Today’s activism will only have an impact if it’s a bigger and bigger tent. We need people and ideas and voices of all sorts on all fronts. Whether it’s a shift in our politics, our food, our academia, our consumerism, our manufacturing, or our agriculture, Bioneers is a roll-up-your-sleeves What can we create together next? for people on the leading edge of change—no matter where, or from what angle.

‘Change’ designed to fit on a billboard is constrained by the size of a single billboard. We all know that. I’m not sure any of us would see that in the airport and think, “Right on! My organization needs to address child poverty / invent new energy / distribute more food / design the city of tomorrow. I’m going to book a call with ABC Consulting and get it done by next Tuesday!” But when we’re working towards long-game change, you’re going to be uncomfortable. Which is exactly how you’re supposed to feel, if the change is going to be real.

A story goes that The Beatles felt they played their best music live, in front of an audience. That people listening is what made the music come alive. It’s the same for every art, every interaction, and every collaboration: the quality of listening you give will impact what people say and how well they say it.

So far, The Outside has been highly emergent and highly self-organizing, but we need structure for order, and order for growth. Not growth in the interest of capacity alone—‘do more work’—but the kind of growth that aligns with our values as partners, parents, friends, and practitioners. After all, if we can’t manage our own change, how can we manage anyone else’s?

When we visualize well, we help the work of change leave the room. We make sure the progress, optimism, depth, and electricity of an intensive session is carried into an organization’s daily life. When we visualize change, we are smarter together as we move forward. Good visuals are a rallying cry.

As Tuesday describes the unique exhaustion and stimulation of our work: It’s human beings and more human beings and more human beings with all their human-beingness. We laugh about that, but boy—humanbeingness is a heck of a domain to try and nudge one way or another. Today, after yet another epic trip, we imagine the advice we’d share with our selves of five or ten years ago, when we were just starting out in our practice of leading change.

“How you’re capturing these conversations here is the way that my people have been capturing their history for thousands of years,” explained the elder. “Don’t ever think of it as a gimmick. You’re doing something important and sacred.” Stand up now, fellow bards. And keep standing.

We imagine a fresh space in which we recognize and dodge familiar blocks, drawing exciting new ideas and voices to the surface. But somehow—even if we have an invigorating session or refreshed spell—we can’t seem to make the connections necessary for that moment put down the roots of a renewed phase. Here’s what’s missing: a map.

As a drama theorist, Augusto Boal’s work went way beyond theatre. He helped people find more new ways to switch on openness, both as individuals and as a collective. His work was surprising, shocking, and delightful for participants—and all of the above in how profoundly effective it’s proven to be as a pathway to optimism and action.

We can be territorial, especially when we’re unsure—even more so when it comes to cracking open commonly-held beliefs about equity and the status quo. At AoH, we get really, really good at saying ‘I Don’t Know.’ All the best revelations begin there.

In this second episode of INSIDE THE OUTSIDE, Tim and Tuesday reflect on how they create the conditions for optimal trust inside a room full of collaborators—so people sharing in the work of systems change can trust in each other, in the process, and in the path to action.

Think of how kids play, learn, and integrate new information. As we explore and push the boundaries of what's familiar, we endure (and perpetrate!) countless bumps, scrapes, and meltdowns. This is the formative glue of long-term learning. Without challenging days, we’d lack the context to capitalize on our best days. And without a playful spirit, the most serious blocks might break our best efforts apart.

What if all the most pervasive challenges we face in our communities, organizations, and movements are less about external shortfalls and more about what we're missing, person to person? How can we switch on the full potential of what we already have? Welcome to big-hearted systems change, folks.

The day we joined forces to launch The Outside, equity was foremost in our minds. Not only as a 'nice-to-do' for morality, but as a 'need-to-do' for the effectiveness of our communities, organizations, and movements. In this vlog, we talk about why equity-by-design is such an integral part to the systems change work we do.

Treated with care, the heat of friction can cure how we live together—not a ‘cure’ as the word refers to the eradication of disease, but the kind of curing that makes things solid, resilient, and fully-formed. Preservation, flavouring, osmosis. The kind of cure that requires patience.

Sometimes, we forget—especially when we’re new to our audience—that we’re not just talking about equity and systems change. We are demonstrating it, whether we intend to or not. In the following conversation, Tim and I examine how we come across as representatives of what could be—should be—a better way of working towards a better world.

Often the differences between collaborators—different perspectives, backgrounds, ideologies and aspirations—become the focus of meetings rather than getting work done together. The Shared Work Model offers a way to think about collaborating and moving forward on the issues and challenges we care most about in our organizations, communities, and systems.

I recently did a keynote for the Association of Municipal Administrators of Nova Scotia, talking about long-term change in highly complex systems (like municipalities!). As part of my prep, I interviewed Anna Karin Berglund from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions and integrated some video of our conversation into the keynote. Some great reflections on how we can lead change in a more participatory way and in particular within municipal and government systems.

A few reflections from Tuesday and myself after working together on some systems change initiatives in these last few days. To browse more webinars, visit Work Done Better Together.

Tim recently partnered with Bravespace to deliver a live draw keynote for Education, Research, Development and Innovation (ERDI). I introduced Shared Work—a model created by Tuesday Ryan Hart that I have been part of developing. Shared work is seeking to bridge the work of social justice ad systems change by looking at how we can work together across difference over time.