Last week, I was glad to have the opportunity to share my thinking on reflective relational practice with the Local Systems Community 2.0, a welcome reincarnation and opening up of a longstanding USAID community of practice and learning.
In summary, reflective relational practice is a participatory approach to assessing, informing and enhancing the quality of relationships in a community, network and system. Tailorable to particular contexts and circumstances, it can be used to support the emergence of a system that is more than the sum of its parts, and is better able to generate outcomes that the members of that system value.
Dimensions of relationships that shape the nature of emergence
My full (but still only 5 pages, plus extensive references) note on reflective relational practice can be found here and the slides I used for the presentation are here. And, for those of you who would prefer to hear me talking through what reflective relational practice is, why it might be important and how it might be applied, here’s a video of my presentation.
Watch on YouTube: Alan Hudson: Reflective Relational Practice presentation
Right now, reflective relational practice - at least in the way I’ve been thinking about it - is just an idea. However, I am actively exploring its potential application with a handful of folks who have expressed interest. I’m also exploring what an approach to understanding and addressing complex social challenges that combines a focus on relationships and learning (reflective relationships), with a focus on power, incentives and actors’ behaviours, might look like - see this piece (with a 7 minute video) for starters.
So, if you’re interested in the approach I’m exploring, have experience with other approaches to enhancing the quality of relationships in communities, networks and systems, or have questions, please feel free to drop me a line. Inspired already by the excellent work of organizations including The Relationships Project, the School of System Change, the Collective Change Lab, the Relationality Lab, and the Human. Learning. Systems. community, as well as a vibrant network of relational practitioners, I am keen to collaborate with others who are exploring similar terrain.
If you would like to be part of the Local Systems Community, you can sign up here, or check out the Google Groups page here. The next gathering is scheduled for Thursday 5th June, at 1pm UTC (2pm British Summer Time). It’s a fantastic community - kind, creative, resilient, supportive - so if you’re into thinking and practice around local systems (more on what that might mean here, in my reflections on USAID’s 2024 excellent Local Systems Position Paper) you may want to sign up.
First published on LinkedIn, 15 May 2025.