When I’m feeling bold, I describe what I’m trying to do in my current phase of work (and life) as co-creating living, learning and loving systems, and doing that by embracing complexity, nurturing relationships and catalysing collaborative learning.
What I want to be doing practically is working with a handful of initiatives or organisations that are focused on supporting collaborative learning and nurturing kinder relationships, in order to strengthen the adaptive capacity of people - and the systems we bring into being - to address complex social challenges.
What I’d love to be doing is working with four or five organisations, supporting their individual efforts, facilitating collaborative learning amongst them, and sharing the insights that emerge with a wider field of organisations working out how best to address complex social challenges, within and beyond the UK, to inform their efforts.
As I move forward in this direction, it’s important to me that I operate in ways that are in line with the living, learning and loving systems that I want to play a part in co-creating. Be the systemic change you wish to see! In his wonderful book Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta suggests “connect, diversify, interact and adapt” as four “operating guidelines” or “network protocols” that one should follow to be an agent of sustainability in a complex system (see p.98 of Sand Talk, and/or here for helpful reviews and a good video).
Ways of seeing, and rules of thumb for being, in a complex social landscape is something I definitely plan to return to (re-reading Jeremy Lent’s book, The Web of Meaning, is high on my list). For me, for now, operating with awareness, responding to resonance and engaging creatively are three rules of thumb to bear in mind:
- Participating in systems in ways that are informed by a broad awareness of the landscape of actors, and the relationships and processes that make systems what they are; trying to live from an eco-system, rather than an ego-system, perspective.
- Responding to resonance and going where the energy is, investing my time and resources in ways that feel like they might bear fruit; and
- Engaging in ways that nurture the sorts of relationships that animate systems, make them more than the sum of their parts, and help to support the collaborative learning that enhances their adaptive capacity and effectiveness.
Sparks of engagement and questions for reflection
So, how’s it going?
Over the course of the last month I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with lots of interesting and inspiring people, exploring our overlapping interests and the scope for deeper collaboration. I am very grateful to be part of such a vibrant network of curious, creative and kind friends and colleagues, and excited about what we might do together. Much of my engagement has been around relational approaches to systems change, on which I was happy to share my collated resources from the Collective Change Lab.
Starting tomorrow, I plan to share some additional sparks of engagement and reflection; things that I became aware of, that resonated with me, that led me to engage, and stimulated some reflection. With my sparks of engagement and reflection formulated as learning questions, tomorrow - inspired by how to be strong and weak, by Rachel Botsman - kicks off with:
How can thinking in terms of continuums help us to understand and act more effectively in the contexts of complex systems?
My hope is that some of the questions I’ve been exploring through the connections I’ve made over the last month will resonate with you, sparking further connections, catalysing collaborative learning and leading to more effective action. Or simply that you might find them interesting. Let’s see!
PS: Jump straight to my question 1 piece - continuums, complexities, contexts - here.
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First published on LinkedIn, 9 March 2023.