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Resilience Ain’t Enough

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It isn’t enough to repair the damage our progress has brought. The unintended consequences of our efforts to improve quality of life for humans has repercussions and requires action.  Yes, and. It is also not enough to manage our risks and be more shock-resistant. Now is not only the time to course correct and be more resilient. It is a time to imagine what we can generate for the world. Not only can we work to minimize our footprint but we can also create positive handprints. It is time to strive for a world that thrives.

As I am wont to do, I had a gathering while in SF. This time it was a brunch filled with amazing people I wouldn’t have a chance to see one on one during my time there. I always enjoy seeing friends meet friends and discovering connection. A couple guests brought someone with them. And one guest took up my twitter invite and joined even though she didn’t know me yet. Everyone brought something to share. Yum. It felt warm and delightful.

Then we got in a debate about resilience and thrivability. Of course I appreciate the friends who not only stand by me but also stand behind thrivability. And, it was really exciting to have someone who wasn’t converted to the thrivability team challenge what it is we mean and to say she didn’t like the term. Juicy.

Where there is a bit of friction, you can get traction.

As a facilitator, you can always be sure I have paper and pens around, so I started sketching it out. Since then, I put together a chart, showed it to a few collaborators, and here it is narrowed down to key points for you. It isn’t enough to strive for resilience, and it won’t motivate enough of us. When we strive to thrive, we create a story of greatness that invites everyone to contribute their very best to making a world that not only works, it also produces joy, delight, and awe.

Comparison chart for Thrivable

Thrivability transcends survival modes, sustainability, and resilience. Thrivability embraces flow as the sources of life and joy and meaning, adds to the flow and rides the waves, instead of trying to nullify the effects. Each layer includes and also transcends the previous layer, expanding both interconnections as well as expanding system awareness as each layer hits limits and discovers that more forces are at work than can be explained within their purview. Also, this is not a progression, where you need to move through one before beginning another. You can have aspects of yourself or your organization in multiple places in the chart and movement within the chart can be from any one area to any other. It is not a spectrum of progression. It is a spectrum of viewpoint. And most of us are like electrons, leaping about from point to point and sometimes seemingly nowhere at all… until you look and ask.

Please allow me to amend with gratitudes:

Thank you to attendees of the brunch that triggered action on the chart, especially: Sarah Brooks, Evonne Heyning, Scott Albritton (photos of chart from brunch), Thomas Kriese, David Evan Harris, Jeanie Kirk, Kimberly Olson, Mair Dundon, and Nicole Lazzaro.
Thank you to thrivability champions for assistance in development and refining: Michele Holliday, Irma Wilson, Joshua Foss, Herman Wagter, and Kathryn Bottrell.

We_b2 and Ci2iGlobal

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I am incredibly excited to announce our affiliation with ci2iglobal, the Collective Impact and Innovation Institute. We have been hard at work behind the scenes for over a year, working together to share our wisdom, create useful tools, and facilitate powerful events and laboratories. Our event, We_b, in January at the HUB Brussels brought together some of the inspiring innovators we know in the social sector to test out our individual offerings as a collective.

Standing on the wisdom of that experience, we will be having We_b2 in Brussels June 16-17.

Are you (or someone you know) looking for new ways to:

  • Break through some big challenges that have been baffling you?
  • Play with new ideas in a collaborative, cross-cultural context?
  • Explore frameworks that help you make decisions and navigate risk?
  • Expand your own impact?

If so, then make plans to come join us.

Why am I incredibly excited about this collective and our events?

Because this is the most phenomenal team I have ever been honored to work with. We are 6 women with a cumulative experience of over 100 years in facilitating social change in global contexts! How often are you in a room with that much experience? More than that, we live and work on three continents now, but we have lived and worked on 6 continents. It doesn’t get better than that until you go to Antarctica!

We have experience scaling up social initiatives around the globe, fostering international collaborations, bringing micro-finance to developing countries, measuring impact for Ashoka fellows, and working with the European Council. 

I think it is also important that most of us are old enough to have had long careers in international development while being young enough to be early and eager mavens in social technologies. We get social technology. We get cross cultural dialogue. We get impact assessment. Not just ideologically, but practically and experientially.

The power and capacity that puts in the room when we hold an event is enormous, but that isn’t all. There is more! All of us have done enough of the personal development and group process work to show up in these spaces with egos in check, curiosity in front, and driven by purpose focused on the group outcome.

Somehow the magic combination of this led all of us to explore system sciences and thus we come at our social change work with a core value being the health and evolution of ecosystems – be they human or environmental.

I find that to be incredibly exciting. Intoxicating, in fact. come get intoxicated with wisdom for your life and social change efforts. June 16-17, Brussels HUB for the We_b2 Co-Creation Lab.

Ruined: The Crush of Enlightenment

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The more I learn about systems, the more I feel I am ruined now. Like any good enlightenment, once it happens, you can’t ever quite go back to thinking the way you did before. I can’t go back to thinking the world has single/independent problems or single solutions. I can’t believe in single causes. And when I look for what led to events that are transpiring, I can’t blame a single source. Instead, I am always looking for the complex interweaving of causality. David Harvey’s fantastic “Crisis of Capitalism” shows the causes of economic collapse from 6 different explanatory perspectives:

  • Human Frailty
  • Institutional Failures
  • Obsessed with a False Theory
  • Cultural Origins
  • Failure of Policy
  • Systemic Risk

And, I look at this list Harvey has, and I realize, yep, I have, at one time or another, played a sort of blame game with each of them. However, now that I think in multiple perspectives about interlocking complex adaptive systems that operate beyond simple linear singular causality…I am no longer able to come up with simple easy answers like: Vote! March! Go around! or Change policy! I guess I do still have a fondness for “Avoid toxic ossified institutions” and “Beware of Systemic Risk.”

The trouble with ideas that enlighten us is that we can’t go back. We might want to. It might be an easier life back there. The answers appeared more obvious (because the perspective dictated them).

I once had a contract cancel – basically, simplistically – they said something to the effect of: you are a breakthrough person and we already decided on breaking down right now, so we brought in someone who does that. And you see this all the time – we look for what we already think the answer is and we seek reinforcement of our belief. And usually we don’t have to go far to get it (that old lure of homophily) I call this mirror-thinking. We go looking in mirrors to see our existing beliefs are true, and sure enough they give us our beliefs right back to us.

The more you think in multiple perspectives, the harder this sort of mirror-thinking becomes. I return regularly to Donella Meadows’ work on Intervening in a System. It stands as a reminder not to get trapped in solving system issues from a single perspective.

However, I warn you. Should you pursue the path of seeing through multiple perspectives a world of interlocked complex adaptive systems… you can’t go back. You can never go back to that serenity of simplicity in problems/solutions/interventions or views.

As you begin to step into the various positions and stories people occupy, you may fill with compassion, seeing each operate under their beliefs with positive intentions. There is something incredibly uplifting recognizing that all people operate from a love for someone or of something. It is love behind everything, even war and violence. And there is something incredibly depressing recognizing that this is what we get as a result despite all that love. Try not to get lost. I have gotten lost in compassion or in understanding one element in the overall system.

Because to really perceive what is happening requires a deep both and. Both the details and the context. These details and those details. This context and the context of that context. Don’t get dizzy. It is easy to get dizzy zooming from perspective to context to culture to cultural context and then back into another perspective. Take something for the SEE sickness. Ginger is good.

Brain science is revealing that Westerners are very focal-point centered. We Westerners want an object in the middle of our pictures. People from other cultures value context. Think, for example, of the elaborate etiquette systems of China, India, and Japan, where behaviors are dictated by context and even the slightest contextual clues provide information for effectively navigating culture. Students from countries like China will focus their eyes on the context even more than the object in the center of a picture. Learn to do both. Flip back and forth in rapid succession from one to other until you can hold both at the same time. Learn to soften the edges of your eyes and see from your periphery. (I learned how to do this over the summer while I was in Australia – mind-blowing!)

Once you learn to see from all these perspectives, you can never fully occupy any of the places as if you were unaware there were others. You are stuck always transcending any given place/space. And while experiencing the rush of the enlightenment to perceive – deeply perceive – what is happening and why and where to make a leveraged action for yourself or those you love – you are also crushed out of who you thought you were and into someone else altogether. Your very being begins to exist in all these perspectives more and more of the time. Your very being becomes distributed experiencing the world from different perspectives nearly simultaneously. This can be disturbing, and no, you probably don’t need to see a doctor. You are already ruined now. 🙂

Don’t lose yourself to existential bedazzlement. Stay on, stay steady. Grow your multiple perspective skills. Grow your ability to hold both the particulars from different perspectives as well as their context simultaneously. Because, while you can never go back, it is also the most amazing awe-inspiring view I have ever imagined. Crushing or not, like all tremendous experiences they hold the space where anxiety meets wonder in an exquisite dance of perception.

**warning: using multiple perspectives may harm or damage feelings of self-righteousness. Side effect can be greater levels of creativity and innovation.

Freedom and Responsibility

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Before I dive into Freedom and how it relates to responsibility, I have to confess that George Michel’s Freedom! song runs through my head as I type. In it he sings “you got to give for what you take.” and while much of the song might only poorly relate to what I am about to play with, this line certainly does.

I typed into twitter yesterday, “Thinking about the connection of freedom and responsibility. To thrive are they correlated?”

A little background. For a long time, I have been irritated and judgmental (feelings I try to avoid). I have been irritated and judgmental about Ayn Rand and her whole Objectivist thing. A few weeks ago, I was reading about Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand. Yes yes, exactly, I was thinking. We love it when we find things that validate or resonate with what we already believe. However, I can also see that between the right and left – the libertarians and the liberals – are two seemingly polemic forces – one side all bloated with self-interest, cries “Freedom above all else!” and everyone who follows that belief can join that side… And the other side righteously declares, “Equality for all!” and everyone who believes in that gathers around. Both sides hold their chests high and have some sort of moral indignation with the other.

First, let’s acknowledge that Ayn Rand attracted a following because there is a tension between the collective and the individual. And there is something deeply satisfying about believing in individual agency. And America (and Australia too) has a love affair with the cowboy – the lone agent, the entrepreneur, the solitary genius, and the self-made man. And sure, if the collective just looks like someone else’s self-interest being served and not honoring the whole or even the other parts, then sure, pursuing your self-interest instead of theirs makes a good deal of sense.

However, it is also the case that except for the wild ones that have left society completely and live alone on the land (and these unusual creatures do exist even if only for short periods of time)… except for the wild ones, we are all intricately linked. So while Rand might have been right to disavow communism, the Objectivists are wrong to neglect our responsibility to the networks we depend on. Freedom and responsibility are intricately linked.

If I have little or no freedom – you have imprisoned me, let’s say; then we can’t really hold me responsible for much (except my thoughts and perhaps my words). However, if I am unshackled and given freedom, I can’t hope to maintain that freedom without supporting the conditions that allow for it. For me to be free, I have to care for the context I am in and the people I engage with. I am never purely autonomous – especially after globalization entered the picture. And for the agents of equality, let me add – if we encourage equality, it may be in our own self-interest – or our belief therein. It is that sense of “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” As well as the same kind of thinking that prevents lower to middle class people from voting to tax the rich, “that could be me, and I don’t want to be taxed when I get there.” And, when my freedom interferes with other people being free, I am responsible for navigating that tension (as are they and those around us). We call this process “Court” and the decisions are “justice” not just for us but for all in like positions. I am hoping there is a court jester in there to keep things lively and light-hearted.

Okay, okay, I get the overwhelm that ensues when we try to be responsible for our actions. Taken to the extreme this can mean accounting for where everything I use and enjoy has come from, who was impacted by the making of these things, what the making did to the environment, and what impact any of all of this can have on me and my descendants or legacy in the future. Just how responsible am I? And how can I feel free when these responsibilities begin to inhibit my actions?
Well, that is the dance we do. Don’t mistake feeling free for being free. We take responsibility where we can today and hope our choices, made to the best of our knowledge, will enable us to be free in the future. We ask not, “what all am I responsible for?” but instead, “where else can I take more responsibility today than I took yesterday?” And asking that, we take a step and action toward increasing our ability to be free tomorrow. Freedom after all is not just the ability to do whatever we want and damn the consequences, it is the ability to make a choice given the consequences we can perceive.

Freedom and Equality are not opposite ends of some spectrum but qualities acting in dynamic tension together.

Responses to my query on twitter:

greghartle Greg Hartle: @NurtureGirl In my opinion, with any freedom comes great responsibility.
ahesse Arno Hesse: Freedom implies living up to your responsibility. RT @NurtureGirl: Thinking about the connection of freedom and responsibility
elizlk Elizabeth Krueger: @NurtureGirl connected by moral sense so that freedom for me isn’t hurting someone else; w/o morals freedom isn’t shared
What do you think?

Europe Tour Post 1

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I am sitting in seat 32 of a bus I didn’t plan to take. This is an accident. However, 32 is my lucky number, so let’s say it is a happy accident. I sat here without knowing I was choosing my lucky number. And so it goes. We often don’t even know when happy accidents happen. A whole series of them brought me here. This is Stockholm. I am on a bus instead of a train to Leksand for the ReWork the World conference.
Background: This conference is put on, in part, by the Tallberg Foundation. I heard about them about a year ago when my friend Leif Utne attended the Tallberg Forum. Someone mentioned thrivability to the Executive Director of the Tallberg Foundation, Niclas Ihren. And Hans Peter Meyer notified me of a quote from his response. I will see Leif and Niclas here… many months later. Both contributed to the Thrivability book.
I sat with Rufina on the bus. She sat in 31 and introduced herself. We explored our passions and purpose, eventually discovering that she was at NTEN and knew Beth Kanter and several other social media nonprofit tech folks.
We arrived at the arena after the first round of talks (from Leksand Major…).
Poonam Ahluwalia (President, Youth Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, USA) and Carl Mossfeldt (Executive Vice President, Tällberg Foundation, Sweden) present the vision of the summit.
Includes a welcome to Leksand and Dalarna from Ulrika Liljeberg (Mayor of Leksand, Sweden) and Julia Tollin (Young Enterprise, Dalarna).
Just in time to get some water, settle in, and listen to Majora Carter (President, Majora Carter Group, USA). Who I immediately recognize from her TED talk. She talks about The South Bronx. “We can pretend we don’t live here…. or we can be a part of the solution and stay.”  Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training – green jobs program.
Hey, I agree. It is our one earth. There is no planet B. (Thank Hans Peter Meyer for the sign). We can pretend we don’t live here on the ground of earth… or we can be part of the solution and stay.

I am sitting in seat 32 of a bus I didn’t plan to take. This is an accident. However, 32 is my lucky number, so let’s say it is a happy accident. I sat here without knowing I was choosing my lucky number. And so it goes. We often don’t even know when happy accidents happen. A whole series of them brought me here. This is Stockholm. I am on a bus rather than the intended train to Leksand. We go to the ReWork the World conference.

Background: This conference is put on, in part, by the Tallberg Foundation. I heard about them about a year ago when my friend Leif Utne attended the Tallberg Forum. Someone mentioned thrivability to  Niclas Ihren of the Tallberg Foundation. Hans Peter Meyer notified me of a quote from his response. I will see Leif and Niclas here. Both contributed to the Thrivability book.

I sat with Rufina on the bus. She sat in 31 and introduced herself. We explored our passions and purpose, eventually discovering that she was at NTEN and knew Beth Kanter and several other social media nonprofit tech folks.

We arrived at the arena after the first round of talks. Just after Poonam Ahluwalia (President, Youth Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, USA) and Carl Mossfeldt (Executive Vice President, Tällberg Foundation, Sweden) presented the vision of the summit. [Including a welcome to Leksand and Dalarna from Ulrika Liljeberg (Mayor of Leksand, Sweden) and Julia Tollin (Young Enterprise, Dalarna).]

And, just in time to get some water, settle in, and listen to Majora Carter (President, Majora Carter Group, USA). I immediately recognized this passionate woman from her TED talk. She talks about The South Bronx. “We can pretend we don’t live here…. or we can be a part of the solution and stay.”  See the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training – green jobs program.

Hey, I agree. It is our one earth. There is no planet B. (Thank Hans Peter Meyer for the sign). We can pretend we don’t live here on the ground of earth… or we can be part of the solution and stay.

ps. Loved Majora saying something like: I see you there and know my time is up. You will give me 2 more minutes, and I promise you will be happy about it.

thanks to HansPeterMeyer

thanks to HansPeterMeyer

Gross International Happiness

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What does success look like in a thrivable system?

Perhaps success looks like happiness! Figuring out the characteristics of a thrivable system might be looking for systems where there is happiness.

And how do you know if there is happiness? Well as my friend Sian claims in his email sig. “If you can’t measure it you can’t improve it.” While that might not be fully true, the old saying goes, you get more of what you measure. So perhaps measuring happiness might be a better indicator than gross national product.

Maybe the key to thrivability can be found in the measurement of Gross International Happiness?

The Upward Spiral

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Thrivability is all about the intentful creation of upward spirals, positive feedback loops between elements that are generative of diverse, adaptive abundance. This is true both for the design of the ecological aspect of systems, as well as for the social aspect of systems.