Here’s where our Working in Complexity course comes from. For more than 30 years, Caitlin Frost and I have been collaborating on raising a family, running a business, and building community. We’ve learned a lot about what it takes to work with ourselves and others in a participatory, relational and resourceful way, especially as we face emergence and uncertainty. A few years ago we sat down and mapped out how we work with complexity. Because my work was mostly with groups, organizations and communities and hers mostly with individuals we looked for characteristics of complexity that crossed that boundary between …
Interesting links that crossed my path this month. You can find these in real time at my Mastodon site, which is also mirrored on Bluesky. Happy New Year to all.
Confirmed yet again that the way to build community, and indeed strengthen participatory and democratic societies is to do work together. Peter Levine, who I feel like everyone should read, has a nice little blog post today that serves as a bit of a gateway to his own research and thoughts on this topic. Here’s his basic thesis: People are more likely to trust institutions if they are involved in diverse, participatory groups, because such participation gives them a feeling of agency, teaches them that compromise is necessary (it’s not a sign that leaders are corrupt), and encourages them to …
Context changes everything. This used to be a forest. Alicia Juarrero is the source of so much great thinking on the role of constraints in complex systems. Her two books, Dynamics In Action and Context Changes Everything are brilliant discussions of the role of intention and how constraints shape complex phenomena. They are philosophical texts, and so are slow reads, but well worth the effort. You can find many videos of her sharing her insights on You Tube and elsewhere. She is generous with her time and enthusiastic about her work. Last week I sat in on a seminar she …
Anne-Marie Lemay, Anne-Marie Edward, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Daigneault, Barbara Klucznik, Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Michèle Richard, Nathalie Croteau, and Sonia Pelletier.