The Business Revolution Episode 16

In this episode of The Business Revolution, we explore the field of regenerative business with Tomi Winfree, a systems thinker and mentor with 25 years of experience across business, education, government, and community development. Tomi’s approach, grounded in regenerative practice, is about reconnecting people, businesses, and communities to what gives life meaning, enabling them to contribute to the well-being of their place, their people, and the future.

Tomi shares how she helps individuals and businesses move beyond an extractive, top-down approach to one that is more dynamic, collaborative, and purpose-driven. She explains that real change happens by working with a diverse group of people within an organisation to focus on a single, tangible project, building capability through doing rather than following checklists.

The conversation highlights how this regenerative mindset can be applied at three levels:

Individuals: By helping people reconnect with their unique essence and inner purpose, leading to personal and professional thriving.
Organisations: By helping businesses align their identity and purpose, fostering a culture of collaboration and coherence.
Communities: By engaging diverse stakeholders – including government, businesses, and Indigenous groups – to work together on local issues and create “thriving states”. Tomi shares a powerful example of her work on the Mornington Peninsula, where she is facilitating a grassroots alliance to care for the Wonga Arthur’s Seat escarpment.

Tomi explains that these hard conversations are essential to overcome polarisation, build trust, and recognise that we have more in common than what separates us, ultimately ensuring a future for our species.

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Transcript – episode 16

Mik Aidt (00:00) Welcome – or welcome back – to The Business Revolution, the podcast where we are not afraid to say that we are rewriting the rules of business for a sustainable future. My name is Mik, your co-host.

Cherry Ward (00:13) And I’m Cherry.

Alan Taylor (00:14) And I’m Alan.

Mik Aidt (00:15) We’re your guides on this journey to explore the intersection of business, sustainability and positive change.

Cherry Ward (00:20) Each episode will bring you inspiring conversation with experts, entrepreneurs and changemakers who are proving that sustainability isn’t just good for the planet, it’s good for businesses too.

Mik Aidt (00:31) We’re always on the lookout for innovative solutions and we’re sharing with you the practical strategies that we find and we’re discovering new trends in what is going to hopefully to shape this future of sustainable business. And that’s certainly very much what we aim to do today in this podcast episode.

Jingle – signature song

Cherry Ward (00:49) So grab a cuppa, settle in and get ready to be inspired. This is the business revolution.

Mik Aidt (00:56) In this episode, we’re going to explore the field of regenerative business and learn what that could mean and how coaching and mentoring and consulting all can work together at three different levels. We’ll get into all the nitty gritty of that in just a moment.

Cherry Ward (01:11) Today’s guest is a systems thinker, a regenerative practitioner, and a mentor with over 25 years of experience across business, education, government and community development.

Alan Taylor (01:22) She helped shape the National Green Skills Agreement and has worked across a range of industries from business services to trades, the built environment and manufacturing, supporting professionals through vocational and continuing development.

Mik Aidt (01:35) Tomi’s approach is grounded in regenerative practice, which is about reconnecting people, businesses and communities to what gives life meaning, nothing less. And they can contribute together to the wellbeing of the place, the people around them and the future which we are all a part of.

Cherry Ward (01:53) Tomi is now leading Regenerative Mornington Peninsula where she supports individuals, teams and communities to move beyond overwhelm and reactivity into a place of clarity, contribution and deeper connection. Please welcome Tomi Winfree.

Tomi Winfree (02:08) Hello everyone, thank you for having me this morning.

Alan Taylor (02:12) Thank you for coming, Tomi. And we’d love to hear you share a little bit about what led you into this journey and what it actually means to you.

Tomi Winfree (02:18) Yes, thanks, Alan. I have to say it’s been a long journey. After 25 years in sustainability, I have to say it wasn’t a big awakening, but it’s been a becoming. So it’s partly remembering, going back and remembering my own essence and the things that I’ve questioned as I’ve grown up. So questioning the systems that I’m a part of and questioning things about race, class, gender, religion, the things that power structures, the things that really kind of control how we think and what we do and what we choose to become. And so it was a bit of going back for me to see how I wanted to be in this world. So beyond sustainability is my journey beyond where I thought I was contributing and really trying to figure out what my purpose was in this life. So I hit a point where I was part of an extractive system, I felt. I was very top down. I was trying to put more and more control into the system to maintain and monitor and comply. And I realised that it wasn’t really working as well as we could be if we looked at it from a living system and a dynamic approach and what each unique business can contribute and each individual within that business and the uniqueness of their place. So that’s where my journey has started, just post-COVID and looking at who I’m becoming and what I’m doing, building my capacity and how I can contribute to all life thriving.

Mik Aidt (03:51) So how does that look in your work life? I mean, how does that, what kind of support do you offer to people?

Tomi Winfree (03:56) So I pull from regenerative practice and in that we work on individuals, so our own capacity and what we want to contribute. So I work with individuals one-on-one. I also work with businesses and organisations. So I look at what their purpose is. So how did they contribute to the place where they are? What is it that is unique about them? What’s their story? What’s their passion and purpose for contributing to a thriving living system around them and really getting to the heart of that, but also each individual within that business and how they can contribute to the business and that wider place. And then at a community level with community development, so working between government and business and community, but doing it, walking with them, walking with the group and co-creating from the ground up. So it’s emergent and we never know what’s gonna come out of it. Yeah, it’s a discovery of the journey together. So really looking at that identity and purpose of what that group’s coming together to do, to become.

Alan Taylor (05:02) I can sort of hear a theme here in your own journey and you know that questioning in a constructive manner of where your journey is, where you want to be, what the systems are you’re offering, functioning in. And it seems like you’ve, it sounds like you’ve carried that across into your work you’re doing with others. How can we question that in a collaborative and constructive way to enable those changes together? What does that actually look like in practice? Perhaps a few stories would be interesting.

Tomi Winfree (05:26) Yes, so I can talk about individual journeys or I can talk about collective journeys. Where would you like to start?

Cherry Ward (05:34) let’s go with individual because I think, you know, it all starts with the individual, right? I think it’s like the interior condition of the individual before they go and have impact on the world and the collective journey.

Tomi Winfree (05:47) Yeah, so there a couple of people that come to mind. Some of the first people I worked with and some of the stories that I draw from even to today. So one individual that I’ve helped is a photographer. So a really amazing woman and she had stepped away from her work due to physical health problems and she just kind of have lost her way and we connected and I helped her explore her past and the things that she could remember along her journey to the point where she was in her practice. And it really helped her reconnect with what she referred to as her inner voice. And I feel like everyone can relate to that, you know, what guides us, what our intuition and what gives us purpose, that feeling that you get when you know something’s right or you know it’s not. And making that choice at that moment, which way you want to go.

And in the work that I did with her over eight weeks, yeah, we went back into those relationships that she’d had in the past and the work that she had done and really explored the things that drove her and gave her that passion. And she reconnected with herself and she’s now doing an amazing piece of work where she’s showcasing what people do when they go beyond retirement. And she’s really shining a light on the contribution that the older generation can make. and looking at that intergenerational work and being able to share that story of amazing individuals in our community that are contributing. So yeah, she’s really connected. Her relationship’s thriving, her work is thriving, and she feels like she’s waking up every day making a choice is what she said to me. She knew that, yeah, she just had to start listening to herself again and knowing that she could make a choice.

Mik Aidt (07:30) And that’s the regenerative aspect of it that you sort of you helped to regenerate something that was in her. It was already there and then you just made it come back to life in a way.

Tomi Winfree (07:40) That’s right. And that’s where we start is what is your unique essence? What is your unique contribution as much as what’s the business’s contribution? So it’s always a remembering, yeah, to going back and connecting with yourself. Yeah.

Mik Aidt (07:54) So let’s hear maybe an example from the business world. You’ve helped businesses as well. And we think of ourselves as a business podcast, certainly with our title, The Business Revolution. So tell us about some businesses that you’ve worked with, some examples.

Tomi Winfree (08:00) Yeah, so another example is a woman I worked with. She’s a regenerative architect, but she also has a furniture design business and reclaiming timber and making that into furniture. And she’s been doing that. I think she just went on her 25th anniversary herself on that journey. And over time, she’d really, I guess, lost focus. and working with her to reconnect with the purpose of her business.

It was about the same time as circular economy came around, which I love. I love the simplicity of the way that that’s presented and there is a regenerative component to that. But in the marketplace, it was a question of how do I compete in this new market? This is what I’ve always done. It’s just the way that we do the business. It’s part of our story. Do I start changing what we’re doing to, you do we become a circular business even though we have been always? Yeah, so it just made her question a lot of things and also looking at how she was showing up in her life with her clients and I worked with her to basically look at what what she was wanting to do to make her business viable to reignite her passion in that and she was able to gain direction.

So at that point in her life, she was kind of at a crossroads and felt kind of stuck and uncertain with the way that the market was changing. And we just reconnected to that, helped her reconnect with her business and find that joy in what she did and that joy in connecting with clients again. And even a little bit of exploration around another area of design that she’d been for some time but hadn’t really gotten into and after that work her business is thriving, her home life is thriving and yeah she’s really just enjoying life again.

Alan Taylor (10:05) There’s a couple of really good words in there, joy and thriving. another thing is, to Mik’s point, this is the business revolution. But you’ve also demonstrated how this regenerative thinking is in ourselves, but that translates into business because you’ve mentioned a photographer and obviously the lady you just mentioned is in architecture. So we’re getting outside, we’re understanding that it all connects together. It’s not a linear one thing or the other that’s regenerative.

Tomi Winfree (10:10) Hmm.

Alan Taylor (10:33) looking after yourself, joy, thriving business can all fit together and get successes, not just in, for example, farming, which a lot of people will immediately go to when they think of regenerative. So it sort of opens up our eyes to different perspectives there.

Tomi Winfree (10:48) It is, it is. And it’s an evolving. It’s that continual evolution of ourselves, of our business, of the community. So that dynamic system.

Cherry Ward (10:59) Yeah, I’m really keen to understand, Tomi, like, are you what kind of practices, you know, perhaps you can share a strategy that teams might use because, you know, I love this whole regenerative concept. Both Alan and I do a lot of a bit of overlap in terms of the work that we do. And, you know, a lot of businesses are in that extractive mode, right. So if you think about a system it’s constantly on the go. There’s no downtime, there’s no time to regroup. If you think of bringing in nature and the seasonalities and so on. So what are some of the perhaps a tool or a strategy that you might use with the business that changes their way of thinking about it and changes their practice and being intentional?

Tomi Winfree (11:43) We often start with the identity and purpose. it’s starting with that moment, but being able to come back and revisit it over and over again. But I think that really gives me a sense of what the business is working towards and bringing the whole group together. So a lot of people have leadership engagement that they do, but I believe that everyone in the business can be a leader in how they contribute. And so it’s really about bringing a diverse group of people together where you get that diversity, just like in an ecosystem is where you get some of the most amazing ideas. So bringing the whole group together, bringing all levels of the organisation together and whether it’s identifying a team that wants to do that together, the main aim that we try for is to find a project. What is it that the business wants to work on? So it’s something really tangible. It’s not a whole of organisational approach, but we really try to focus in on a single project, a single service, a single product. What is just one thing that we can focus on? Because doing that, the process that we work through, you build your capability by doing. Not by bringing something in and offering it to the business.

I don’t do checklists, I don’t do templates, I do exploration. It’s really a deep dive into that purpose and identity and engaging each level of the organisation in that and that diverse team as to what they think the purpose and identity is and really be able to get that holistic viewpoint. And then from there, it’s about being able to help them hold the complexity of the whole. A lot of people get overwhelmed when it gets to that deep level work. They do want a recipe. They do want a quick fix. They want to be able to just get on with it and move on. But yeah, what we found is that that’s not really where the change happens. It happens with the individuals and with that group. So yeah, so we go through that process. We identify what they’re currently doing with that product or service. So a bit of a mapping exercise, how they work within the wider system outside of the business and how the inner part of the business works. And then we start to co-create what they would like to become. has to be a moment of reflection. It has to be a moment where you do take time out, where you really do step back and you reflect and then you come together and go, what is it that we want to become? And that becomes that identity and purpose. And so it becomes an alignment and coherence that is created between the whole organisation. The culture is really what you’re doing. So it’s about ensuring that everyone has that alignment.

Mik Aidt (14:15) And this

Tomi Winfree (14:19) It is very much so. I am under the strong belief and alignment that our ecosystems are essential. So if our ecosystem is not thriving, it’s impossible for a business to thrive. If we extract to the point that we have no resources, what business is what we have? So it’s really about ensuring that we are bringing life to wherever it is that we are, whether it’s where our business is situated in terms of the office itself or where we’re actually doing that business. So with those three lines of work, I talk about it as the individual, the organisation, and the community.

So your community is whatever you draw the boundary around. So that’s part of the exploration as well. Where are you making that impact potential to be able to create life in the place where you’re doing business? Or an extension of that, where the people that you’re doing business with are doing business, or where that business is doing business? So you really expand beyond not just selling a widget, selling a product to an individual, but what is the meaning your product has in that individual’s life? What will be the difference to them? How do you contribute to their life thriving or to the ecosystem’s thrive ability? So, yeah.

Mik Aidt (15:31) Which sounds very much like when we talk about the S in ESG, the social aspect and the social role that a community or that a business can have in a community. I was wondering, do you have some concrete examples of work you have done at that level, the community level? And also you talked about place, the physical environment I’m imagining. Do you have some concrete examples there?

Tomi Winfree (15:52) Yes. So what I discovered through COVID, when we got to spend all that time in our places, I did a lot of walking, a lot of reflecting myself. And I realised after traveling outside of Australia, all around Australia and supporting business and education and government, I was really kind of done traveling. And I got really intimate with my backyard and really intimate with the community around me. And I started tapping into that and I started learning about it. I was so busy before then, I didn’t have the opportunity. I had no idea really what was going on around me besides my family and what we were involved in.

So I started to get involved with the Mornington Peninsula and with the issues that were affecting the peninsula in terms of transport and education and government policy and housing. There’s quite a lot of issues where we are that can set an example as much as offer opportunity for the people where we are. So I started working with the Jermona Association a few years ago and engaging community business and government around opportunities to work together. And just in the last couple of years, we worked to create a community bid to develop an escarpment management plan for Arthur’s Seat. So it’s the Wonga Arthur’s Seat escarpment. I, at beginning of this podcast actually, I realised I didn’t talk about I’m on the land of the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. And that’s quite significant in a regenerative approach because that’s where we start.

So looking at Wonga in terms of the significance to indigenous groups and looking at the businesses and the state government that’s a huge owner of the land and private landholders, as well as the community that cares for it. So I would say there’s a good 10 groups of environmental preservation, conservation, outdoor pursuits, recreation, all of these different groups that are users or care or have business on the escarpment, the highest point on the peninsula. So the Arthur’s Seat is the gondola that goes up and down from land, from the mountain to sea. And we worked to put a community bid together to develop that escarpment management plan and strategy because we wanted to look into the future. How do we care for the place now? How do we reduce bushfire exposure? How do we support regenerating that land, not just putting a fence around it and conserving it for all time, but actually being able to live in it.

And it’s part of the UNESCO biosphere. So it’s part of one of the very few in Australia. And it’s really significant in that way as well. The biodiversity is one of the top in the state of Victoria. And we put in the community budget bid and the local government put out an expression of interest to 10 consultants to try to find an organisation that would take the work on. But unfortunately, I think it was too complex. There were too many stakeholders. There wasn’t one group and even the local government may not feel like it was that group that should have led it, that led that escarpment management plan because they don’t have much, I guess, significance in the planning and the requirements around that because it is partly state and it is private land. that are their businesses commercial businesses that are in the state park.

So in the past there’s been two significant protests. So there’s been a protest against the reopening of the pioneer quarry with Hillview quarries. So an environmental protest against that because one of the areas, Sheepwash Creek is a significant area that they’ve been restoring through land care over the past I’d say 15, 20 years. And so they won that protest and that second quarry did not open up. Another protest is ongoing. It’s in the current planning stage with the extension of the Eagle chairlift. So there’s a lot of controversy over that. And then even most recently, the community, the art, Indigenous and climate action environmental community groups are protesting against the local government because that funding’s been cut recently by the local governments. There’s a lot of conflict in this area and we’ve managed to get a good 20 stakeholders, all those that I mentioned and others to come together and look at a grassroots alliance.

So how does the government and the community and the businesses and the indigenous groups and all of the people who care about it because they belong to this place? it’s significant to them as individuals, how did they want to show up and care for it? Not because someone’s told them they need to or have to, or it’s a compliance or a planning requirement or anything else, but because we could take all of that energy and we could redirect it towards working together and creating a thriving ecosystem that people care for into the next generation and beyond.

Alan Taylor (21:01) So sounds like you’re aiming there for what is a win-win in that it doesn’t have to be us them, as you say, regulation versus not regulated. It’s you’re looking at where it could be better for all.

Tomi Winfree (21:12) Exactly. And it’s not about compromise and it’s not about, yeah, I guess backing down from things that are important. It’s about finding coherence. You how can we move forward together? What do we want to become? That’s a constant thing. So, you know, what is it the identity and the purpose of this group that we’re forming and how can we contribute to that?

Mik Aidt (21:34) Hmm, it sounds so-

Alan Taylor (21:35) It’s much easier thing to say than to actually achieve. It’s a lot of people can’t grasp the idea. You can have a win-win that you can get that sort of idea that you’re working together for something. But it’s wonderful that you’re getting those people on board to understand that it is possible and we can do that. So well done.

Tomi Winfree (21:50) And it won’t be simple. It will be challenging every step of the way. And all I can hope for is that everyone keeps showing up and keeps building relationships and building trust. And that’s what gives us the will to be able to show up and do the work together.

Mik Aidt (22:05) It sounds to me like we need your approach, in the bigger scheme of things with the fossil fuel people on one side and all the environmentalists and climate activists on the other side. And there’s really like an enemy war going on in a way where these people certainly cannot speak to each other and they build up a really sort of negative image of each other. Do you think that there’s a potential to use your method and your approach at that level?

Tomi Winfree (22:34) Absolutely. think polarisation is probably the thing that is making things more difficult than anything else at this point. And we have more in common than we don’t. And I think if we just remember that we’re human and it is really our species that is at risk in all of this, and the world will go on surviving with or without us. And it’s really part of our responsibility to show up as timekeepers, as the people that know the history as the people that can understand the science and Indigenous wisdom and tap back into those knowledge systems and work together that is going to allow us to do this hard work. And I’m lucky enough to work with an amazing group of two communities of practice that are doing this work worldwide. And I just imagine a world where we can tap into our place as individuals and we can do this work. It is an interconnected system that’s global and dynamic, and we can create these thriving states.

So it’s something I’ve always done, even before the regenerative practice in integrating sustainability. I brought diverse stakeholders together since the early 2000s that did not get along, and I asked them, what does sustainability mean to them? What are the impacts that they’re having, and how can they work together to ensure that they have a future industry to work in?

Mik Aidt (23:33) Fantastic.

Tomi Winfree (23:53) So those were hard conversations 20 years ago. They’re not getting easier, they’re getting more difficult for sure.

Cherry Ward (23:58) Just before we wrap up, Tomi, there’s a lot going on in the world right now. And we spoke about polarisation earlier and there’s increased rates of anxiety and so on and mental health issues. What gives you hope right now?

Tomi Winfree (24:12) I think it’s really about tapping in to ourselves, knowing that, again, we have more in common than we have that separate us. And when we start looking at our places and the people that we’re connected to, and that being what really matters on the ground and not the whole global overwhelm, I think that has huge potential at every level from our mental health, our own mental health. our physical health, our relationships, our communities. And when we do that in a business, that has such wide reaching impact.

So I think it’s just being connected, being part of the system, this living dynamic system, being willing to give it a go and not worry about it being perfect, but just get started with what you’ve got, where you are. I think we are constantly responding to a lot of natural disasters that are increasing and in this work that I do, belonging to a community enables communities to respond more quickly. So in emergency situations, building relationships with community on the ground, whether that’s businesses with community or community members, it’s just an amazing way that people can connect in an emergency to be able to respond really quickly as needed. And that gives me inspiration.

Mik Aidt (25:31) If our listeners and also in particular people in the business world would like to work with you and get more inspiration, how do people get started with you? What’s the process?

Tomi Winfree (25:41) I’m just having a conversation. So you can go onto my website, book in to have a half an hour conversation, ring me up, let’s go for coffee. I love hearing people’s stories and hearing what they’re passionate about and really reviving that, reinvigorating that and helping them become who they want to be in this world at this time. So I’ve got an eight week program that I work with individuals on. to get them started, get those rapid regenerative actions happening within those eight weeks and then ongoing mentoring and coaching from there. That can be as part of an individual in a business, it can be just them one-on-one and then working with teams. It’s just custom, it’s based on what they need and it starts with getting to know them.

Alan Taylor (26:23) That’s fantastic. Thank you very much, Tomi. Thank you for the inspiring stories, your own journey wrapping into it, which is sort of exemplifies what others are going to go through working with you. From what I’m hearing is understanding themselves, listening, truly listening to their own message and their own story and helping them drive forward. At that point, it’s a wrap for this episode of the Business Revolution. We’re hoping that you enjoyed diving deep into this world of business and sustainability with an ever-changing lens. So thank you.

Cherry Ward (26:53) Remember, the revolution doesn’t end here. So it’s up to each and every one of us to take this knowledge and inspiration from today’s episode and turn it into action.

Mik Aidt (27:03) And that’s whether you’re implementing sustainable practices in your own business or advocating for change in the broader community. Every step counts, as we’ve heard today, for building that better future.

Alan Taylor (27:14) And don’t forget to visit our website at businessrevolution.earth for more resources, past episodes, and ways to get involved.

Cherry Ward (27:22) And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to hit the subscribe button, rate and review us the business revolution on your favourite podcast platform. Your feedback will help us reach more listeners and also amplify our impact.

Alan Taylor (27:37) So thanks for joining us on this ever going transformational journey. And together we can revolutionise the way that we do our business and create a world together that’s sustainable for the generations to come.

Mik Aidt (27:48) Stay tuned for more insights, inspiration and actionable steps to help reshape the way we do business.

Cherry Ward (27:54) This is Cherry.

Mik Aidt (27:55) This is Mik.

Alan Taylor (27:56) And Alan, signing off. The business revolution starts with you.