In Seattle yesterday I was listening to a keynote by Dr. Jack Shonkoff who is a breain researcher at Harvard with an interest in early childhood development. He said an interesting thing about American health care which kind of answers the question for me about what the US is good at. Many Americans who are opposed to public health care use the argument that people from other countries come to the United States for the world’s best treatment, surgery and acute care. No question that if you can afford it, the USA has the best. BUT – and this was …
Silo busting is a very interesting thing. Everyone knows that systems atrophy when they divide their work into silos. Silos entrench difference and prevent learning across sectors whether we are talking about departments in an organization, or a social system like health care or child and family services. Silos have limited usefulness. They divide work into manageable chunks. But in general they create reductionist responses to systemic problems and they pose a massive challenge to people working nfor change. If we first have to bust the silos, and only then can we address the problems, how do we know we’ll …
I’m at a Casey Family Programs conference in Seattle that is looking at applying science to early learning in kids. The people here are learning about brain science and the results of early adverse childhood experiences and what the science can tell us about how we should react in the policy sphere to create healthy kids, families and societies. The keynote is by Jack Shonkoff, who is a leading brain researcher in this field and who has been sharing some of the basics of what we know about brain science, relationships and healthy societies. Here are some of his key …
From my recent work in the labour movement, a quote to inspire you in your work for social change: Howard Zinn: ”Ž”To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we… see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the …
Running an Art of Hosting workshop this week for employees of the City of Edmonton. We are about 30 people all together looking at the art of hosting participatory process, convening and leading in complex environments where certainty is an artifact of the past. Naturally because these people work for a municipal government, the conversations we are having tend to be about systems. We are working at the level of what it takes a system to shift itself as well as what it takes of an individual to lead when the answers are unclear. For me, lots of good insights …