The Story of Neegan Seewin - The Beginning

Neegan Seewin needs a start. First the word (said as one word) means "Leadership" in the Moose Cree dialect of James Bay. It was a name given to me by a wonderful friend and Cree linguist after I shared with her a story of the Canada Geese. In the Spring of 1997 I saw a flock of Canada Geese heading north. As they were flying in their dynamic V formation, the shape changed--ever so briefly--to something that looked like an Eagle's head with the noticeable eagle's beak. The image stayed with me and I even made a sketch of it (see picture). As I was doing that, for some reason I thought of the word leadership.

When I shared this story with her, Susan said "Neegan Seewin". Neegan Seewin, she said her language and dialect (Moose Cree) means "the one in front" (or leadership). So the name stuck.

It was a different style of leadership that I was used to--particularly after my career in the Canadian Forces. If one was to use an analogy of leadership using the "bird" family, the Eagle would come to mind. This was my thinking. The Eagle, as is often depicted, is a noble and powerful bird, very self-sufficient, all-seeing, soaring the heavens and gracefully gliding over all of the rest of creation. Symbols of Eagles are found in almost every culture and in a wide variety of places like armies, government, business and the like. Whereas symbols of geese, for the most part, don't adorn the edifices of great institutions of power and are not the "official seal" of any country I know. Geese, unlike the Eagle, take turns at leading and are incredibly social and loyal to each other. Gender doesn't seem to be an issue. Their strength is not in speed or ability to overpower others but as a group, geese are incredibly strong. For thousands and thousands of years, they have always reach their goals, year in and year out. They do that despite tremendous adversity and incredible challenges. They are great communicators and extremely dedicated to each other. As an organization, it seems, at least in my estimation, they are healthy, productive, strong and a wonderful learning organization. In these analogies, I felt more at home at being a goose. Neegan Seewin