The Complexity Code
Influence at the Edge of Chaos
A 12-Week Online Course with Dr. Julian Norris and Special Guests
Build the Perception, Presence, and Practical Strategies to Lead Effectively When Problems Resist Conventional Solutions.
When: Nov 15th - Feb 13th
Price: $675 CAD
Your Guides
Dr. Julian Norris
Julian Norris, PhD, is a scholar-practitioner and wilderness guide, and founding director of the Wolf Willow Institute who has spent his life exploring the crossroads where human development and systems transformation meet. Originally trained as an anthropologist, he is a faculty member at the Haskayne School of Business where he teaches courses in leadership and complexity. Julian’s work is seasoned by a love for the bardic traditions, a lifetime spent in wild landscapes and a long-standing practice of contemplative and somatic disciplines. His past roles include Director of Systems Leadership at Banff Centre and Associate Director for Outward Bound Canada and he is a coach-advisor for senior leaders and organizations in the government, corporate and social sectors grappling with complex challenges and opportunities.
Special Guest Dr. Melanie Goodchild
Dr. Melanie Goodchild, Anishinaabe (Ojibway), moose clan, is a systems thinking and complexity scholar who offers a uniquely Anishinaabe approach to making sense of society's most entrenched problems. She is from Biigtigong Nishnaabeg and Ketegaunseebee First Nations and is currently the Vice President Indigenous Knowledge, Scholarship and Research at Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig, an Indigenous post-secondary institute located in Baawaating within the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy.
Dr. Goodchild collaborates with community-based and systems practice initiatives around the world and is passionate about utilizing complexity-aware tools together with Anishinaabe gikendaasowin (our original ways of knowing) to support deep systems awareness and transformative systems change.
Special Guest Joel Glanzberg
Joel contributes over 25 years’ experience as an applied naturalist to land and community development projects throughout the United States. Through assessing, understanding, and communicating the inherent patterns present in natural systems, Joel helps clients identify principles and guidelines for appropriate and healthy development.
An active author and educator in the fields of permaculture and ecological design, Joel is skilled in cross-cultural communication and teaching. He has taught throughout the United States as well as in Africa and South America, and worked with a variety of Native American tribes and communities. He also acts as a faculty member for The Regenerative Practitioner series. His research has focused on the application of traditional land-use practices to the design of modern infrastructure.
Special Guest Dr. Jean Boulton
Jean Boulton is a theoretical physicist and complexity scientist whose academic background includes Oxford University and the University of Cambridge, where she specialized in quantum physics. After further academic study and diverse professional experience, she expanded her work into engineering, strategy, and organisational consultancy, combining analytical insight with hands-on management. Her writing and teaching invite people to move beyond linear thinking to see life as dynamic, interconnected, and alive with possibility. Jean’s books, Embracing Complexity (Oxford University Press, 2015) and The Dao of Complexity, explore how uncertainty and emergence are not problems to solve, but vital aspects of how the universe unfolds. Through her work, she encourages individuals and organizations to act with awareness, compassion, and foresight, fostering adaptive, sustainable, and humane futures.
Special Guest Tuesday Rivera
Tuesday is a coach, guide, and facilitator who left the fields of traditional social service provision and academics to become a new kind of change-maker partnering with clients around the world. Tuesday’s work is featured in the book Walk, Out, Walk On by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze, and she is known internationally for her strategic work with organizations and communities engaged in systemic change.
Trained as a psychotherapist, with a BA in Individual/Family Studies and a Master's in Social Work, Tuesday is an expert in supporting transformational work at every level.
Special Guest Dr. Frances Westley
Frances Westley is a renowned scholar and consultant in the areas of social innovation, strategies for sustainable development, strategic change, visionary leadership and inter-organizational collaboration. Her most recent book, Getting to Maybe (Random House, 2006) focuses the dynamics of social innovation, and institutional entrepreneurship in complex adaptive systems. Experiments in Consilience (Island Press, 2004) focuses on the dynamics of inter-organizational and interdisciplinary collaboration in the management of ecological and conservation problems.
Frances Westley serves on numerous advisory boards including Resilience Alliance Board of Science, World Conservation Union-Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, the Stockholm Resilience Center, the South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies (SARAS) and Evergreen Canada. She is the recipient of several awards including the Ulysses S. Seal award for innovation in conservation and the Corporate Knights Award.
Course Includes:
Access to the Complexity Code Learning Platform:
Live orientation and wrap-up sessions with Julian Norris and the Wolf Willow team (2).
Six pre-recorded modules that include hours of engaging presentations of complexity concepts, principles, and practices, experiential activities, and conversations with domain experts including Melanie Goodchild, Joel Glanzberg, Jean Boulton, Francis Westley, and Tuesday Rivera.
The Complexity Cookbook downloadable e-book by Julian Norris
Bi-monthly personal and professional practices
Bi-monthly downloadable handouts that include tools, tactics, and takeaways
Four live Q+A sessions (zoom) that will be recorded
Course Modules
Module 1: Welcome to the Swamp – Leading in Complexity
Drops November 20th
Like learning to see the mycorrhizal networks that connect forest ecosystems, you'll develop perception for the hidden patterns, relationships, flows and interdependencies that shape our world. Learn practical frameworks for seeing systems as living fields rather than mechanical machines along with strategies to shift from reactive problem-solving to systemic sensemaking.
Module 2: Earthwise - Complex Patterns of Influence and Causality
Drops December 4th
Just as a tree's health affects the entire forest network, your own state of consciousness and development influences every system you touch. This module focuses on cultivating the foundational complexity-specific capacities (e.g. holding paradox, somatic awareness, perspectival fluidity)needed to lead from optimal states in times of high uncertainty and consequence.
Module 3: The Systems Seer – The Relational Dynamics of Living Systems
Drops December 18th
In living systems, relationship is structure. This module studies the hidden architecture of networks - the feedback loops, invisible patterns, and relational fields that shape culture and outcomes. We’ll explore how the quality and coherence of relationships transform what’s possible in teams, organizations, and movements, and learn to cultivate the conditions for greater collective intelligence and emergence.
Module 4: Self & System – Changing the World from Inside Out
Drops January 8th
You can't force a river to flow, but you can remove the obstacles. This module offers biomimetic strategies for finding leverage points, designing safe-to-fail experiments, and influencing systems through connection and emergence rather than force and control. You’ll learn to work with constraints, pattern interventions, and phase shifts to enable change that unfolds organically rather than through top-down control.
Module 5: Herding Butterflies – Practical Strategies for a Nonlinear World
Drops January 22nd
Indigenous cultures and contemplative traditions understood living systems long before complexity science existed. In this module we’ll explore how Indigenous, Taoist, and contemplative perspectives on flow, reciprocity, and interdependence are bringing a relationally-grounded, ethical and critical lens to systems thinking and complexity leadership. And we’ll invite practical inquiry around how to deepen our capacity to act wisely within the web of relationships that sustain all life.
Live Sessions (all 11am - 12pm MST)
Nov 13 Welcome & Orientation
Dec 2 Q + A
Dec 16 Q + A
Jan 13 Q + A
Feb 12 Q + A
Module 6: Deviant Moves – Leading from the Emerging Future
Drops February 5th
In ecosystems, innovation emerges at the edges where different environments meet. Learn to spot and support the subtle innovations already breaking through in your system, align with evolutionary purpose, and lead change that is both grounded and visionary. This is leadership as midwifery - sensing the future’s faint signals and nurturing them into form. We’ll explore how to amplify breakthroughs, cultivate change from the margins, and become a steward of what wants to emerge next.
Why This Program Exists
On the Trail of Wise Practice
We stand at a species-level inflection point—what may be the most significant liminal moment in the human story. The convergence of ecological collapse, technological acceleration, and social upheaval reveals the profound inadequacy of our existing paradigms.
We possess unprecedented knowledge, technology, and resources. We can sequence genomes, harness renewable energy, and connect instantly across continents. Yet we remain mysteriously unable to address our most pressing challenges—not because we lack solutions, but because we lack the collective capacity to implement them.
This is not an information problem. It is a wisdom problem. We know what needs to be done but cannot free ourselves from the patterns that created our current crises. We have the means but not the integrated capacity to act on what we know. We remain trapped in ways of thinking, being, and relating that were never designed for the complexity we face.
Beyond Traditional Leadership
The Ecology of Influence
At the intersection of personal mastery, organizational transformation, and ecological awareness lies a critical intelligence - Complexity Consciousness. This isn't another leadership methodology or management framework. It's the foundational ground of being that enables leaders to see patterns others miss, influence webs of relationship others can't perceive, and create change that actually sustains itself—like a healthy ecosystem.
This immersive experience develops three core capacities that distinguish complexity-fluent leaders:
Systemic Perception: The capacity to see the invisible patterns, properties, connections, and leverage points that drive real change across living systems
Embodied Presence: Cultivating the inner meta-skills needed to lead from optimal states in real-world, high-pressure contexts
Applied Wisdom: Integrating timeless principles with cutting-edge science to lead more skillfully and act more creatively within uncertainty
Additional Detail
-
This program attracts leaders who sense that something fundamental has shifted in how the world works—and who are ready to evolve their approach accordingly.
You might be:
A senior executive whose traditional strategies aren't generating the results they used to
An entrepreneur or innovator tackling challenges that resist conventional problem-solving
A change agent working at the intersection of multiple systems and stakeholder groups
An emerging leader who wants to develop capabilities for an uncertain, interconnected future
A seasoned professional ready to integrate your experience with deeper systemic understanding
-
Format: Six intensive hybrid modules delivered over 6 weeks through a carefully designed blend of:
Weekly, pre-recorded complexity microdoses with faculty and special guests (downloadable)
Real-world application where you test frameworks in your actual leadership context
Weekly land-based, somatic, and contemplative practices for embodied integration
Three live office hours with faculty and special guests
Two live orientation and wrap up sessions with faculty
Downloadable guide to complexity principles and Deviant Moves by Julian Norris
-
This is not:
A quick-fix leadership hack or technique-based training
Designed for leaders who prefer certainty and control-based approaches
About optimizing existing systems rather than transforming them
A theoretical exploration—it requires real-world application and personal practice
For those seeking immediate, measurable ROI in traditional business metrics
This is:
A foundational recalibration of how you understand and practice leadership
For leaders ready to work with uncertainty as a creative force
About developing capacities that improve everything else you do
A practice-based immersion requiring ongoing inquiry and experimentation
An investment in long-term adaptive capacity and systemic impact
Way more than professional development. It's an initiation into the kind of leadership our world actually needs.
-
Faculty Team: Julian Norris with Special Guests Melanie Goodchild, Joel Glanzberg, Frances Westley, Tuesday Rivera and Jean Boulton.
Learn from practitioners who bridge complexity science, deep wisdom traditions, and real-world leadership experience.
-
The content modules will drop every other week from November 20th - February 5th along with the practices, handouts, and resources for download.
We recommend participants set time aside each week to immerse themselves in the learning, and to be present with questions, insights, and reflections on the live Q+A sessions. You will get the most out of this course by doing so!
That said, moving through the module content will be at your own pace and will not need to be complete by the course end. You will maintain a login and password where you can access the content up to one year after it drops.
The live intro and closing session, along with the live Q+A sessions will take place at 11 - 12pm MST on the following dates:
Intro Session: November 13th
Live Q+A: December 2nd
Live Q+A: December 16th
Live Q+A: January 13th
Live Q+A and Closing: February 12th
All live sessions will be recorded and posted on the learning platform for those who cannot attend.
Learning Outcomes
Systemic Vision
See the deeper patterns and webs of relationship where others see only chaos or isolated problems.
Stakeholder Alchemy
Engage effectively across power differentials and worldview differences to generate collective intelligence.
Embodied Leadership
Access optimal states of consciousness and somatic intelligence for high-stakes leadership moments.
Chaos Navigation
Make sophisticated decisions in uncertain and complex environments using frameworks that account for emergence.
Cultivate Influence
Create meaningful change through connection and emergence rather than force and control.
Innovation Catalyst
Identify and amplify the positive deviance already emerging in your system.
Complexity Metaskills
Cultivate a constellation of critical behavioral and psycho-emotional competencies.
Ecosystem Thinking
Understand how your actions ripple through networks of relationship from local to global scales.
Future Fitness
Develop the adaptive capacity and resilience needed for leading in an exponentially changing world
Critical Timing: Why Now?
We're living through what systems theorists call a "phase transition"—a moment when old patterns break down and new ones haven't yet stabilized.
The leaders who thrive in the next decade won't be those who got better at the old game, but those who learned to play by the new rules emerging all around us.
The window for developing these capacities is narrowing. The pace of change is accelerating, interconnections are deepening, and the stakes are rising. The leaders who develop greater complexity fluency and consciousness now will have a significant advantage over those who wait.