Leveraging Generative Tensions (Polarities) in Organization Design
Join an ODF Community Conversation –
a 2025 Conference Encore
October 8 | 1 – 2 PM (EDT)
Leveraging Generative Tensions (Polarities)
in Organization Design
Every organization is affected by generative tensions or polarities with the power
to foster or undermine an organization’s ability to flourish as a living system.
When we effectively address these tensions in our design process, we create conditions for a natural flow that enables connectivity, collaboration, and adaptability. This leads to slow, inefficient processes that hinder progress and rarely produce optimal outcomes.
Sally Breyley-Parker will lead us in an exploration of Generative Tensions. where participants will:
- Learn about polarities as energy systems inherent in us, our teams, our organizations, and our broader business ecosystem, and explore how they work for us and against us
- Identify key polarities at play in their own / their client organizations.
- Practice mapping how the tensions of these polarities are playing out and impacting those organizations
- Identify high leverage design choices for optimizing flow
- Leave with tools for seeing, mapping, and leveraging polarities that they can take into their work with their organizations / clients
Founder of TimeZero Enterprises, Sally Breyley-Parker helps organizations in all sectors fundamentally reimagine themselves as flourishing living systems – from strategy through to operations. She believes that all organizations are capable of flourishing when the right conditions are present. By applying nature’s immense wisdom and principles to strategy, design, operations, and people, Sally supports leaders and teams to create those conditions.
She brings an integrated background in organizational strategy, design, and development; biomimicry; polarity thinking; complex adaptive systems / systems thinking; architecture; and cultural anthropology to her work. She has spoken and taught globally on her Flourishing Living Systems approach to organizational thriving and is a Certified Biomimicry Specialist, helping organizations apply nature’s wisdom to solve human challenges. She is faculty for the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and has Mastery-level certifications in Polarity Thinking (Polarity Partnership), Advanced Strategic Organization Design (University of Southern California), and Theory U (Presencing Institute).
Organizer
