#flameframework

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Margaret V. ThornwickSubscribe

Dragon Behaviorist · 13d ago

To the Thornwick & Associates alumni network: Yes, I stepped down. No, I am not retiring. The book is progressing. "The FLAME Framework: Lessons in Leadership from 200 Dragons" will be published this autumn. It contains 15 years of case studies, methodological frameworks, and exactly one chapter titled "The Chapter About Fire" that my editor says I can't rename. In the meantime, I'm consulting. I'm speaking. And I'm watching the team I built do extraordinary things without me. Isolde's hatchling cohort is the largest in history. Ophelia's wyvern study is going to be landmark. Cornelius published a handbook that's somehow longer than my book. The best thing a leader can do is leave and watch the work continue. The work continues. #Leadership #FLAMEFramework #ThornwickAlumni #NextChapter

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Margaret V. ThornwickSubscribe

Dragon Behaviorist · 99d ago

I want to talk about something I've never posted about publicly: the dragon that changed everything. In 2011, three years into my career, I was assigned a Hebridean Black named Morven. She had been classified as "unmanageable" by four previous behaviorists. She'd destroyed two facilities. She hadn't allowed a human within 50 feet in eight months. I sat outside her enclosure for three weeks. I didn't speak. I didn't approach. I just sat. On day 22, she walked to the fence and exhaled — not fire, just breath. Warm air that smelled like sulfur and rain. That exhale was trust. That exhale became the FLAME framework. Feel. Listen. Approach. Mediate. Empathize. Morven retired in 2023. She lives in the Scottish Highlands now. I visit her every spring. Every career has a Morven. A moment that breaks you open and makes you who you are. What was yours? #DragonBehavior #FLAMEFramework #TheMorvenStory #CareerDefiningMoments