How do we help todays stuck systems become unstuck?
An invitation to people with institutional power to join the work of transforming systems
Hey, can we talk….?
We are a global group of eleven systems change leaders, each of whom enables a network of collectives seeking to transform systems. Together, we are in relationship with 1000+ collectives across Canada, Australia, Benin, New Zealand, Colombia, and many parts of America. We would like to talk with leaders with dominant power within collaborations and funding bodies. Is that you? Yes? Can we talk straight?
Deep breath and genuine questions ….
When you show up in collaborations, are you seeking transformational change yet requiring immediate and measurable results for narrowly-defined impact?
Or are you risk-averse to pursuing transformational change because it appears complicated and feels safer to pursue incremental change or quick wins?
Ouch! In recognising the sting in our words, we truly mean no judgment or disrespect.
As 11 authors, one of our big shared lessons is that existing systems are relentlessly imposed on or embedded within us — woven into our mental models, relationships, expectations, and ways of working. We see this in ourselves. Many of us have replicated patterns that we later see need to be broken. Many of us have been co-opted towards the status quo, especially when those are the rules of engagement to acquire power and decision making authority, for survival, or where there is conflict or exhaustion. And those of us who have not benefited from the privileges of dominant identities, have found ourselves dismantling one oppressive force after another, only to see new ones take root, or old systems snap back to their original design.
While we understand, we also want to talk straight ….
About how you show up….
We invite ‘you’ — leaders with dominant power in organizations and funding bodies — to show up, lead and practice differently. We invite you to become more aware of how enmeshed you are in the systems we are all working to change, to see and understand the consequences of such enmeshment, and to be open to being transformed by the relational practice of systems change.
To put support and compassion behind our invitation to you, below we share our learnings about how we are creating the conditions — within ourselves and for others — to lead in ways that are more relational and transformative. We have seen great shifts and profound impacts when those with power practice leadership in a different way. Our hope is that our invitation and shared learnings will both inspire and support you to do this too.
By sharing how we have learnt to show up….
Our universal learning across different geographies, cultures and communities is that the work of transforming systems is relational and requires a shared recognition of systemic harm and a focus on healing, repair, possibility, hope and equity. As systems change leaders we have come to understand that at the center of all systems — their structures and patterns — are people who design, effectuate, maintain, and sustain those systems. We see our role as catalyzing profound shifts in the ways people relate to each other and work together. We take up this role recognising that everyone of us is molded by the systems we are trying to change.
Going deeper still, we have learnt that the systems we are part of creating and maintaining are perpetrators of significant individual and collective trauma (think patriarchy and colonization, or think youth justice and out-of-home care systems). Transforming harmful systems requires confronting history, collaborating with people very different from ourselves, disrupting entrenched and protected power dynamics, and working to repair and restore relationships & trust. More so, transformative change requires us to change ourselves. The transformation we seek only becomes possible when we intentionally create experiences where our own and others’ very way of seeing the world — our mental models — shift. When this happens, new problem frames become welcomed, healing becomes possible, and transformative pathways emerge and take root.
And inviting you to join us in this relational work.
Shifting from transactional engagement and partnerships to sustained and deeper, relational collaboration asks a lot of all of us. It changes the way we think, engage and interact. It asks us to examine and change ourselves.
Q: So why should you consider taking up this invitation?
A: You will become a better leader who affects more change
- You’ll understand how you can use your inherent power differently
- You’ll learn you can take up roles that create the conditions for healing, restoration, accountability, and sustained positive impact
- Some of you will discover how your roles have upheld practices and policies that perpetuate historical and intergenerational harm — however unintentionally.
- All of this will unlock newer layers and levels of consciousness as you awaken to the interconnectedness and interdependencies between us and our environments. This deeper way of knowing, seeing, and being in the world will change how you lead in your community, in your “home” organization, and with those to whom you are accountable.
There is no doubt that your current way of leading is way more familiar, and perhaps more safe and comfortable compared with what is written above. AND there is equally no doubt that continuing business as usual won’t produce radically different outcomes.
In writing this, all 11 of us are saying it is worth it. It is highly fulfilling — especially when you are doing it alongside others who have made the same commitment. Which is also why we are inviting you to make the same commitment we have.
Below is our guidance on how to start.
Learning #1 — how to ‘do’ the relational work
Ten years ago collaborative work seemed easier. Back then, most of our time and energy was spent developing technical expertise to enable collaboration. We focused on measurement, shared or common agendas, and techniques to navigate opposing goals or competing agendas. It was important work and a critical stepping stone towards understanding what it takes to transform systems.
Ten years on, the context has changed and we’ve needed to evolve. Many collaborations are now stepping into more turbulent waters — the space where transformation is possible. This turbulence is caused by growing awareness of the historical traumas caused by patriarchy, colonization and racism, and the related polarities this awareness triggers. These global patterns are impacting the way we relate to each other and are used by some to fuel fear, disinformation and distrust towards institutions and leaders. We see within collaborations what we see in society — that differences are sharper, tensions are more present, conflicts are left unattended, and polarity more entrenched. And yet, the urgency for change and need for collaboration has never been as palpable as now.
And therein lies the rub. If equitable and just systems are dependent on collaborations doing deeper relational work in the context of a more polarized world, then it absolutely matters how you show up, what you show up for, and what leadership you are bringing to the table (is it from from those living the challenges you are taking up?). On the ‘how’, we’re inviting you to show up committed to ‘doing’ relational work. On the ‘what’, we’re inviting you to show up sharing and rebalancing power with those most impacted, forging greater connections between your parts of the system and others, and intentionally creating the conditions for healing.
It takes commitment and courage to show up this way. As network leaders we’ve had to learn how to do this and support others to do this too. The more we and others do this, the easier it becomes. At a high level, each of us has benefited from:
- Cultivating mental models that value equity, diversity, shared humanity and the transformative power of community.
- Exhibiting leadership that publicly commits to relational work. This outwardly looks like:
— staying in the work even when it gets ‘hot’
— judiciously leaning into difference
— embracing pluralism
— being willing to engage with complexity rather than simplifying it for order, measures and impact.
- Developing personal practices of being radically honest about our intention, and growing our capacity for mutual accountability, self-reflection, and self-care.
- Appreciating our own need for ‘healing’ from past trauma, acknowledging the systemic and historical trauma inflicted on our communities, and learning how to foster accessible and welcoming spaces and places for collective healing.
In the videos below we share learnings and guidance about how some of us have strengthened our own mental models, commitment and skills needed for the relational work of transformative systems change.
Learning #2 — how to examine your own power and use it to enable systems to heal
In the spirit of transformative change, we want to go deeper still.
Stepping fully into relational work requires us all to examine our power and positionality AND how this is interwoven with trauma. As a leader with dominant power, this especially applies to you. It is likely that your power has arisen from a history of valuing white European peoples over all other peoples, heterosexual males over other genders, people with wealth and education over people without, and so on. These destructive and historical mental models are deeply embedded in dominant culture. In turn, this culture shapes systems that sustain inequity and injustice. In response, collaborations form to tackle the resulting trauma and foster heating.
When you show up in these collaborations seeking to overcome the trauma of injustice and inequity, the way of working we are inviting you into requires you to own your place in this history, appreciate how you have benefited from it, and recognise any fears you may have to change. Understanding your fear is key — this is what holds most dominant groups back from engaging in change. The good news from trauma science is that it is likely this fear has its roots in difficult experiences you or your ancestors had, and you are all able to heal from these and release your fear. This personal work is both an opportunity and a responsibility. By doing this work, you will show up in collaborations using your inherent power in ways that don’t repeat the harmful patterns of the past. You will help create opportunities for wider groups to gain power, and surface and heal hurts carried in our families, communities and lands.
Below we share how members of our community have approached the work of examining their power and its relationship to trauma.
Inviting you to step in
You have made it to the end of the article! We are excited by your interest in the relational work of systems change.
We began this article by asking if you were focused on short-term, technical things like measurement, quick wins and incremental change. As we close, we are not asking you to stop focusing on these things — they absolutely have contributions to make. We are asking that you balance these alongside becoming more relational.
We ask that when you step into the collaborative space, you lead by being curious about who the collaboration are, where we all come from, what assets we bring to the table, what forms of knowledge we steward, the types of power we have or don’t have, and how we draw on all of these things into collaboratively solving problems. Leading this way will change you. You will grow a deeper appreciation of how your roles and mental models uphold inequitable and unjust systems. And you will foster openness — in yourself and the collaboration — to let go of old patterns, grow new ones that ripple far beyond the collaboration, and achieve things in the name of justice and equity that you could never achieve alone. Leading in this way will allow you to stay long enough in discomfort for new ways of being to emerge, and, ultimately, for systems to heal and transform.
We wholeheartedly invite you to step into the relational work required to transform systems towards equity and justice.
Who are we
We are a community ourselves. Convened by Collective Change Lab, we have been coming together for the last three years. We initially came together because we each recognised that the fields we support were changing. We were confronted with different patterns and dynamics in collaborations and systems, and we knew we needed to adapt and evolve our leadership. We also knew we could not do this alone — we needed colleagues to help us process and with whom we could grow. Despite coming from different global contexts, we turn up every two months because this community gives us something we can’t get anywhere else — a trusted place of support, with peers who play similar roles, where we can learn and build practices that have the potential to transform systems, not just incrementally improve them. This community is where we do our global community building, sense-making and R&D.
Most of the network-enabling organizations we are part of were established more than 10 years ago. Our shared role as network leaders from diverse geographies gives us a unique vantage about how the practice of systems change has evolved over the past decade.
This article is the first time we have spoken with one voice to the global systems transformation field. We are an ongoing community of practice and intend to periodically share our collective learnings with the field.
- Anna Powell (Australia), Gaby Arenas, (Columbia), David Hanna (New Zealand), Jennifer Splansky Juster (USA), John Kania (USA), Juanita Zerda (USA), Kerry Graham (Australia), Liz Weaver (Canada), Monique Miles (USA), Pascal Djohossou (Benin), and Tien Ung (USA).
- meaning invisible unhealed wound caused by an overwhelming event, series of events, or enduring conditions during our lifetime that remains active in our bodies and psyches long after the event or conditions are over.
- meaning the population-level impacts of a catastrophic event or process that disrupts the basic structures a community or society has created to sustain its way of life. During and after a collectively traumatizing event, the flow of activities is interrupted, resources we normally have access to are unavailable or destroyed, and the result is an experience of fragmentation, isolation, overwhelm, disorientation, dehumanization, and even death. Natural disasters, colonisation, and the holocaust are examples of collective traumas.
- patriarchy and colonization are examples of processes that create collective trauma; the youth justice and out-of-home care systems are examples of systems that are both traumatizing and traumatised.
