System Change
Adam Zeiner and
System Change
Adam Zeiner and
Exploring where impediments are hard, where they are soft and when they can be ignored is powerful.
I have heard John McKnight say that advisory groups speak quietly to power, protestors scream at power, and neither chooses to reclaim or produce power. The real problem with rebellion is that it is such fun. It avoids taking responsibility, operates on the high ground, is fueled by righteousness, gives legitimacy to blame, and is a delightful
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the great thing about living in a world of dying systems is that you are uniquely well-positioned to replace suboptimal systems with something superior. New growth takes root best in the decay of its predecessors. For most of the past, if you wanted to create a better future, you had to rally the troops and take someone else’s land or destroy
... See morePost capitalism is not simply another ‘ism’ to replace previous ideologies; it is a conceptual container for social pluralities based on shared values (e.g. reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, gifting, equity consciousness, empathy, interbeing and solidarity with all Life). It stems from the shortcomings of the existing system and the lived
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There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use... See more
Don’t remove a fence until you’ve understood why someone put it up in the first place
Counterintuitive. That’s Forrester’s word to describe complex systems. Leverage points are not intuitive. Or if they are, we intuitively use them backward, systematically worsening whatever problems we are trying to solve
If you didn’t want to look closely at your own organizational practices, if you felt uncomfortable about what younger works were agitating for, if you feared changed or anything that usurped your understanding of “how business is done” — Quiet Quitting was the easy answer.