Systems change work is about understanding all of the actors in the system and the dynamic flow of power, relationships, and mindsets that exists between them. John Kania, Mark Kramer and Peter Senge, in their recently released paper, The Water of System Change use the metaphor of water to describe systems. The water is the environment through which fish and other life exists but it is also a flowing, moving and changing entity.
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Many of us shy away from using the power that we have, often to our own and our community’s detriment. This was one of the nuggets of wisdom shared with the participants attending Tamarack's Adaptive Leadership Masterclass series that took us to five cities across Canada and wrapped up just last week. Liz Skelton, Co-Founder of Collaboration for Impact shared a story about working with Indigenous leaders in Australia. It was there that she discovered that leaning into her formal and informal power could be used to help the collaborative group drive change forward.
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The Suncor Energy Foundation (SEF) regularly convenes key strategic partners to consider current and future trends impacting our connected worlds. There are four outcomes for this gathering:
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Inspiring Communities is a New Zealand capacity building leader and partner of the Tamarack Institute. For the past 10 years, the leaders of Inspiring Communities have been working across the country to build local leadership and inspire community-led development and have documented their work in a series of resources called Learning by Doing. Inspiring Communities has the vision that all communities will flourish.
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A common theme often echoed through the voluntary and community sector is the lack of resources available to do the work. Most communities have a range of investments, assets and resources, which, if deployed effectively, could prove to be a launching pad for many collaborative community efforts.
The idea of community asset mapping has been around for several years. John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann in their book, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets provided a detailed process for uncovering both explicit and hidden assets that might be found in most neighbourhoods and communities.
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When we are in the deepest, darkest days of community change work, our sightlines are narrow and our focus usually ends up on the microscopic parts of the process that are frustrating us. We want to move faster. We want to see bigger impact, bigger results. We become impatient with the process recognizing that even our best work may only have limited impact.
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