Becoming a time disruptor: following nature’s rhythms of change
What happened before
Over the past ten months, I have had the privilege of being part of the Bio-Leadership Fellowship — an experience that has profoundly reshaped how I think about change, leadership, and our relationship with nature. The Fellowship brings together people and projects exploring new forms of human progress by working with nature.
Through this community of generous and curious peers — and building on my experience with the Earth Laws Dandelion Fellowship — I deepened my commitment to bringing the voice and wisdom of nature and future generations into the places where decisions are made: the boards and businesses that shape our collective future.
This journey into new ways of thinking invited me to look at an unexpected intersection; change and our relationship with time. I began to wonder — what would it mean to become a time disruptor? And how do I connect this to the Two Loops Model
This inquiry led me to investigate time as a systemic player, a player with different faces. I will go more into the faces of Chronos, Kairos, Cyclical, Deep, and Ancestor/Future Time. They influence our sense of purpose, and possibility. It revealed that disrupting time is about reconnecting with the many rhythms already present in nature — and within ourselves.
What follows is a first reflection born from that exploration: an invitation for leaders and change makers to rethink transformation through the lens of time — to rediscover a leadership that brings us to the core of life’s deeper patterns.
When Acceleration Becomes the Enemy of Change
Life as we live it in many places, is built on the illusion of mastery over time. We fill calendars to the margins, chase quarterly targets, and measure success by speed and growth — faster decisions, faster results, faster profit. All in the name of progress. Yet the faster we move, the more we seem to lose touch with the very essence of transformation: the capacity to pause, reflect, and reimagine.
What if the greatest obstacle to meaningful change is our relationship with time itself?
In boardrooms, consultant briefs and management education, transformation is often framed as an exercise in acceleration — scaling innovation, shortening feedback loops, driving agility. But as physicist Carlo Rovelli reminds us in *The Order of Time*, time is not a fixed, universal current flowing outside of us. It is relational and subjective, “born in the entanglement between things.” In other words, our experience of time is shaped by how we attend to it.
I couldn’t stop thinking: “what if transformation in business and society isn’t about controlling or accelerating time — but learning to listen differently to it?”
The Corporate Grip of Chronos
The modern organization lives by Chronos, the ancient Greek word for sequential, measurable time. Chronos governs our project plans, performance reviews, and fiscal calendars. It offers predictability, structure, and accountability — all essential to coordination at scale. Yet when Chronos becomes the only rhythm that matters, it narrows our collective imagination.
Chronos asks: How fast?
But transformation asks: To what end?
When leaders equate efficiency with progress, they optimize the very systems that need disrupting. The more we accelerate under the logic of Chronos, the less capacity we have to sense what’s actually emerging.
Kairos: The Time of Opportunity and Emergence
The Greeks named another kind of time — Kairos — the right or opportune moment. Kairos is the pause before the bow releases, the breath before a breakthrough, the moment birds leave for their winter journey. It is the window of emergence. It is qualitative, not quantitative; a felt sense that “the time is ripe.”
In organizational life, Kairos shows up in those moments when a team senses a new direction, when a conversation suddenly deepens, when a crisis opens unexpected possibilities.
Otto Scharmer, in Theory U, calls this the movement from “downloading” (repeating past patterns) to “presencing” — connecting to the deepest source of what wants to emerge. Kairos cannot be scheduled, but it can be invited.
To invite Kairos, leaders must create what might be called temporal sanctuaries — spaces of pause and reflection within the relentless motion of Chronos. This could mean intentional reflection sessions, unstructured time for sense-making, or leadership retreats that privilege presence over productivity.
Beyond Linear Time: Rediscovering the Cycles
Linear time — the straight line of growth, deadlines, and deliverables — is a cultural invention. Yet the natural world, and most living systems, operate cyclically. Seasons, life cycles, and feedback loops remind us of impermanence and that renewal always requires decay.
In organizations, Cyclical Time can be seen in the rhythms of innovation and exhaustion, expansion and contraction, convergence and divergence. When leaders ignore these cycles — demanding constant growth without rest — systems burn out.
Margaret Wheatley has long argued that sustainable transformation mirrors the patterns of living systems: emergence, adaptation, regeneration. In that sense, leaders must become gardeners of time — attuned to rhythms, not just results.
Cyclical thinking also challenges how we define “progress.” Instead of seeing setbacks as failures, we can view them as necessary compost — experiences that nourish the next phase of growth.
Deep Time and Ancestor/Future Time
If Chronos is the time of the quarter and Kairos is the time of the moment, Deep Time stretches across centuries. It invites us to see ourselves as part of much longer stories — geological, ecological, cultural.
Ancestor/Future Time extends this even further. It asks: What are we inheriting, and what are we leaving behind? How do the birds remember their path of migration?
Many Indigenous worldviews operate within this expanded temporal frame, where decision-making considers the seventh generation ahead and honors the lineage behind. For corporate leaders, this perspective reframes responsibility: every policy, product, or partnership becomes part of a longer chain of consequence and care.
When we reconnect to Deep and Ancestor/Future Time, we begin to design not for speed, but for stewardship. We ask different questions: What legacies are we continuing unconsciously? What futures are we making inevitable through our current actions? What patterns need to die for something new to live? In The Netherlands, Lab for Future Generations does a lot of work on this theme.
The Two Loops of Transformation
These layers of time converge in the Two Loops Model developed by Margaret Wheatley and the Berkana Institute.
In this model, one loop represents the dominant system — the established order that has reached its limits. It is characterized by Chronos: control, predictability, and efficiency. The other loop represents the emerging system — new patterns of organizing, leading, and relating that arise as the old one declines.
Between these loops are the bridge-builders — individuals and initiatives that carry knowledge, values, and energy from one system to the next. They embody Kairos and Deep Time. They hold space for what Wheatley calls “islands of coherence in a sea of chaos.”
When we overlay the time constructs onto this model, a dynamic picture emerges: The old loop operates primarily in Chronos — measured, optimized, and managed. The transition space between loops is Kairos — the threshold where emergence occurs. The new loop aligns with Cyclical Time and looks for motivation and stewardship in Ancestor/Future Times. Deep time is helping us to see the value of hospice work and composting for the new system to emerge.
True time disruptors are those who can move between these temporal realities, helping organizations evolve from a mechanistic to a living paradigm.
The Inner Work of Temporal Leadership
It is tempting to see time disruption as a systemic intervention — redesigning processes, calendars, or meeting cultures. But it begins with the inner time of the leader.
Many executives operate in what might be called temporal scarcity — the chronic sense of “not enough time.” This scarcity mindset fuels reactivity, short-termism, and burnout. Personal transformation occurs when a cyclical path is invited starting with allowing awareness and disturbance. Followed by reorientation and integration — embodying a more rhythmic, regenerative pace.
Transformative leadership requires a temporal shift: from control to curiosity, from speed to presence.
As Scharmer suggests, transformation requires letting go of the old self to let a new one emerge. Time disruptors learn to practice the pause — the silent hinge between perception and action.
Carlo Rovelli’s work reminds us that time isn’t a uniform backdrop; it’s something we participate in. Our awareness and attention create time. When leaders slow their internal tempo, they literally change the time signature of their organizations.
Practicing Time Disruption in Organizations
How can these insights move from reflection to practice? Here are some ways change makers can introduce temporal interventions and disruptions that shift organizational culture:
>Create Kairos Spaces: Design intentional pauses in the rhythm of work — reflection sessions, sense-making circles, or monthly “slow hours.”
>Embed Cyclical Thinking: Adopt cycles of rest and renewal within innovation and change programs. Normalize phases of composting and reimagining.
>Reframe Strategy in Deep Time: Complement short-term metrics with long-term stewardship indicators — ecological impact, cultural resilience, social wellbeing.
>Honor Ancestral and Future Lineages: Open strategic dialogues by reflecting on the lineage of the organization: whose dreams built it, whose futures it shapes.
And above everything else; model temporal awareness as a leader and practice deep listening, unhurried decision-making, and mindful communication. When leaders regulate their internal time, teams recalibrate collectively.
These are not “soft” practices. They are structural acts of transformation, shifting the temporal fabric of organizational life from one loop to another and become part of the emerging future.
The Courage to Disrupt Time
To become a time disruptor is not to reject Chronos — structure and accountability remain vital — but to restore balance among the many temporalities we inhabit.
It takes courage to slow down in a culture addicted to acceleration. It takes leadership to defend unstructured time in a system that worships efficiency. And it takes vision to imagine transformation not as a race, but as an unfolding — a conversation between past and future, action and reflection, Chronos and Kairos.
Time disruption, then, is not rebellion for its own sake. It is an act of remembering: that we are part of larger rhythms — human, ecological, cosmic. As Rovelli writes, “The world is not made of things, it is made of events.” Transformation, too, is an event — a living, temporal process that unfolds through us, not apart from us.
Living in Multiple Times at Once
So, what if real transformation in business isn’t about moving faster, but about learning to live in multiple times at once?
To be a leader today is to navigate several temporal realities simultaneously: the urgency of the quarter, the emergence of the present moment, the cycles of renewal, the call of ancestors and the needs of future generations. In a world obsessed with acceleration, this asks for temporal agility and fluidity. This is the art of the time disruptor — the leader who holds space for Chronos and Kairos, who honors cycles and lineages, who builds bridges between dying systems and those being born.
https://www.bioleadershipfellowship.org