Designing A Regenerative Legacy

I recently wrote about the solution Leaders should be looking for going into 2024 when it comes to the Employee Experience.

One aspect of this solution was that Leaders need to start creating a Regenerative Legacy.

But what is this exactly?

Let's dive into it!

Defining It

Let's start by defining what a Regenerative Legacy is.

To "Regenerate" means to regrow, or to bring new and more vigorous life (aka Vitality) to something.

In this case, it would be referring to bringing new Vitality into a Leader's Life, Team, Organization, and World.

A "Legacy" is to have a long-lasting impact through events, actions, etc. that took place in the past or through a person's life.

For our purposes, we are talking about the Impact of a Leader, which is created through their actions and the events of their career.

Together we are looking at actions taken by Leaders that create new Vitality in their own life, in the life of their Team(s), within their Organization, and which impacts the World.

Now, to fully understand what this means, we need to look at Evolutionary Leadership and then expand it.

At The Individual Level

The key to a Regenerative Legacy is understanding Vitality, or Energy (Mg-ATP).

You hear a lot of Leaders trying to focus on things like increased Productivity, more Creative Problem Solving, or Innovation.

All of them are necessary for an Organization's Success.

However, NONE of these are really possible given the state of Employees.

Think of it from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Creativity and Innovation would fall at the top where Self-Actualization is.

Productivity would be a part of Self-Esteem, right below.

But people aren't getting their Physiological Needs met, the very base of Human Needs.

We know this for a FACT because of the excessive levels of Burnout, which 80% of employees are facing.

This Burnout is also negatively impacting Health, which is not only a literal business cost on multiple levels but also prevents Leaders and Employees from reaching higher levels of the Hierarchy.

Now Dis-Stress (which Burnout is the extreme form of) does a couple of things to people Physiologically.

It destroys Energy (Mg-ATP).

It also levels behind Oxidative Stress (aka Stress Damage).

Left unchecked, Dis-Stress also causes further Physiological Damage, such as negatively changing how we Breathe (causing more Stress).

This means that you do not have the Energy (Mg-ATP) to reach higher Productivity (especially Flow where we experience a 5x boost to Productivity).

If you don't solve the Energy problem, you can't attain your goals.

Especially if your goals are increased Productivity, Creative Problem Solving, or Innovation.

This is where "Regenerative" becomes important.

We can fix the Stress Damage.

We can fix the levels of Dis-Stress.

We can further improve other Physiological processes (Respiration, HRV, etc.) to increase (or Regenerate) our Vitality Quotient (VQ).

If we want to create a Regenerative Legacy, we need to begin with ourselves, aka become an Exemplar.

You cannot give what you don't have, and if you don't have Vitality, neither will your Team(s) or Organization.

In fact, if you are in Dis-Stress and Burnout, through Neurocardiology you will likely pull others into worse states of Dis-Stress or Burnout.

Once you increase Vitality for yourself, then you can begin to expand your Organization into it as well, as you also begin to focus on higher levels of Maslow's Hierarchy yourself.

This will culminate specifically into Flow States, the Psychological state where we do our best work and feel our best.

At The Team And Organizational Level

At this Level, again, we need to look at the Energy perspective.

If 80% of our team is in Burnout, an even higher percentage is in some level of Dis-Stress (likely on their way to Burnout).

This means it is likely that NO one on your team is performing anywhere NEAR their potential simply because they do not have the Vitality to.

So, Leaders need to help their Team(s) and Organization to get out of Burnout, and further out of Dis-Stress.

Now, Leaders don't have control over every aspect of other people's lives.

At the office, Leaders can directly help create a better environment so employees can get out of Dis-Stress.

However, that is not the limit of what Leaders can do.

Legacy therefore moves beyond the office.

What resources can you give to your employees that will help them?

Specifically, what is important here is what decreases Stress Damage (Oxidative Stress).

There are many programs that exist to help Employees to some extent, but it is rare that any actually help with Stress Damage.

If our employees cannot reduce the Stress Damage, their "Stress Threshold" (how much Stress they can take on) will always be stunted.

Fixing this alone will already create a long-lasting impact on Employees (aka a Legacy) BUT you can go even further!

The key here is to create Group Flow States.

Individual Flow States are amazing, but results become exponential when it is shared across Teams and Organizations.

However, as great as this is, a FULL Regenerative Legacy MUST impact at the next level.

Beyond

The reality is that our world is more Interconnected than it has been at any other time in history.

We don't just see our own individual problems or even just our own teams' or organizations' problems.

We see the World's problems and we see just how dire they are.

More and more, we are seeing how the World's problems directly impact us.

People are seeing, and caring, about what can be done to improve our World.

There are a number of businesses that have moved toward being "Carbon Neutral", but the trends are showing that it isn't enough.

For one, moving toward "Neutral" means we are still having a negative impact.

Also, Carbon is specifically only a problem with the Atmosphere.

It is a problem of course, but we have many other problems going on at the same time with our Hydrosphere, Biosphere, Anthroposphere, and Lithosphere.

All of these are incredibly important and need work to be done to improve them.

People are looking for solutions, and they want to be part of organizations that are actually doing something to improve these.

Now, not every organization can or should be doing the physical work of improving these - there are many services and products needed in the world that aren't a direct part of these processes.

However, every business can have at the very least an indirect part in these processes.

The goal of being involved shouldn't be to have a "neutral" Impact, but rather a Regenerative Impact.

"Less Bad" simply won't get the job done, we need more Good and Higher Impacts.

When Employees' lives are not only getting better due to the Regenerative Legacy efforts done for them directly, but they also know that their work is contributing to a Regenerative Legacy for the World?

That's where Magic is created.

That is where Impact is felt!

What will make it even more Powerful is if Employees can directly see what is being Impacted, the direct effect of their efforts.

That is what everyone wants to be a part of.

That is what everyone is looking to contribute to.

This is what is going to define the best organizations in the next decade.