Networks: Don’t Wait, Animate!

July 28, 2015 Leave a comment

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Just coming off of co-delivering a 2 day Pathway to Change public workshop at IISC with Maanav Thakore, and I’m continuing to think about how important context is to the work of social change. In particular, I’m thinking about how seeing the foundation of all change efforts as being fundamentally networked can yield new possibilities throughout the work. There is the change we plan for, and the change that we don’t plan for and perhaps cannot even imagine – emergence. This is the stuff of networks, of living systems, of decentralized and self-organized activity, which can be encouraged and supported but not often predicted or controlled. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

How do I have to be for you to be free?

Orland Bishop

I like to say that “designing pathways to change” is not simply a “so that” but an “as,” especially when we see every step in design, planning and implementation as an opportunity to deepen connectivity, coherence and collective intelligence. Every encounter, every conversation, every exchange, every meeting is a chance to deepen trust, create new connections, strengthen collaborative skill and will and advance social learning as social change.

How are you bringing people and systems alive through your change work?

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Photo by whologwhy

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