01
What makes a human system alive?
What are we actually pointing at when we say a team, a workplace, or a culture is alive?
Inquiry
What do we need to understand about life and human systems?
The Institute is a place to stay with these questions — not to close them quickly.
What would it take to build human systems that don't require us to become less alive in order to function?
That question has years in it. The ten below are where the work is living now.
Open questions
What we are investigating
02
What makes a system deadening?
Where does life get asked to shrink in order to keep the system running?
03
What happens when people override their sensing?
What is lost — in a body, and then in a group — when we stop listening inward?
04
Nervous systems and collective mind
How does individual nervous-system capacity affect collective intelligence?
05
Structures that let new things appear
What organizational structures enable emergence?
06
Leadership that lets a system adapt
What kinds of leadership allow systems to adapt?
07
Power and a system's self-sensing
How does power affect a system's capacity to sense itself?
08
Resilience, or something more living?
What distinguishes resilience from genuine regeneration?
09
Efficiency at the expense of adapting
What happens when organizations optimize for efficiency at the expense of adaptability?
10
Investment that can answer to life
How can investment structures become more responsive to living systems?