This blog post was written by Danya Pastuszek, Priya Ajmera, Aruna Venkatachalam and Andrea Nemtin.
Across borders and sectors, changemakers convened to explore the conditions necessary for exponential social change—a conversation rooted in real-world leadership experiences and strategies. On May 14th, Tamarack, SI Canada, and Philanthropic Foundations of Canada, hosted a webinar on insights from the Centre for Exponential Change (C4EC). The discussion was centered on what it takes to lead transformation at scale in rapidly shifting environments.
Key Ideas That Emerged
At the heart of Centre for Exponential Change's conception of systems orchestrators are three fundamental differentiators that enable leaders to drive exponential change - change that leads to more and rapid changes.
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Letting Go to Enable Others. Transformational leadership isn’t about holding onto power—it’s about creating space for others to lead. Systems Orchestrators focus on tackling problems - not championing fixed solutions. This means relinquishing custodianship, allowing diverse leaders to shape and move forward that works in their contexts. Centre for Exponential Change told the story of how Project Echo is bringing this alive through their hub and spoke model, where diverse actors can use the Echo model to enable "all teach, all learn."
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Building Shared Narratives Across Actors. Exponential change requires alignment and collective storytelling. Leaders must bridge perspectives, fostering a common narrative that unites different stakeholders. The ability to cultivate shared understanding is key to scaling solutions across systems and communities, and Harambee's experience offers many learnings on how state, markets, and civil society can work together to solve a problem at scale.
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Navigating Complexity with Adaptability. In unpredictable environments, rigid approaches stymy change. To solve at scale with speed, diverse solvers and diverse solutions need to thrive. Storyweaver exemplifies this by creating an enabling environment where a wide diversity of solvers can solve in ways that best suit their context.
Also at the heart of their work are three core values - agency, dignity, and choice - and a powerful framework for the chasms that system orchestrators encounter.
Insights from Systems Orchestrators: Storyweaver
Purvi Shah is one of the many systems orchestrators who has partnered with Centre for Exponential Change, and the story of Storyweaver's evolution brought these differentiators to life. Her experience sparked audience reflections on trust, "gatekeeping," agency, and shared ownership, and reinforced the need for leaders to embrace complexity and collective intelligence.
Reflections & Next Steps
We were left with ideas on several questions:
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What does letting go look like in your leadership?
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How could building shared narratives shift the dynamics in your system?
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What assumptions do we hold about collaboration and impact?
Learn more
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Visuals from the session
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Watch the webinar recording: Reimagining Systems: The Role of System Orchestrators
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Read What is Societal Thinking? and What is exponential change?
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Watch: How can I visualise exponential change? (Domino effect)
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Visit the Centre for Exponential Change
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Visit Social Innovation Canada
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Learn more about StoryWeaver
