To “hold change” or “hold space” is to hold both the people in, and the dynamic energy of, a room, a space, a meeting, an organization, a movement. To hold change is to make it easy for people with shared intentions to be around each other and move towards their vision and values (facilitate), and/or to navigate conflict in a way that is generative

the roles of care are organized by element—earth, air, fire, water. Earth attends to food and beauty, air to cleanliness, fire to time and energy (this might include ice breakers, and/or fun outside the room), and water to water access and flow. In most rooms I facilitate, we set up a sacred space or altar, and our care teams are responsible for

Very few things can actually happen in a large group. Almost nothing can happen in a large group without trust. Often, a group may want to have an involved, large-group conversation to build alignment. Without trust, these kinds of conversations can quickly become a space of performance and posturing. This can be a set-up. It’s harder to hold hate,

Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.) Change is constant. (Be like water.)5 There is always enough time for the right work. There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have.6 Find it. Never a failure, always a lesson.7 Trust the People. (If you trust the people, they become

Invite the room together to generate some community agreements, protocols of the shared space—often the passive aggressive person is someone who saw a need for a guideline or agreement that went unnamed, and is impacted by its absence.

This book is about attending to coordination, to conflict, to being humans in authentic and functional relationship with each other—not as a constant ongoing state, but rather a magnificent, mysterious ever-evolving dynamic in which we must involve ourselves, shape ourselves and each other.

Holding change is a variation of holding space. I use it to distinguish my use from others,1 but also to foreground that this is the emergent strategy approach to holding collective work, and emergent strategy understands that all is change. Space is never fixed by literal, physical dimensions. It varies according to histories, dynamics, emotional

Aim to create containers that account for the reality of injustice, that unveil power dynamics and name oppression, but reach beyond those immature phases of human development to allow complex, dynamic, and healing relationships.

What follows are some key participant types that were named and workshopped in the first series of emergent strategy facilitation trainings