What are the biggest challenges when you work with large multistakeholder groups?HSUEH: Finding the “right” clients, ones with a learning orientation, is critical. It’s important for them to come into this process with an open mind, to say, “I have my worldview, I have my mental model, but I’m curious to venture into the unknown of seeing the larger system together with other stakeholders.” If someone comes with the mindset of “I am superior and because I have the financial resources, I get to dictate where to allocate them,” you don’t have that curiosity and genuine interest to learn and be vulnerable enough to say “I don’t know.”......Creating the space for people to be open and curious and listening to each other is one of the biggest challenges but also the biggest promise. When we see each other as human beings, a lot can be shifted. We no longer operate at just the surface level but deep down, with what Otto Scharmer would call open heart and will.
...work with either funders or decision makers who have long-term goals; they want to see concrete, collective action coming out the other side. So who you work with, what their vision is, and how you design the project are key
To sustain the change process, it’s important to create a collaborative network of systems leaders and then build their capacity. So the work is not just about the work, it’s also about people and their capacity... How do you create the learning infrastructure to support change agents on the ground to continue to learn and grow with each other? A big part of it is peer learning, so team members can learn from each other as they launch new projects. They then do action research and bring their learning back to the network.
Our intention is to identify local leaders, develop their capacity, and then support them in kicking off, for example, the systems mapping work and furthering the iteration of the map. The best outcome is that I, as a change facilitator, put myself out of a job.
In the coming decades, there will be a huge wealth transfer to millennials and women, many of whom have a social and environmental consciousness and want to do good with their wealth. They may not necessarily know how. And then in the field of systemic change, there are people who have been working on facilitating change but may not have resources....Currently, impact investing—investment with the intention of generating a beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return—is still quite siloed, in the sense that you fund a particular project or a particular social enterprise; you’re not looking at the whole system. The problem is that silo thinking and action leads to silo solutions, which lead to more problems in the future....systems investing creates systems change and systems return
Personal Sustainability
