Brook Thorndycraft

Organizational Change Maker

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The last two years been a time of massive personal and professional transformation. I moved to Mi'kma'ki/Nova Scotia to be with my partner, and created a new company. Luckily for me, change is my best teacher. It's terrifying and complex, and it's the focus of my work. The transformation that came from the pandemic and a cross-country move reminded me that even when we want something to be different in our lives, fear and resistance to the unknown can often be the biggest barriers to change. This epiphany became my inspiration for starting Big Waves, a company that supports leaders and organizations to overcome the emotional, personal, and interpersonal obstacles preventing meaningful change. I work with organizations that want to make the world more socially, environmentally, or economically just. I help leaders develop the capacity to be visionary, emotionally honest, and relational. I work with teams to unearth and process conflicts and relationship challenges in healthy ways. I help organizations transform toxic cultures to become psychologically healthy workplaces which embrace learning and creativity, to prioritize justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, and to create space for everyone to be more effective in working together for larger change. Ultimately, I guide organizations in prioritizing systems thinking and adaptive planning so that they will have a positive impact on complex social problems.

What are you most proud of professionally? And who or why?

I have always followed my heart and curiosity in the work I do, and it has brought me to many unusual places.  I am proud that the work I’m doing currently is the result of having followed many seemingly different paths that have led to a kind of random hodgepodge of experience.  As a result I have a diverse set of skills and knowledge that allow me to be flexible and adaptable to the complexities that show up in my work.   

What’s your vision for Atlantic Canada in 10 years? What’s our biggest opportunity now?

I have only been in Atlantic Canada for a couple of years, but so far I am really amazed by how much innovation is happening here.  I was lucky to connect early on with a network of innovators, systems thinkers, and change makers and I keep discovering how broad that network is in Atlantic Canada.  I think there is so much potential to make big exciting changes for the better in terms of greater social and economic justice as well as environmental sustainability.  For example, there is very inspiring work happening around decolonization as well as environment and food.  I’m very excited to see where things go, and to support where I can. 

What was your greatest stage of growth? What made it a shift for you?

Wow, there have been a lot of stages of growth.  I think I would say the biggest was when I started to build my conflict resolution skills and eventually became a mediator.  After working in community organizations and grassroots groups for a number of years, I came to realize that there were so many amazing projects that were struggling or even failing because we lacked the capacity to find our way through conflict.  I was also personally very afraid of conflict, and found it extremely triggering. It was a huge personal leap to decide to become a mediator.  I had to look deeply at my own patterns and emotional reactions to conflict, and do a huge amount of healing.  It was unbelievably personally transformative.  I went from experiencing conflict as something to fear to holding other people’s conflict with curiosity and even hopefulness. 

What’s your favourite or most read book or podcast? Now or at each of your greatest stages of growth?

This is a very hard question for me to answer.  I think from a work perspective, the book I refer back to most often is Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown.  The book that has impacted me the most in the last year is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  And probably my favourite all-time book is A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. 

What’s your deepest learning from this past year? How did/will you apply it?

Our thinking is so often driven by our bodies and emotions. When we want to make change in our lives and in our worlds, we have to do that in a holistic way that includes our heads (how we think, believe, and understand things), our hearts (how we feel, our emotional lives, what we care about), our hands (what we do and how we do it, and also what we can learn from our bodies), and our spirit (how we know and feel that we are connected to, accountable to, and supported by something bigger than ourselves). And this has to happen individually and in groups and communities! Integrating this creativity, embodiment, and connection to nature - to other people and to meaning - is the key focus of my coaching and facilitation.

Who’s inspired you, directly or indirectly? How have they inspired you?

I have had so many teachers and sources of inspiration guiding me, more than I could possibly say here, but a few that standout are: Nouha Ali-Ahmed, a somatic practitioner who has helped me understand embodiment by connecting with my own body and how it heals. Arnold Mindell, whose work in Deep Democracy and Process Work has shaped the way I understand and intervene in conflict and polarization. adrienne maree brown, whose Emergent Strategy and insights about facilitating transformation are a core part of my guidebook for transformation.

And my mom Lynne Thorndycraft, my dad Paul Zilsel, and my sister Joanna Zilsel, all tireless in their commitment to a better world, who taught me that it’s not enough to think that something needs to be different, it’s on us to do the hard and often unpopular work of making change.

What would you have done differently?

Not much. I feel pretty happy about where I am in life, although I would have been equally happy as a marine biologist.

What are the principles you live by?

The most important principle I try to live by is to learn from failure. I also strive to nurture transformation, justice, balance and healing in my life, and my work. I try to maintain a balance of playfulness, creativity, emotional honesty, gratitude and generosity. Everyday, in every way, I aspire to build bridges for greater connection and understanding.

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coach, mediator, organizational consultant, facilitator, trainer, art lover and maker, thinker and feeler, eater