Holding complexity
Fresh off the summer break, this last fortnight I’ve co-facilitated sessions on vicarious trauma, participatory action research, observed a stakeholder focus group for the gender equality centre project and interviewed young people for an impact evaluation.
All of this has got me thinking again about change making on purpose, and why I’m taking this approach to my work. But before we get to that, firstly, I’m deeply thankful to the writings of Dr Shawn Ginwright, adrienne maree brown, and the thoughts of Anna Birney and others at the school of system change for helping me to finesse my language and clarify my thinking.
Change making on purpose is an attempt to get out of the weeds of what is happening and get deep into (and zooming out to) the whys of what is happening.
I-and by extension-the dots-are experimenting with and practicing compassionate curiosity. (this is a helpful primer) I am not interested in how mindsets and norms are expressed but I am deeply interested in what the norms and mindsets are that underpin them, and how we can shift those that cause harm.
We want to do this even when it’s hard,especially when it’s hard, with compassion. This is not to say that we excuse or justify positions we do not take, but we are curious about them because they tell us something about shared and polarised norms.
Take the charity sector for example, we’ve all heard this story, I'm sure.
A funder may tell front line services there is only so much money to go around , and it’s actually less than last year and this time it’s only for nine months. And so of course, services compete with each other to provide the lowest possible price. Sector wages then stay low, and good people burn out because inevitably they cannot do what they said they would in the time they promised. The organisation cannot say no because those nine months of funding is one worker and some overheads. Delivery suffers and people become cynical and frustrated about their ability to make change. Organisations fall out and staff lose trust in management. The board stays shadowy. Managers feel unsupported and isolated. Everyone is unhappy.
This story tells us something about scarcity and power, about what is valued, and what is heard, and it also tells us something about self sacrifice and power in the third sector. Without changing those mindsets about scarcity and power, we will keep going around in circles. This is what we believe.
We think there is enough to go around, and it is unevenly distributed.
We think we can and should support flourishing and abundance.
We think we can and we should facilitate opportunities for folk to explore their relationship with power and hope.
We believe that hope is a principle and a muscle that we strengthen in part through imagination.
Change making on purpose and all our work is attempting to move the dial towards what we think needs to shift, particularly around power and particularly around scarcity and competition.
If this all sounds a bit theoretical, here’s what this means in practice:
Humility. We contribute to, not cause change, we are part of a larger eco-system. There is not a hierarchy of hope or interventions but a web and we have a small spot on that web.
We experiment with where we think we can make change, drawing on what our skills are, knowing what’s not for us, and supporting others where they are.
We learn as we go and we share that learning, we are building a muscle and our thinking evolves all the time.
I’m a research nerd, and despite myself, I’m becoming more comfortable with andness. This means there is a kind of magic in the unknowable (even Einstein thought so) AND ample evidence on the role of relationships and trust, we try to hold space for both.
We want to drop down as deep as possible-not asking what is being expressed, but why?
We know this takes time and thought -a lot of time -which we don’t-and you don’t-always have. I am a mum and a person and so my brain sometimes cannot hold complexity easily and I find myself rushing for answers. This is about control. I’m trying to give myself more space for reflection. But. People get sick, bills need paid, and life happens. We feel pushed into a corner. That’s ok. We notice.
When we say this takes time, on a micro level we have lives to live, but on a macro level, this work takes TIME. We’re talking multi- generational. To quote Dr Shawn Ginwright- we’re cathedral builders laying bricks. Bricklayers who built cathedrals did so knowing they would never see the final building- that’s what we’re doing too.
Because of this we take a good enough approach; what is proportionate and what is meaningful right now. Perfect is the enemy of good.
We grapple with what it means to be inclusive and safe and we don’t have neat answers to what this looks like. Figuring that out with the people we’re in community with takes time.
We try and hold complexity as a principle, not as an unintended consequence
We attempt to hold polarising positions with curiosity-asking, what do they tell us about norms and mindsets? How do these contribute to making change, to maintaining the status quo, or to regression?
We know that money and the norms around capitalism are a predominant factor in driving our systems/actions/opinions. We are all limited in speaking truth to power when we have bills to pay.
We’re interested in testing and revealing our assumptions, moral and otherwise. This is uncomfortable. But to do otherwise is to act as though only we have the answers. As feminist academic Haraway tells us, this is a “god trick” we do not know everything, we can never be truly objective. (I’ve written before about types of knowledge)
And…a core assumption for us is the existence of white supremacist patriarchy- white and male centric systems that keep us focused on maintaining the status quo or on enabling regression. This norm includes limiting our imaginations on how power is defined (always over, never with) who has it and how to get it. We do not want to replicate this in our practice.
We are upfront in that we do have a moral and ethical agenda-it is good and right to care and we have a duty to help-we do not want to cause harm and we aim to work in solidarity and community.
We are human.
I’m ever grateful for the shared learning that I’ve experienced from friends, family, strangers, writers, artists, collaborators and most especially those at the collective for giving space for meandering thoughts and grapply conversations.
If you are also trying to embed emergent and complex thinking into your work around social change-get in touch! All conversations welcome.
