Complex times require complex responses. Through our work in the field, we have seen a set of evolving practices that help leaders, organizations, and networks achieve the scale and depth of transformative change needed today. These practices are:
- Rethinking boundaries to address intersecting constituencies, issues, and geographies.
- Learning how to surf the waves of irrational and unpredictable developments.
- Drawing on multiple ways of knowing to surface, include, and transcend differences.
- Centering deep equity in all aspects of systems change.
- Developing an ecosystem of leaders who are systems thinkers and doers.
- Understanding that influencing complex systems is a marathon, not a sprint.
Carla de Paz at East LA Community Corporation (ELACC) surfaces system dynamics with community residents by tapping artistic, experiential, indigenous/ancestral, spiritual, and nature-based ways of knowing. Through ELACC’s Building Healthy Communities Initiative, community members are gathering cross-generational stories and writing a comic book that shares how their community has evolved over time. This history will reveal a larger system of land use policies, migration patterns, and other factors and will create a narrative grounded in community experience. As another example, ELACC conducts Point-of-View Tours for community members to visit each other in different neighborhoods. They hear the stories of each other’s struggles, personally experience each other’s community contexts, and learn about the differences and similarities among communities.
To read more of Natasha Winegar, Susan Misra and Ashley Shelton's article, please click here.
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