We all want to make a difference, to have a meaningful and enduring impact. What this means for each person is surely different. Some measure this by values of service, leadership, power, money, etc. You might want to have this effect in your community, with the planet, in the business world, politically. How and where you want this influence will vary.

Though effectiveness looks and means something different to everyone, the EcoPsychology Initiative (EPI) believes there are four criteria essential for having a powerful impact. These are innovation, efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. The importance of these qualities is that they are both outcomes and processes, paths and destinations. If you’re able to be resilient, sustainable, innovative and efficient you will be successful. Accomplished leaders already knows this.

The EcoPsychology Initiative has developed ten principles that will enable you to achieve your desired impact. Our Ten Principles programming will produce the efficiency, innovation, sustainability, and resilience you require to achieve your goals. These tenets are found at the intersection of business, leadership, organizational culture, systems theory, individual psychology and ecology. The principles are adaptation, team work, communication, creativity, diversity, decentralization, patterns, ‘both and’, edges and relationships. Each principle is a goal in it’s own right for success, while also part of a large comprehensive approach to impact.

Nature’s ecosystems and organisms are models for the very qualities that we need in our communities, organizations, businesses and personal lives. They have all the qualities listed above; like us, the natural world wants to grow, evolve, be secure and healthy. Ecosystems also face many of the similar challenges that we do as well: competition, uncertainty, and limited resources. The principles they demonstrate that enable them to deal with these challenges and still grow are qualities we need to emulate. EPI has taken these principles and matched them with what we know about human thriving. The resulting ten principles are the cross pollination of ecological and human impact and success. They build upon ideas already promoted by such leaders as Margaret Wheatley, Fritjof Capra, Lori Pye, Janine Beynus, Fausto Tazzi, and Donella Meadows.

In the subsequent articles, we will look at how EPI’s Ten Principles can help any organization, business or leader achieve the impact they want. Specifically, we examine how to enhance your innovation, efficiency, resilience, adaptation and sustainability.

by Dennis Kiley