separate from. Instead, this story speaks of a deeply relational existence, where the wellbeing of the human species is intricately knotted into the wellbeing of the other species we share this world with. This work asks us to consider how organisations can attune to this multispecies world.
But there’s another dimension we can attune to, that of living within a multigenerational world. What new perspectives and actions might arise when organisations consider the impact of the ideas and actions made today for the yet-unborn future generations, many years into the future, not just of humans, but for all of us living in this multispecies world?
In a time when we, and the other species we live alongside, are living our lives within worlds made many generations back, this work asks us to centre both a multispecies and a multigenerational viewpoint.
6. Engaging in enquiry.
If you know me, you’ll know that engaging in enquiry, whether individually or within a group, is one of my favourite ways of being. It’s therefore no surprise that I hold ‘Engaging in enquiry’ as an important portal to becoming a more ecological organisation. But I’m not the only one.
In many of the spaces and communities I spend time in, the importance of engaging in enquiry is spoken of again and again. As I hold it, to be in enquiry is to willingly hold perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and interpretations of experiences lightly, and explore ours and others with curiosity and care. It asks us to willingly be uncertain, be in discomfort, and be imperfect, and honour and celebrate arriving, and being lost, and arriving, and being lost, over and over and over.
Organisations are complex living systems being impacted by, and impacting, a deeply complex world. Engaging in enquiry embeds the kind of artful listening, curiosity, reflection, and communicating that can help us navigate this multiplicity of complexity with care and consideration.
Being in Relationship with This Work
There are three pathways to being in relationship with this work:
1. Head to the newly created ecologicalorganisations.org guidebook housed on Gitbook.
Here, you’ll find different formats of the design lens so you can view, download, and print it. You’ll also find guidance on the Creative Commons license that all design lens users must adhere to, a FAQ section, info about funding and partnerships, and more. This online depository is still being arranged and expanded, so please keep that in mind.
(Coming soon: poster versions of the design lens with bleeds and without, and in different formats created for those with visual impairments or colour blindness).
2. Dive deeper into the underlying story of ecological organisations and share your discoveries with me.
3. Reach out to me on LinkedIn or via a comment here. I’m always open to deepening and enquiring into this work within a more collective gaze.
May we, and the organisations we steward and are members of, recognise ourselves as ecological; and, through this recognition, choose to become more ecological.
This lens holds worldviews as the beliefs and stories we hold and tell about humanity and humanity’s existence in the world, and cosmologies as the beliefs and stories we hold and tell about the universe and our existence in it.
Stunning. I think my favorite part is the piece about staying in continual inquiry and how that's perhaps the most appropriate stance within an ecological world. But I love all of it and your openness in sharing these unfolding reflections.
I loved reading about these changes, and I love how this work continues to live and evolve!