In the face of complex social and ecological issues, including climate change, biodiversity loss, oppressive systems, and poverty, single actors may find it difficult to have much impact. This is why at IISC, we agree with others who have suggested that the unit of action is the network.
Working through networks calls on a specific set of skills and sensibilities that may or may not be present in organizations and communities. These include:
- seeing and understanding existing patterns of connection and flow in different systems, and what these facilitate in terms of outcomes and possibilities.
- weaving relationships and trust across boundaries (geographic, cultural, sectoral, disciplinary).
- creating space for open exploratory conversation and emergent thinking.
- embracing diversity and divergence.
- valuing contributions of all kinds.
In order to weave diverse, distributed, and resilient networks capable of working with and through complex change, we must attend to creating greater connectivity (trust building, information sharing, learning), alignment (shared identity and value proposition), and collective action (advocacy, education, leveraging new markets and resources, launching new initiatives).
Evidence from our experience at IISC over the past couple of decades is that as people feel more connected and aligned, the idea of collective action becomes that much more inviting and its potential impact that much greater.
Furthermore, we know that social change work is more of a marathon than a sprint. It’s not simply about creating campaigns to change policy; it’s also about developing long-term trusting relationships that can continuously generate new energy and possibilities.
Read our blog posts on leveraging networks for social change.