Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make lasting systemic social change. There are lots of methodologies and best practices and training programs around that serve a good purpose and yet the problems they are intended to resolve are still prevalent, in some cases getting worse.

Last week I attended a Change Lab workshop in Toronto, facilitated by Adam Kahane and Joe McCarron of Reos Partners. The Change Lab is an approach designed for working on complex social problems. Their version of a Change Lab has  “Theory U” at its core.  The process is systemic, participative and creative. Kahane explained that for complex problems where we don’t know how to get from A to B, where the answer is around the corner, More »

What is so fearful about saying “I don’t know”? Who made up the rule that we have to know all the time? That there is something wrong if we don’t know?

No such rule exists. In fact, the more we can slow down and be ok with ‘not knowing’, the better ideas we’ll have and the greater progress we will make more quickly. Consider these three approaches to decision making: More »