The Lev Natan Podcast

How might we inspire our organizations to go beyond their bottom-line, and even beyond their social impact mission, and join a larger movement for change and ingenuity? How might we inspire a coordinated response to our collective dilemmas? In this episode, Lev reflects on his conversation with Dave Ford, CEO of Ocean Plastics Leadership Network (episode #16), and highlights the key principles that are essential for building impactful coalitions, networks and alliances that are able to transform our business-as-usual work culture en-route to the whole-systems paradigm shift that we need, in this post-COVID 19 era. (Recorded January 2020)

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

(Recorded January 2020)

How do you get companies like Pepsi and Dow Chemicals to sit with Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund? Ask Dave Ford, founder of the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network - a membership community that runs experiential summits in ocean plastics hotspots around the globe that drive accelerated, collaborative action. This network is an inspiring example of what the Collective Impact Framework (episode #11) looks like, when it’s put into practice. More than ever before, we need to learn to connect around shared commitments with people who think differently. We are still one human family living here on one planet earth.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

"There is a space between cause and effect, between stimulus and habitual response. It is in this space that a full human life is possible.” Al Bhatt, breakthrough organizational consultant and professor of Organizational Leadership, has committed his life to the idea that silence is like the pot that a plant needs to grow. In a world of busyness, we need mentors who hold an empowering space for deep listening. This principle has allowed him to guide corporate executives, social impact entrepreneurs, activists, and young people to learn the art & science of breakthrough in their leadership. His words will fan the flames of your inner fire. Enjoy!

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

The Sierra Nevada mountains on the northern tip of the Andes in Colombia are home to four separate but related peoples: the Arhuaco (or Ika), Wiwa, Kogi, and Kankuamo. Together they number more than 30,000. In 1990, they emerged as a global indigenous voice with a BBC documentary in which they warned of the need to change course. In 2012, they made another film called Aluna, which you can find online. They refer to themselves as elder brothers and express concern that non-indigenous outsiders, the younger brothers, are plundering and dismembering the Earth. Last summer, 2019, they visited the Berkshires, where I live, to offer workshops, and I had the opportunity to interview them in the living room of their AirBNB. They shared invaluable teachings and guidance about how to grow our Alliance for a Viable Future.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

The old scripts of “posturing and pretending” are becoming more and more played out in a world that is in dire need for real people to guide us forward into the unknown. Knowing where you stand orients you to how to be a genuine, natural, authentic leader. The root of the word question is quest: What have you known, that you have always known? What do you see, that you have always seen? What do you sense, that you have always sensed? Where do you stand and what do you stand for? These are a few of key questions that Mel Toomey, founder of the Graduate Institute’s Organizational Leadership master’s program and practicing consultant for over forty years, has been asking himself, while generating breakthroughs for non-profits, large organizations and political leaders, including Yitchak Rabin and Shimon Peres, throughout his career.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

How we speak about our world makes a huge difference for how others respond to our leadership. Language is the key creative element in shaping our non-physical reality. Your capacity to bring consciousness to every word that you think and speak takes mindful communication to a realm of self-responsibility that is absolutely necessary in these critical moments of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and global climate change. Mel Toomey began mentoring me when I joined the one-of-a-kind Master’s in Organizational Leadership program that he founded in 2001. An organizational consultant for over forty years, I relate to Mel like Luke Skywalker and Yoda, the wise elder of the Jedis.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

In this special interview, I had the rare opportunity to speak with both of the founders of the Collective Impact Framework, Mark Kramer and John Kania, as well as the Executive Director of the Collective Impact Forum, Jennifer Juster. These pioneering thought leaders work closely together to foster cross-sector dialogue through an international network of social impact organizations who are addressing systemic issues that can only be effectively engaged through collaboration, coalition building and emergent strategies. While this podcast was recorded in August 2019, the principles of collective impact are perhaps even more relevant now, in the post-Coronavirus / COVID-19 reality.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

In this reflection on Suzanne Koepplinger’s interview on healing trauma (episode 7), Lev speaks about the deep connection between healing and leadership. When we allow for ourselves to be fully human, and therefore, to go on a healing journey of our own, we are actually inviting ourselves to step more powerfully into our leadership. How does this work? Leadership and healing are connected on a spectrum of developmental growth. The deeper you go, on your healing journey, the more aware, intelligent and effective you are able to be, in showing up as a leader. So, it’s important to give yourself the time to heal, in these times, especially. It will benefit you, and everyone around you.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

We are living in unprecedented times with tremendous uncertainty - all the more reason to focus on this question: how do I want to show up in response to this new reality? In this practical, honest and expansive conversation with Dr. Kathleen Allen, we explore the principle of breakdown/breakthrough in leadership. In other words, as the intensity builds, and disruption continues to multiply, we are learning to change, respond and adapt. There is a presence, deep within us, that guides this process. Just as the birds adjust their migration patterns in response to climate change, we have the choice to do the same.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth

How do salmon swim against the powerful currents of a river and even jump ten-foot high waterfalls? In the midst of this global Coronavirus pandemic, our resilience is being tested - big time - both individually and collectively. And yet, there are guiding principles that allow us to actually accelerate and evolve our capacity to respond while dealing with intense disruption. Redwood seed pods actually need the heat of a forest fire to explode open and take root. It’s possible that the leadership capacity “seeds” that you’ve been cultivating for years might actually pop open now, with these unlikely “nutrients of disruption." What if this is a time of accelerated growth for you to show up for others through a deeper connection with quantum consciousness. The old adage says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

______

Your Invited to Deep Roots 2026 - Regenerative Leadership for Changemakers in the Northeast Bioregion: www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/deep-roots

Rooted in ancient wisdom, we are growing a partnership culture for our regenerative future.

www.avf.earth