Innovation Lab for Public Service with NatuR&D
Innovation Lab with NatuR&D brings Nature-inspired design thinking (biomimicry) to support your organization in promoting a culture of innovation. Biomimicry is the practice of learning from Nature’s 3.8+ billion years of design experience to focus human ingenuity to create ideas, materials, forms, processes and systems that work for our times—and for the planet.
Engage in a design process that elicits the rigour, focus and imagination required to deliver the services that will move society forward within increasingly unpredictable landscapes.
A natural ecosystem is multifunctional by design. It cycles nutrients, purifies the air and water, creates habitat for a range of organisms, sequesters carbon into soils, and regulates the functional balance of the area and atmosphere. Our public sector systems could emulate that approach. In this time of accelerated demands for climate adaptation and renewal, systems with multiple benefits are needed more than ever.
There’s a lot to learn about using the ecosystem as a model for public sector adaptation and growth. For example, exploring why the organization exists, what it produces into the world, how it does its work (externally and internally), and its relationship with place.
From in-the-field learning experiences to professional development sessions, this series can be adapted to engage your whole organization. We integrate our tools and sessions to nest within the natural rhythm of your organization.
In this modular series, you can / will:
- increase your team’s capacity to adapt to changing conditions;
- identify opportunities to integrate development with growth;
- be resource-efficient;
- attune to the emerging needs of your clients, as well as external forces;
- engage your team in innovating a key aspect of your product or service;
- increase your ability and confidence to move beyond “what works”;
- play to individual strengths to support the innovation process;
- apply Nature’s design principles to your leadership and your organization;
- amplify your presence and deepen relationships within your community;
- leverage feedback, coaching and conflict-resolution skills for more productive research, design and development of your offering; and
- experience the design process, from discovery to fine-tuning and polish.
What You’ll Be Equipped to Do After Taking Innovation Lab
Leaders and learners who use these tools have a deeper—and different—understanding of what it takes to support creativity in an organization. Teams have a greater sense of comfort in challenging each other’s ideas to arrive at elegant and effective solutions. They become more grounded and rooted in the place where they live, and have access to a solution space they can use in multiple ways across disciplines, from leadership to research and development, and from art to science.
Leaders who take Innovation Lab by NatuR&D know how to look to Nature for strategies and solutions that meet the challenges they’re working on. By asking, How does Nature…? Where does Nature…? learners are able to match human problems to natural strategies, reminding us that we are part of the life-supporting system on this planet.
