Designing a Company Using Ecological Principles — Stage One: Discovery
Companies that mimic nature are grounded in principles — the same ones Nature uses to manage the complex adaptive system we count on every day. In 2008 I started down the ecological pathway to organization design by combining investment advisor Joseph Bragdon’s LAMP index (Living Asset Management Performance) with seeing deep dynamics and interdependent yet connected interactions. Jay Bragdon’s work validated the outstanding market performance of companies that exemplify biomimicry management while offering insights and data on performance and practices. His second book, Companies That Mimic Life: Leaders of the Emerging Corporate Renaissance, featured seven exemplars and the principles that they use to manage and lead. We did our first series of interviews in 2009 for the Evolutionary Provocateur podcast which explored the imperative to adapt to the conditions we are seeing today. In 2016 we did a podcast episode just before Companies That Mimic Life came out and in 2017 I wrote this article for the HuffPo Great Work Cultures blog.
