My Work in the World

Approach

In my experience, people are eager to explore the possibility of change in their organization or community. A leader’s task is to bring people together to work on change, knowing that how we convene people makes a difference. Effective methods of convening share certain characteristics: inclusiveness, faith and delight in the collective wisdom of a group, respect among participants, insistence on diversity, time for reflection, respect for serious open questions, ample room for dissent, and attention to a generative harvest of insights and ideas. These methods generally inhibit a rush to answers or solutions, and help us take time to understand the problem and our part in creating it.

I help my clients look for places to intervene where a relatively small action might bring significant and enduring systemic change. We’re not likely to see powerful leverage points when we work at the level of events or patterns over time. More useful leverage points are found in the structure of a system and deeper, among our assumptions and mental models.

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