Collaborate
Sense. Choose. Adapt.
Organizations working on complex challenges often need space to sense what is happening in their context, choose their direction together, and adapt as conditions change. Whole Story supports organizations through three types of engagements.
Sense:
Collective Sense-Making
Where shared understanding begins.
We help groups orient themselves within complex challenges through collective sense-making. These engagements create structured spaces where people with different perspectives, experiences, and knowledge can explore what is happening in the system they share.
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Through dialogue, reflection, and structured inquiry, participants surface diverse forms of knowledge, notice patterns across perspectives, and build the shared understanding needed to move toward thoughtful strategy and collaborative action.
Collective sense-making engagements may include:
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Cross-sector or cross-department dialogues
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Multi-interest holder roundtables and community conversations
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Workshops exploring complex challenges such as climate, land use, or housing
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Participatory research or knowledge-mapping processes
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Inquiry sessions on working in complexity and adaptive practice.​
Choose:
Strategic Planning
Developing direction under uncertainty.
We support strategic planning processes for organizations navigating complex systems. Rather than treating strategy primarily as document production, these engagements use planning as a structured process for collective sense-making — helping organizations understand their context, explore strategic choices, and develop direction that can evolve as conditions change.
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Strategic planning becomes an opportunity to strengthen how people think and act together under uncertainty, aligning leadership and governance while building shared clarity, ownership, and rhythms for learning and adaptation.
Strategic planning engagements may include:
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Environmental and systems scanning
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Facilitated leadership and board conversations
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Surfacing assumptions and strategic tensions
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Identifying priorities and areas of focus
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Governance and decision-making reflection
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Development of strategic roadmaps and learning checkpoints
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Designing learning loops to support implementation and adaptation
Adapt:
Adaptive Learning
Strengthening the capacity to learn and adapt over time.
We help organizations build the structures, rhythms, and practices that support learning in action. These engagements embed reflection and learning into everyday work so teams can notice what is happening, reflect on experience, and adjust direction as conditions evolve.
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Working well in complex systems requires more than good strategy. It requires the capacity to learn together over time. Adaptive learning processes strengthen the habits, relationships, and decision-making practices that help organizations navigate complexity with greater awareness, flexibility, and resilience.
Adaptive learning engagements may include:
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Facilitated reflection and learning sessions during implementation
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Adaptive monitoring and learning practices
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Governance and leadership reflection conversations
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Professional learning on systems thinking and working in complexity
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Designing collaborative working practices and agreements that support learning
Who We Work With
Whole Story partners with organizations and collaborative networks working on complex social and environmental challenges. This work is often most helpful when multiple perspectives must come together, uncertainty is present, and thoughtful collaboration and learning are essential. We most often work with nonprofit organizations, municipalities, post-secondary institutions, public libraries, funders, health and environmental networks, and cross-sector coalitions.