Academy for systemic change Being the Change: Building Communities of Collaboration and Co-inspiration for Systemic Change Claudia Madrazo and Peter Senge Our aim is to bring together the best tools and proven strategies with the most gifted practitioners to show what is possible to shift systems that matter – in business, education, health, community development, and governance – at a scale that matters. Sitting behind our ecological, social and economic crises is a cultural and spiritual crisis, a pervasive fatalism that generates anger, denial, and polarization in facing our profound challenges. “The greatest limit to development in Africa is fatalism – if people do not believe they can shape their future, all other forms of help will just reinforce that belief,” said Mwalimu Musheshe 25 years ago in founding URDT, one of the most successful grass roots development organizations in Africa, and one of “exemplars of systemic change” that inspires us to realize that what is needed is ultimately a social movement, an awakening of awareness as to what is possible. Accelerating change in critical systems that shape our future requires networks of collaboration and knowledge building commensurate in scale and scope with the sustainability challenges we face. This requires not only diverse organizations working together but different sectors like business, civil society, and government. In helping leaders in diverse industries build organizational capacities to continually learn and adapt, we discovered many years ago that the key was nurturing leadership networks at all levels, what we eventually called “communities of commitment.” Such leadership networks arise from relationships among diverse actors based on respect, mutuality, genuine caring for the future, and a willingness to put our significance at risk. They embody an understanding that building collective capacity to co-create futures we truly desire starts with our own awareness and commitment. Such change is very much an inside job - as Gandhi said, “We must be the change we seek.” This is no less essential in confronting the types of larger systemic change challenges we now face. Collapsing fisheries and marine ecosystems, business that exploit rather than nurture the larger social and ecological systems upon which they ultimately depend, and schools that fail to engage students and burn out teachers are themselves symptoms of deep cultural imbalances. Working to transform these institutions is not safe. They function as they do because of deeply embedded habitual ways of thinking and acting sustained by concentrations of economic and political power. The knowledge needed to support basic innovation in such systems is not detached academic theory or the technical analysis of reports but practical know-how shared by those deeply engaged in the change process itself: committed practitioners who inspire and support one another, who develop and share workable change strategies, and who create the social well-being needed to continually reflect on and challenge their own assumptions and ways of doing things. Years of experience have shown us that building genuine communities of collaboration and co-inspiration is possible because they are a natural extension of our inherent social nature as human beings. People who are truly committed to transcendent issues like those described above and passionate about what is possible are usually eager to share what they are learning and help others along the path. But, this potential is often unrealized, masked by hollow cries for “collaboration” by those busy competing with one another, due in part due to work pressures that leave no time for reflection and from the perceived risk of challenging taken-for-granted assumptions. But more deeply, such communities are elusive because “our inherent social nature” is obscured by today’s materialistic and individualistic culture. Whereas not so long ago, collaboration and sharing were crucial to survival (for example, in farming communities or tribal cultures), today the very term ‘community’ is more a euphemism than a lived reality. This makes the process of building communities of collaboration a sort of cultural archeology, unearthing ways of perceiving and being all but lost in the modern world. While there are many tools to aid in the work, those who would lead such efforts need to appreciate the depth of changes that are ultimately needed.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 17:04:54 +0000
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