What if ...?
What if ...? I am spending this week with Philip Shepherd at a deep dive into his Embodied Present Process. I am enjoying the embodiment work that I started...
On being right
On being right What does it mean to be right? And what right does it give us over others if we think we are right? Is there a right? I have just been mulling...
Can we play?
Can we play? I realised that I am not a very playful person. Particularly, I find it hard to be playful in seemingly serious situations, like in workshops I...
Thinking about purpose
Thinking about purpose During a discussion with some Warm Data folks today I was exploring the idea of purpose as a constraint versus purpose as an attractor...
Can we just go on?
Can we just go on? Last week I was in a meeting with a high-ranking official of the Georgian government. We talked about local economic development (LED)....
Where is the change?
Where is the change? Where is the change? I have stumbled over this question when I was thinking about monitoring and evaluation recently. How to evaluate...
On learning
On learning I have been thinking about learning quite a bit recently, partly because it is a constant presence in my own thinking and being, partly because I...
On being present
On being present Being present in the moment is a topic that has been on my mind recently. In a way, it is connected to the question of how I can be happy in...
Being part of a collective transformation process
Being part of a wider evolution I am acutely aware that I have not yet written this week. I’m going through an intense time at work, which is really...
Rewilding for new vitality
Rewilding for new vitality Who am I these days? Wandering in thought all day rather than go out. Wondering 'bout life, 'bout meaning and doing right with...
Traps. And Warm Data.
Traps. And Warm Data. So, I fell into a trap of my own making. Last week I wrote that top-down prescriptive approaches to decolonisation are replicating the...
Decolonising our thinking
Decolonising our thinking Last week I wrote about the need to change the way we think. Here's an example. This morning I had a discussion about 'decolonising...
We are not radical enough
We are not radical enough Over the last two weeks, visiting Switzerland, I had quite a few conversations with my two siblings about life, the universe and...
Looking back, looking forward
Looking back, looking forward Happy New Year to all of you! My year 2021 ended with a bang, I had a positive COVID-19 test on 31 December (my birthday)! So...
Being in service to the present
Being in service to the present Last week I ended my email with linking our inclination of deducing individual strands of causality to our perceived need to...
Causality, Map and Territory
Causality, Map and Territory Dave Snowden likes to characterise complex adaptive systems as having a disposition to behave in a certain way, rather than...
On Writing
On Writing I missed writing my weekly email last week. There was no right moment. As a consequence, I was reflecting why I am writing, why I decided to move...
The Role of Art
The Role of Art On Friday I visited the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I really enjoyed the exhibition. There were three images I enjoyed in...
Plucking the Chords
Plucking the Chords How can we think about action in complex, dynamic human systems? I wrote about the problem with attempting to fix problems before. I have...
Locus of purpose
Locus of purpose I want to explore my discomfort with purpose a bit more. I have written about it in my last week's email but also before (for example, here...
Where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here? How do we know when a situation is getting better or worse? How can we define how a situation would look like that we would...
What is going on?
What is going on? What are we not seeing? This is a difficult question to answer. How should we know what we are not seeing? Yet there is always something we...
What is real?
What is real? In systems change literature, one often reads that boundaries in systems are only conceptual. These boundaries exist only in our heads, they...
Pause and reflect
Pause and reflect Perception is generally defined as the process of perceiving something with the senses. Perception, hence, happens through information that...
To act or not to act … ?
To act or not to act … ? It is pretty clear that if we find something that is going wrong, a problem, we act to rectify it. As the old adage say: "Love it,...
On Resilience
On Resilience I have joined this month's Critical Business School on the topic Complexity, Prompts and Resilience. Yesterday we talked about planning and...
On being confused
On being confused Nitzan Hermon wrote in his last email: In many ways, the more affordances we want to have to change and adapt, the less clear we can afford...
Entanglement and Agency
(Source) Entanglement and Agency Today I want to share two quotes from a lecture given by Gregory Bateson at the California State University, Sacramento in...
Seeking refuge in the known
(Source) Seeking refuge in the known In my explorations of various aspects of being in complex, living, ecological systems, I every now and then get to a...
What is Home in a Changing World?
What is Home in a Changing World? I spent some time with Nora Bateson in Sweden a couple of weeks back to learn more about Warm Data and Warm Data Labs. We...
On Trust
Source On Trust In the field of systems change, the importance of building trust is popping up all the time. Everybody is in the business of building trust...
Reimagining Place for a better world
Reimagining Place for a better world Last week I spent the week at what I usually call 'my favourite place on Earth' (see image above). It is an absolute...
I'm taking a break
I’m taking a break I have been travelling this last week and will be on holidays next week so I’m taking a break from my newsletter for two weeks. Here a...
On Myths
(Drawing of Sedna, the goddess of the sea. From the exhibition The Arctic – while the ice is melting, Nordic Museum Stockholm. My own photo.) On Myths The...
Learning together different things
(Sailing to different shores - my own picture) Learning together different things I have been thinking a lot about learning lately and this is my second...
Learning is uncomfortable
(Male Common Redstart - my own picture) Learning is uncomfortable When are we learning? Learning happens when there is a discrepancy between our perception...
Who should be in the room?
(Versailles Peace Conference) Who should be in the room? Last week I went to a training organised by Reos Partners on convening. The training was about the...
We only learn well with our hearts
We only learn well with our hearts This title of this piece is taken from the book I already wrote about last week by Thomas Bruhn and Jessica Böhme. I'm...
Being in Relationship
(Brandenburg Gate in Potsdam, own image) Being in Relationship This last week I have spent a lot of time in relationship and thinking about relationships –...
Stop Using Leverage Points
(The Value of the Lever: American Newspaper Directory) Stop Using Leverage Points In the systems change community, a paper by Donella Meadows gets cited very...
Encroaching flexibility
(Source) Encroaching flexibility Gregory Bateson wrote in various places about the need for flexibility in living systems in order to preserve adaptability...
Journey into my body
(Source) Journey into my body What do you use your body for? Is it just a vehicle to carry your head and brain around, within which all the important stuff...
Giving Space to the Unconscious
Source Giving Space to the Unconscious I’m sticking with the Topic of Time and the value we give different ways of spending time. Yesterday, one of my...
Time
Source Time Time has crossed my thoughts quite frequently in the last few weeks. It is such an interesting concept. Just think about it: most of us see time...
On Decisions
Source On Decisions This week I read a piece by Heinz von Förster, an Austrian cyberneticist. The piece is on ethics and second-order cybernetics (you know,...
Is purpose a Red Herring?
Is purpose a Red Herring? Purpose is a distraction. When we think about purpose, we think about where we want to go, how we ought to behave, what we ought to...
Stability and change
Stability and change Nothing is stable, really. Stability is an illusion and only exists in our minds. Maureen O'Hara and Graham Leicester write in their...
Finite and infinite games
Are you playing the finite or the infinite game? James P. Carse wrote: There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite....