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What makes Big Waves?

Big Waves is based in K’jipuktuk (Halifax) in Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia), the ancestral, unceded territory of the M’ikmaq People. Settlers and the M’ikmaq have lived in this territory under the provisions of the Peace and Friendship Treaties since 1760 and 1772. We are all Treaty People and have responsibilities to each other and this land.

Working together can be powerful, and beautiful. It can be tricky to get there. We help work feel better for those working towards a better future, by surfacing conditions in the work that block that future, and unsettling them.

The story often begins with an organization contacting us about interpersonal discomfort or tension.

What happens next is usually a discovery of underlying (or overarching) conditions creating these symptoms: insufficient psychological safety, systemic urgency culture, unclear expectations, unmanaged power dynamics, ambiguity in roles or accountabilities, unexamined or unaddressed inequity, ineffective input/decision or communication practices, mistaken signals of success, opaque purpose, or just basic trust issues. For these conditions, we offer guidance through questions like:

  • How do we create a culture where everyone feels safe enough and has what they need to thrive?
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  • How can we set and protect a pace that allows us to sustain our work?
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  • How can we know when we are on track to have the impact we intend, and recognize when a seeming indicator is actually a diversion
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  • Who holds power here, how is it used, and how can we make that more visible and accountable?
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  • How do we do things here, and why, and what does that look like in everyone’s work?
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  • Are we routinely centring some people’s perspectives, experiences, or needs and marginalizing those of others?
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  • What decisions do we make, and what kind of input gives them greatest impact?
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  • What possibilities might show up if we listened to our bodies? How can we build resilience and wellbeing together?
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  • How do we notice gaps in flow, and where do we bring that noticing, to be addressed in ways that will last?
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  • If all of these questions are answered but we still struggle to get along, how can we get out of this entrenchment?
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We bring three key lenses to all of our work.

Systems

Many of our goals are influenced by factors outside our control. Many of these are systemic (multiple interconnected parts), and we can have greater impact once we’re aware of them.

Equity

Integrating an analysis of power, challenging the ways that normative work processes and cultures reinforce social inequities.

Embodiment

People are not simply “thinking” beings. There is much more than our cognitive selves driving choices and reactions. Big Waves knows how to support people to not get stuck in their heads

. . . . . . . . . . . . On AI

Our work has always been making collaboration feel better and have more impact. How we do it depends on the contexts the collaborations are happening in. And contexts can be very specific: unique to your mission, your team. But some contexts are almost universal, they’re so widespread. For example, the pandemic and its implications for Work From Home and Return To Office was something most organizations faced simultaneously. AI has rapidly become another widespread context.

We have an overarching orientation to this, and a focussed one. The overarching orientation includes engagement on the many concerns – ecological, privacy, surveillance, bias, displacement, inequality, copyright and intellectual property, security – as well as on the potentials. The focussed orientation is towards implications for collaboration in organizations. Supporting you to bypass the hype, in order to make high quality decisions about your approach to adoption, gaining only real benefits without sacrificing any of the established value in your team’s relational, embodied collaboration. Here we are talking with you about:

  • speed of the human nervous system
  • building in safety, ethics, diligence, and accountability
  • design and practice to strengthen your agency and cognitive health
  • ”slow lanes” and ”firewalls” for carefully chosen aspects of your work

We describe our stance as: discern first.

Brook Thorndycraft, MA, B.Ed., Q.Med, SEP (she/they)

Co-Waver

Brook has over 15 years of experience in organizational change, conflict transformation, adult education, somatic coaching, and relational leadership. She founded Big Waves in 2020 to realize a vision of immense possibility inherent in working together, even, and especially, when it feels difficult. 

Today Brook describes herself as a recovering "over-active-ist." Her early years in social change movements involved a pattern of relational urgency and 'doing' that eventually became unsustainable. This led to her deep study of how we stay human in the midst of making change, and the somatic and systemic foundations that allow us to stay in the work for the long haul. 

With Big Waves, Brook offers guidance to leaders and teams through questions like:

  • Interpersonal Tension: Why are we struggling to get along, and what is the embodied reality of that friction?
  • Culture & Equity: How do we want to be together, and how can we make this a place where people truly want to, and do, belong?
  • Collaboration: How can we find our way to better decisions that we all feel grounded in and committed to?
  • Power Dynamics: How is power moving in this room, and how can we make it visible, accountable, and generative?
  • Systemic Patterns: What are the patterns (personal or systemic) that are getting in the way of our most meaningful change?
  • Embodiment: What possibilities might show up if we listened to our bodies and felt our feet on the ground?

 

Brook is a specialist in translating systemic change into the language of the nervous system. Through her Generative Conflict series, she helps organizations metabolize complexity and transform tension into a source of growth. 

Her work is a synthesis of conflict intervention, Deep Democracy, adult education, systems theory, and change management, all anchored by her training as a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP). She is also rooted in the reality of community organizing, from 2SLGBTQ+ issues and migrant justice to transformative justice and community healing. 

Core sources of join infusing her work and life are the ocean, the magic of story and metaphor, and her sweet dogs Rexy and Gala (the Galaxy), who are very talented at tempting Brook away from her precarious book piles and into nature. In certain company (especially Joanne), she is included to describe the moments of her day in song. 

Selected Credentials and Lineage:

Adult Education and Community Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Qualified Mediator, accredited through Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Canada

Somatic Experiencing Practitioner certification, Somatic Experiencing International

Change Management Practitioner Certification, Prosci

Psychological Health and Safety Professional Certification, Canadian Mental Health Association

Certificate in Somatic Embodiment and Regulation Strategies, Collectively Rooted

Advanced Workplace Restoration and Workplace Fairness Assessment, Workplace Fairness Institute

Deep Democracy, Lewis Deep Democracy and Process Work Institute

Diamond Power Index 360 Certification, Diamond Leadership

Community Economic Development Graduate Certificate, Concordia University

Restorative Conference Facilitation, International Institute for Restorative Practices

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Joanne Kerrigan, BPR (she)

Co-Waver

Joanne has been at the heart of organizational transformation for many years. Her roles have included: organizational leadership, change management, communication, and board governance. 

She has guided learning in multiple environments, including post-secondary classroom and online professional cohorts. 

In 2018 she left consulting to join the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre as it underwent significant transformation, supporting in multiple roles including Interim Executive Director. Joanne went on to lead Women in Film and Television Atlantic through board renewal and organizational restructuring as their first Executive Director, before joining Big Waves in 2024. 

(Full disclosure: online search will reveal another whole life in time-based media. Ask if curious!)

With Big Waves, Joanne offers guidance to greater clarity and shared understanding through questions like:

  • Purpose and expectations: How do we do things here, and why, and what does that look like in everyone's work?
  • Strategic priority and agility: How can we know when something is a timely pivot, and not scope creep or mission drift?
  • Sensemaking and inclusion: How can we learn to see what/who we habitually overlook?
  • Measures and performance: How can we know when we are on track to have the impact we intend, and recognize when a seeming indicator is actually a diversion? 
  • Culture-safe AI: How can we discern the right approach to AI for our culture, our collaborative, relational strengths, and our embodied realities? 
  • Sustainable pace: How can we set and protect a pace that allows us to sustain our work?
  • Work design: How do we notice gaps in flow, and where do we bring that noticing, to be addressed in ways that will last?
  • Input, decisions, leadership models, dynamic governance: What decisions do we make, and what kind of input gives them greatest impact?

 

Her work is grounded in complexity and sensemaking frameworks like Cynefin and Theory U, collaborative decision methodologies like Sociocracy, relational practices like ORSC and Deep Listening, and human-centred AI stewardship. 

Core sources of joy infusing all of her time, including work time, are mixing vinyl, being in nature with friends, her dogs Rexy and Gala (The Galaxy!), and life partner Brook, and disappearing into divination with the I Ching and her tarot decks.

Selected developmental experiences:

AI + Wisdom | Service Space

AI Stewardship | MaRS Discovery District

Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations | The Outside

Bachelor of Public Relations | Mount Saint Vincent University

Cynefin Basecamp | The Cynefin Company

Deep Democracy | Waterline

Deep Listening | Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer Polytechnic

Foundations of Complexity: Strategy | Complexity University

Fundamentals of Bridging | Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley

Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC)™ Fundamentals, Intelligence | CRR Global

Planning for Uncertainty: Agile Strategy | Inspiring Communities

Six Sigma Yellow Belt | Six Sigma Racial Equity Institute

Sociocracy: Facilitation (decisions), Founder Dynamics, Performance Review | Sociocracy For All

Strategic and Operational Planning | IONS (Impact Organizations of Nova Scotia)

U-school for Transformation | Presencing Institute at MIT

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Click to read our Solidarity Statement

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Solidarity Statement

Big Waves is committed to being in solidarity with organizations making change for a more socially, environmentally, and economically just society. This solidarity includes a commitment to contribute financially to nonprofit, charitable and grassroots organizations and groups that are doing the hard work to create a better world. As a part of this commitment, 2% of Big Waves’s annual net income will be donated to organizations doing this important work. At least 1% must go to charitable organizations. Groups will be prioritized based on their intersectional commitment to the following:

 

  • Environmental protection, climate change and environmental justice
  • Indigenous and Black cultural revitalization, sovereignty, and land rights
  • 2SLGBTQ+ justice, safety, and wellbeing
  • Alternative economy, anti-poverty, housing, and/or prison justice

 

In recognition that Big Waves is located in unceded Mi’kmaw territory, that African Nova Scotians have lived here for 500 years, and that both groups’ relationships to land have been continuously interrupted by colonization, at least half of the total 2% will be donated to organizations that prioritize Mi’kmaw or African Nova Scotian sovereignty, cultural revitalization, and/or land reclamation.  These donations will be offered in the spirit of paying “rent.”

 

While the majority of donations will go to organizations located in Nova Scotia, some may be given to organizations serving the Atlantic Provinces more generally, or occasionally to national organizations that are supporting important work in this region.