Category Archives: Complexity

To not be a racist you have to know you are a racist. 

Change, Complexity, Government, provocations, Racism, Upside Down Thinking

There’s so much I wish would change.

I am sure you feel the same way, too.

Problem is sometimes what I want to change are those that would, if they could, transform me into a variation of them. And, yeh, that’s about the same thing I want to do to them.

What is it about us that insists others should live as we want them to? Could it simply be arrogance or pride or that old self-aggrandizing, snide sense of entitlement? Why is it so many of us think the disenfranchisement of others is caused by some thing or somebody over there.?

I believe that who we are is a complex web of yin-yang attributes. Good and evil are coupled together. The same with love and hate. You get the picture. Who we are is about which we way we are pulled or influenced to lean. Sometimes we actually do not realize which way we turned or why.

Raise your hand if you are against racism. Continue reading To not be a racist you have to know you are a racist.  →

O Canada and the Mathematics of Change

Complexity, Data, Government, Human Rights, Learning, Movement, Possibility

I just read in the paper Canada is changing its national anthem to make it gender neutral though I prefer “gender inclusive.” Real change means changing our symbols and our icons when necessary to reflect society’s ever changing sensibilities.

I imagine there will be some kafuffle about this. Traditionalists will articulate traditionalist stuff, rationalizing where there is no longer rationale, if there ever was any. The reactions of many others will be something akin to a shrug of the shoulder or a 1-second read on Facebook, a click on Like, and a scroll down to a video of someone’s barking dog.

Some of us will sit before our humongous flat screens and  watch 4-headed debates that are a testimony to the betrayal of the word, “expert.”  I have never really learned anything listening to talking heads, other than the ends to which people will go to not make one whit of positive difference to what is happening in the world. Continue reading O Canada and the Mathematics of Change →

About Collective Impact: Types of Problems, Degrees of Change, Learning Loops, and Methods of Thinking

Change, Collaboration, Collective Impact, Complexity, Creativity, Innovation, Non-profit, Upside Down Thinking

Collective Impact is multi-sector approach to large-scale collaboration that is authentically inclusive of citizens in its development and implementation – in particular citizens who have life-experience with the big problems or issues being addressed, such as poverty, climate change, family violence, and so many more.

Collective Impact is not an approach aimed at creating program changes among a few agencies or undertaking collaboration in order to compete with other community initiatives. Rather, it tends to be focused on efforts to leverage talents, existing services, innovations, and resources in order to effect significant changes to policies and systems and where needed, significant programmatic changes. Such changes might occur within governments or government-run institutions, within education and health institutions, within business, or within service providers.

At recent sessions and workshops I held in Vancouver (Community Change Institute) and in Edmonton (Upside Down Thinking) , I shared a perspective on three types of problems identified by Brenda Zimmerman and how they connect to three types of change, three types of learning, and various types of thinking required in addressing each type of problem. My intent is to help our collective thinking about significant problems/issues facing our communities.

Simple problems are those we can fix easily and are sometimes called kaizen (the Japanese word for “continuous improvement”). Solutions to these kinds of problems are akin to tweaking a recipe or adjusting a process to improve quality or reliability of performance. Typically such changes are incremental. Continue reading About Collective Impact: Types of Problems, Degrees of Change, Learning Loops, and Methods of Thinking →

Democracy is dying. Time to get to work.

Collective Impact, Complexity, economic choice, Economy, Government, Income Inequality, Poverty

I came across an article by George Monbiot (www.monbiot.com) that appeared in the Guardian this July. In this article, Monbiot writes about James McGill Buchanan, an economist influenced by neoliberalism and deeply funded by billionaire Charles Koch, the 7th wealthiest person in the world.

According to Monbiot, Buchanan was an advocate for what he called the public choice theory. The general gist is that “society could not be considered free unless every citizen has the right to veto its decisions. What he meant by this was that no one should be taxed against their will. But the rich were being exploited by people who use their votes to demand money that others have earned, through involuntary taxes to support public spending and welfare. Allowing workers to form trade unions and imposing graduated income taxes are forms of “differential or discriminatory legislation” against the owners of capital.

“Any clash between what he called ‘freedom’ (allowing the rich to do as they wished) and democracy should be resolved in favour of freedom. In his book The Limits of Liberty, he noted that “despotism may be the only organisational alternative to the political structure that we observe.” Despotism in defense of freedom. Continue reading Democracy is dying. Time to get to work. →

LIVING POOR: KAREN’S STORY

Affordable Housing, Collective Impact, Complexity, Income, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

Note:  In addition to writing about community change and penning commentary, I am a story teller. I write fiction and spoken word. This piece is a mix of fact and fiction, often called “faction.”

One of my small luxuries in life is having someone come to my house weekly and clean it. I tell myself I need this service because I am so busy, but truth is it’s a luxury for me. I can afford it and to be honest I have the time to take care of my own mess; I just hate doing it.

Karen is the one who takes care of this for me. She is 24 and nearly always cheerful. She does an excellent job and in good time as well.  She is a friend of a friend and when I heard she was interested in providing this service, I decided to give her a go. Continue reading LIVING POOR: KAREN’S STORY →