Ecosystem Illumination & Transformation

See the whole human ecosystem. Act with clarity and confidence.

When challenges are complex, linear plans and isolated initiatives aren’t enough. Ecosystems are interconnected, resilient, and full of unseen forces. This service helps leaders move from confusion to clarity — and from insight to action.

In Brief

Designed for leaders navigating rapid shifts in their landscape, rising expectations, and complex multi-stakeholder environments.

We work with leadership teams to:

  • Map the ecosystem they are operating within

  • Understand how value flows, where it stalls, and why

  • Identify coordinated shifts that move the system toward a better fit to purpose

The result is clarity, alignment, and practical action grounded in how the ecosystem actually functions.

Traditional strategic planning often focuses on goals, initiatives, and timelines. That work has value. But when the underlying ecosystem is misaligned, even well-designed plans struggle to gain traction.

Ecosystem Illumination & Transformation focuses first on the underlying dynamics. Once those are visible and aligned, strategy becomes more coherent, coordinated, and durable.

Why Ecosystem Awareness Matters…

Before this work begins, most leaders and stakeholders hold partial, often unspoken assumptions about the ecosystem in which they operate.

They may share a mission.
They may agree on goals.

But they rarely share a clear picture of:

  • Where the ecosystem actually begins and ends

  • What sits inside the ecosystem, and what belongs to the environment or landscape

  • The purpose that holds the ecosystem together

  • The value exchanges that sustain it

Without that shared visibility, alignment remains fragile.

Ecosystem illumination makes the invisible visible.

It creates a shared representation of:

  • The ecosystem’s purpose

  • Its boundaries

  • Its actors and roles

  • The value dynamics and interactions that hold it together

From this clarity, people can move from vague agreement to grounded alignment. Then they can move from ideas to intentional transformation.

Five Stages of Ecosystemic Transformation

The five stages provide a shared structure for understanding how ecosystem work unfolds.

  • Orienting focuses intent and sponsorship.
  • Sensing gathers signals and surfaces assumptions.
  • Illuminating makes the ecosystem visible.
  • Engaging turns shared insight into coordinated action.
  • Sustaining supports ongoing learning and adaptation.

Each stage supports the others. The work moves forward, but it also loops back as understanding deepens.

Two Phases: Illumination and Transformation

In practice, the five stages unfold across two broad phases.

Phase 1 is Illumination.
Phase 2 is Transformation.

Illumination is structured and time bound. It focuses on building shared visibility and agreement about the ecosystem.

Transformation builds from that foundation. It is shaped by the ecosystem itself and does not follow a fixed template.

Phase 1: Illumination

The illumination phase consists of four working sessions with the Ecosystem Design Team, supported by preparation and synthesis between sessions.

The purpose of this phase is to make the ecosystem visible and to establish a shared understanding.

Session 0: Orienting

Planning session with the core sponsor to:

  • Clarify the initial definition of the ecosystem name and purpose

  • Identify Ecosystem Design Team participants

  • Align on scope and expectations

This ensures clarity of intent before broader engagement begins.

Session 1: Sensing

Working session with the Ecosystem Design Team to:

  • Refine ecosystem name and purpose

  • Identify ecosystem inhabitants

  • Distinguish ecosystem, environment, and landscape boundaries

  • Describe key activities and roles

This session surfaces assumptions and begins building a shared representation.

Session 2: Illuminating Part One

Working session to:

  • Review and refine landscape and inhabitant layers

  • Identify key value exchanges

  • Surface structural tensions and patterns

Between sessions, facilitators synthesize and develop ecosystem depictions.

Session 3: Illuminating Part Two

Working session to:

  • Review value exchange layers

  • Explore potential interventions across four levels of complexity

  • Consider the timing of interventions

By the end of this phase, participants share a clear representation of the ecosystem’s purpose, boundaries, actors, and value dynamics as well as a planned set of interventions to help shift the ecosystem to a better fit to purpose.

Optional additional sessions may deepen intervention framing or address specific areas such as power dynamics or adaptive capacity.

Phase 2: Transformation

Transformation builds on the clarity developed during illumination.

There is no preset sequence for this phase. The direction depends on what the ecosystem reveals.

Transformation work may include:

  • Coordinated interventions across multiple levels

  • Governance adjustments

  • Service or structural redesign

  • Capacity building

  • Ongoing sensing and adaptation

Interventions often occur simultaneously across different orders of complexity. Change is rarely isolated to one layer.

The goal is not to impose a plan. It is to support coherent action grounded in shared understanding.

What This Process Produces

This work produces:

  • A shared representation of the ecosystem

  • Agreement on purpose and boundaries

  • Visibility into value dynamics

  • Identified leverage points

  • A coordinated path toward transformation

The output is not simply a document. It is a shift in how leaders see and act within their ecosystem.

Here’s what some of our partners have to say about Ecosystem Illumination…

"From the start, the Venture Hub sought to map the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the Hudson Valley. In fact, it was a central part of our strategy-- to link people, services, and resources across a widely dispersed, large geographic area. Without a methodology, or specific know-how in this area, we were hampered in our attempts, until we met Rob and his team at The Ecosystem Project. Rob’s project was a perfect opportunity for us to explore and capture the nuances of the entrepreneurial ecosystem so that we could more effectively illustrate what our region has to offer and work more cohesively. The Ecosystem Project methodology, relying on Miro, the collaborative tool, enabled us to rapidly capture and share knowledge, and visualize the intricacies of our regional ecosystem. Now that we have a visual representation and a set of value propositions, we are in a position to advance hypotheses about the ways the relationships can be strengthened, how various players can be strengthened, and how the Venture Hub can leverage momentum to meet our end goals—increased investment in promising startups, revenue, and job growth, and economic growth of the Hudson Valley. "

– Kristin Backhaus, Dean, School of Business, SUNY New Paltz

"Given the multitude of demands on higher education institutions—enrollment shrinkage, financial shortfalls, curricular innovations, accreditation, graduation rates, etc.—it is understandable that many leaders find it challenging to deliver on strategic partnerships with external constituents. How is there time to collaborate with external partners on transformative projects when there is so much campus-based work to do?! And yet, not prioritizing external partnerships puts higher education at risk with society that increasingly questions the relevancy and value of college degrees. I have 30 years of higher education experience—equally split between being a faculty member and an administrator— with my academic discipline situated at the intersection of organizational behavior and strategic management. I found the Ecosystematic Project founded by Rob Brodnick to be a powerful new approach for understanding complex systems. Using an ecosystemic approach to study the shared goal of regional human (talent) development yielded key insights and interventions with an incredible efficiency and effectiveness. Rob and his team curated and developed technology tools (e.g., Miro), canvases, questions, and visuals that illuminated great insights (it made the invisible, visible!) and yielded a wide diversity of interventions. The Ecosystematic Approach is the type of framework needed by any leader facing complex situations—and this most obviously includes higher education leaders."

 – Brenda Flannery Dean Emerita, Minnesota State University, Mankato

"I began by feeling slightly overwhelmed and unsure about whether my contributions made sense, and curious about how such a diverse group of leaders—with such a widespread and complex ecosystem—would co-journey together and make sense of our shared knowledge. By the end of the first session, I was no longer uncertain and felt eager and energized. As the work progressed, I was both able to add my perspective and details in the ecosystem and apply what I was learning in the process to my daily leadership. I would like to “telescope down” into specific parts of the ecosystem and understand smaller components of work and collaboration: adding details about the bark, ferns, and moss (to continue the metaphor). I have begun doing this for my own unit by utilizing Miro and applying what I’ve learned to help us understand the wider picture and collaborate asynchronously. And, I would like to continue to “telescope out” to see how my organizations relate to others in my region/place or in similar contexts. What can I continue to learn by looking in new ways and with deepened understanding? I learned so much from hearing my colleagues put language and meaning to questions I either thought I knew the answer to or had my own answer to. I observe that subsequent collaboration is more agile and fruitful because we have experienced this “making visible” together. I also became more empowered in my own perspective because I could see its value to others and to the wider story."

-Stephanie Varnon-Hughes, Dean of Teaching, Learning & Leadership at Claremont Lincoln University

The Ecosystem Project Book

About the Book

The Ecosystem Project: A Practical Guide to Illuminating and Transforming our Human Ecosystems

The Ecosystem Project is your entry point into working with complexity—without oversimplifying it.

Inside, you’ll find:

  • A clear, practical theory of change that makes systems thinking useful for navigating complexity.

  • Ten hands-on canvases with guidance on how to use them to illuminate and shift the ecosystems you and your organization are part of.

  • Nine real-world case studies that show the method in action.

This book equips leaders, innovators, and change-makers to see the whole system—and to move it toward a healthier, more fit-to-purpose future.