About the Living Organization®

How This Work Began

A framework born from one question: Why do capable organizations struggle to consistently produce their desired results?

Where It Started

From engineer to consultant — and a question that wouldn’t go away

Early in my professional life, I was trained as an engineer — to understand systems, diagnose problems, and improve performance. That training served me well as I began working with CEOs and leadership teams, helping develop their strategies and improve their outcomes.

I helped them analyze their business, identify where they were strong, and pinpoint where opportunities existed. I facilitated engaging offsites where teams developed challenging plans, leaving full of excitement about what they were going to create.

And after a few months, I would hear the common refrain: “Nothing is really changing.”

In 2002, I launched Quantum Leaders, and one of my long-term clients, Bill, answered a question that would reshape everything. When I asked why he kept hiring me as a consultant, he said without hesitation: “Norman, that’s easy — you help me execute faster.”

Not long after, a conference attendee asked me what I did. I replied, "I help organizations execute faster." When she pressed me on what made me different from all the other consultants, my answer surprised even me: "I guess it's because I see organizations differently than most people. I see them as a living being, with a soul and a deep purpose to contribute and make a difference."

"Wow, you should write a book," she suggested. Five words planted like a seed that would slowly take root and blossom.

The Discovery

Why organizations behave more like persons than machines

I never imagined myself as an author. But the seed wouldn’t die. I began studying strategy and execution deeply — surveys, research, models like the Balanced Scorecard, one-page strategy frameworks, and many others.

They all followed a similar pattern: get the strategy right and execution will follow. And when results fell short, we would restructure roles, change incentives, refine processes, improve planning. We were treating organizations like machines. But organizations don’t behave like machines. They behave like persons.

I saw this everywhere. Entrepreneurs would refer to their companies like their children. Leaders discussed their departments in human terms: "Sales is outgoing." "Engineering is analytical." "Finance is conservative."

Maybe my instinct was right: an organization is more like a person than a machine.

If an organization behaves like a person, then the question became: How do people create results? How do I create the outcomes I experience? How can I create more of what I want and less of what I don't?

As an engineer, I began with a simple idea: if everything is energy, then results must be the transformation of energy. What then are the forces that determine outcomes?

I came upon three: what I do (Activity), the energy of my interactions (Relationship), and the field of my beliefs that determine my responses (Context).

The Framework Takes Shape

Activity, Relationship, and Context — a new model for how results are created

These insights became the foundation of The Living Organization®. Machines produce results by optimizing activity. People produce results through the interaction of Activity, Relationship, and Context — what people do, how they relate, and the meaning they make of their experience.

The Living Organization: Transforming Business to Create Extraordinary Results was published in 2011.

“Congratulations, Norman! You know, now you are going to have to live what you wrote.”
— John Mackey, then co-CEO of Whole Foods

He turned out to be prophetic. Shifting one's paradigm is not easy, even for the person who established the new paradigm. Over the next decade, working with clients, I saw how deeply the machine paradigm was embedded — even in me.

As each new challenge appeared, I found a new shift in thinking. Sometimes it was addressing leadership challenges, which evolved into the core skills of a New Way to Lead. Sometimes it was centered around getting the team aligned on a new vision, which led to modifying many of the tools we already used to work through the lens of Activity, Relationship, and Context.

Then the final pieces came into place. Execution is not just about implementation; it is how organizations develop.

Every meaningful goal creates tension. That tension exposes gaps in capability and maturity. Working through those gaps develops people. Development increases capacity. Capacity improves execution. Execution drives further development. A virtuous cycle of growth.

Execution is a developmental process, not just an operational one.

A Community Grows

The people who helped bring this work to life

This work has never been mine alone. Throughout this journey, I have been blessed with people who catalyzed the next evolution of the framework.

Early on, my wife, Jane Wolfe, helped translate my ideas into engaging experiential programs and workshops. Where I approach life through systems thinking and philosophy, Jane brings an artistic perspective, years of improvisational performance, and practical insight into relationship dynamics. She authored Improv Your Relationships and co-authored the second book in the TLO trilogy, Leading the Living Organization.

 Later, Vitaly Geyman and I began exploring how to expand the framework. By 2024, the first practitioner cohort began. Today, fifteen practitioners have been trained and are applying TLO in diverse ways.

The community continues to grow.

The Work Continues

A growing global community applying these ideas in real organizations

The Living Organization® is still evolving. What began as a consulting insight has become a body of work, a trilogy of books, and a growing global community of practitioners applying these ideas in real organizations.

Looking ahead, we see The Living Organization® becoming a widely recognized way of understanding organizations — much like other frameworks that reshaped leadership thinking in earlier decades.

We see a thriving practitioner community of leaders, coaches, consultants, and educators applying these ideas in diverse contexts while supporting one another’s growth.

We see organizations using TLO not as a program, but as a way of operating — strengthening execution, relationships, and maturity at the same time.

We see demand for this work growing faster than the number of trained practitioners — a sign that leaders are ready for a different way of understanding organizations.

We see the trilogy of books, practical tools, case studies, and learning resources continuing to expand the reach of the work.

This is not about building a consulting firm. It is about transforming the fundamental paradigm that we hold as a society about organizations and leadership.

Why This Matters

This framework was developed to help leaders navigate a world that demands more than the existing model can deliver. When leaders understand that organizations behave like persons, everything changes.

Execution becomes developmental. Ownership spreads. Relationships strengthen. Results become more sustainable.

When organizations mature, people mature. When people mature, society matures. That is the work. And that is why it matters.

 

Learn more about the TLO framework

The Living Organization is a comprehensive integrated leadership framework that will increase your organization’s capacity to grow by achieving results more effectively while growing the capability and maturity of the organization

Download the white paper