Bruce McKenzie
Early experiences often shape our passion and commitment as professionals and community members. Bruce McKenzie grew up in rural Australia at a time when urban development drew off resources and dignity from farms to the post war cities. Farmers and villagers lost much of their voice in the reshaping of their country. Bruce lived and worked four years in New Guinea in his twenties. These experiences reinforced an early sense of “his work.”

As a contributor in the international social welfare world, and as a leader in Australian social services, Bruce continued to strive to bring all voices into the conversations about the future. As part of the Australian Business Network Scenario Writing Team, he discovered something more than the moral value of including all voices: he discovered that without diverse world views and experiences, organizations, communities, and governments are at high risk of unseen gaps. Without the collective wisdom, they can’t avoid the loss of innovative opportunities.

For decades, as an academic and consulting advisor to global corporations and rural towns under pressure. He has developed techniques and practices, based on emerging principles that revealed themselves in all groups. He trialed these principles and practices to engage all voices in ongoing development of ideas to advance the higher purposes of each group. WindTunneling is just one of these practices that enables groups to co-create Social Capital while accomplishing more tangible tasks.

In 2009, Bruce and his partner, Jane Lorand, designed and led the Fort Baker Leadership Summits, seeking Guidelines and Integrated Planning for a Sustainable California. Following the success of these summits, the WindTunneling technique was recreated as a web-based software program for global application as companies and governments strive to deal with the complexity of sustainability.

The program has evolved to its current non-linear toolset that has a broad application to tenacious, complex issues facing us. Bruce continues to design programs for organizations and governments globally. Currently his work includes a range of strategic programs for the Kingdom of Thailand, including Development Programs for Governors, Future Planning of Cooperatives, aspects of the National Economic Plan, the Department of Public Works for Bangkok’s 30 Year Plan, and the Thai Office of Justice. In Australia, recent programs include work with the National Water Commission, CEO Associations, local community planning and Dairy Australia’s study (with hundreds of participants from all sectors) about how the industry can adapt to Climate Change.

After a long career in academia, he is currently teaching at the Australian Catholic University’s Executive Education program for Systemic Approaches to Leading Resilient Organizations. Resilient organizations must have practices and tools to include the experience and voices of all staff and stakeholders. Beginning in March, 2016, Bruce’s courses on Systemic Thinking and Methods will also be available online, privately, in TheFULCRUM.net. His work continues.

Jane Lorand
As an entrepreneur in education, Jane was Co-Founder of the first accredited GreenMBA in the USA in 1999. The program was later hosted at Dominican University of California in San Rafael. The focus of Jane’s work is helping business leaders and graduate students answer the question: How do we know if our ideas are good ideas? Her passion for free, independent and capable thinkers set her core courses and the culture of the GreenMBA: a loving culture that grows rigorous, disciplined, imaginative, and self-correcting thinking. Self-assessment and peer learning and project-based artistic work brought a holistic experience: alumni continue to work closely. Her 15 years of designing and building Social Capital within the constraints of a university enabled hundreds to recalibrate their future.

As member of the California Bar Association and former tax attorney, she advises large government agencies, public health institutes, and companies in strategy and leadership. She believes that the Capacity of a System is equal to the Sum of the Relationships to the Exponential Power of Trust. A second core life lesson is that Accountability and Assessment are fundamentally different; we want accountability but we “buy” packaged assessment and are mostly disappointed. Accountability is an emergent property of healthy relationships. It is subtle and is only sustainable when it is reciprocal. We benefit by weaning ourselves off of the usual carrots and sticks that control or manipulate people. This helps us all become more human, free, and more capable of authentic productivity. She sees herself as a social architect, designing and building Social Capital, the purring engine of sustainability. As a mother and global citizen, Jane strives to promote the joy of original thought, the freedom of working from a consciously chosen set of higher purposes, and the excitement of opening our hearts to the stories of our contemporaries.

She and her partner, Bruce McKenzie, are co-developers of Systemic Labs and WindTunneling software. Along with their amazing team, they are also collaborating in building TheFULCRUM, a new social learning platform, community, and path of development focused on Systemic Thinking and Methods, Applied Critical Thinking, and Self-Knowledge for Taking Initiative.