In our latest edition of INSIDE THE OUTSIDE, Tim and Tuesday answer the question: what do you do, anyway? We know it's systems change, but what does that work look like? After an incredible week of sessions, talks, and client meetings—particularly with visionary people seeking to reimagine the sport system in Nova Scotia—we recap to shed light on the process.
Read MoreWe 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreThink 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.
Read MoreWhat 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.
Read MoreThe BALLE fellowship is a cohort of rural-minded creative leaders who collaborate to act local, prioritize equity, regenerate nature, shift capital, co-create policy, and cultivate connection. Together with participants, the facilitation team rolls up our sleeves and shares our work once more.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreTreated 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.
Read MoreHow do we not mistake a bigger cage for freedom or transformation? How do we know it’s time for transformation? And how do we allow ourselves to liquify enough to do it? How do we hold multiple truths and still move forward together? You sought the future: How do we focus on what we have not yet even imagined?
Read MoreSometimes, 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.
Read MoreOften 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.
Read MoreTim and I often talk about holding both soulful and strategic elements in our work. Powerful revelations have to lead somewhere. Recently, the excellent ON BEING podcast featured an interview with poet David Whyte, and hit on something I see in our work—a need for vulnerability, poetic language, and the balance of left-brain, right-brain that moves us into new action.
Read MoreWe've been doing this for years—both together and as individuals—and it never ceases to be a shock and a delight when hands go up in a room that was once completely blocked and closed-off to the idea of doing things—and thinking about things—differently. This is the breakthrough that begins genuine, meaningful, much-needed progress. Here's how we try and set the stage to get hands in the air.
Read MoreThis is why we do the work we do—new leadership methods and tools, shifted mindsets, and a practice of equity animates a room. Even the rooms that might have once felt irrevocably blocked with a legacy of competing mandates or repeated patterns. When we contemplate fresh perspectives, bringing more voices 'in from the outside', it dawns on us that perhaps there's a way forward after all. These are the moments we live for.
Read MoreIt's our birthday! Why 'THE OUTSIDE'? As outsiders, we have the advantage—the clarity and calm—of not being entrenched. When overwhelmed by repeated patterns and blocks, fresh air helps. It's all about the fresh air. Watch our latest for the view from here.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreTim 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.
Read MoreTuesday and I just did a webinar on Shared Work with Joshua Cubista @ Borderlands Restoration Leadership Institute, which explores how to take action in the midst of the increasing complexity of the 21st century. It explores shared work and the practice of leading systemic change within our personal lives, communities, organizations, and the world.
Read MoreTo me, alignment is something both bigger than and more foundational than being alike. Alignment asks: Are we going in the same general direction? Do our fundamental ideals allow us to do some good work together? Maybe we won’t do everything together, but when we’re aligned, we can see that there is something to do together.
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