History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

—Sir Winston Churchill

A Pattern of Change

• Differentiation teases apart useful distinctions:
  • What do we wish to conserve?
  • What do we wish to embrace that wasn’t possible before?
• Coherence arises as disparate aspects cluster to create a complex, novel whole.
• Disruption interrupts habitual activity.

Forms of Change

In order of increasing disruption:

Steady state—Disturbance is handled within the existing situation. A minor fix is made, or the disruption is ignored or suppressed. Business as usual continues. For example: a speeder gets a ticket for driving too fast.

Incremental shifts—Disruptions interrupt the status quo. We distinguish what the disturbance brings to the system and integrate changes. For example: an existing constitution is amended following protests that spark legal action.

Emergence—Occasional upheaval results when principles that keep a system orderly break down. Chaos sparks experiments. Current assumptions are clarified, and new possibilities surface. Ultimately, something dies, and a new coherence arises that contains aspects of the old and the new but isn’t either. For example: a revolution leads to a new form of governance.

Benefits of Engaging Emergence

Individually, we are stretched and refreshed. We feel more courageous and inspired to pursue what matters to us.

New and unlikely partnerships form. When we connect with people whom we don’t normally meet, sparks can fly. Creative conditions make room for our differences, fostering lively and productive interactions.

Breakthrough projects surface. Experiments are inspired by interactions among diverse people.

Community is strengthened. We discover kindred spirits among a diverse mix of strangers. Lasting connections form, and a sense of kinship grows.

The culture begins to change. With time and continued interaction, a new narrative of who we are takes shape.

Some Catches When Engaging Emergence

• Getting started is a leap of faith.
• Success can be a hurdle.
• Outcomes can be elusive to recognize.
• What’s most important is likely not on our radar screen.
• Not everyone makes the trip.
• Death or loss is usually part of the mix.

Characteristics of Emergence

Radical novelty—At each level of complexity, entirely new properties appear—for example, from autocracy (rule by one person with unlimited power) to democracy (people are the ultimate source of political power).

Coherence—A stable system of interactions (for example, elephant, biosphere, agreement).

Wholeness—Not just the sum of its parts, but also different and irreducible from its parts (for example, humans are more than the composition of lots of cells).

Dynamic—Always in process, continuing to evolve (for example, changes in transportation: walking, horse and buggy, autos, trains, buses, airplanes, and so on).

Downward causation—The system shaping the behavior of the parts (for example, roads determine where we drive).

Dynamics of Emergence

Situational leadership arising in context. Generally characterized as no one being in charge. Or everyone being in charge. In fact, what’s in charge is the energy of the situation and of the people taking initiative, interacting in it.

Simple rules engender complex behavior. Randomness becomes coherent as individuals, each following a few basic principles or assumptions, interact with their neighbors.

Feedback among neighboring agents. Interactions that reinforce and balance the system. Reinforcing feedback loops encourage action in the same general direction—sometimes toward more, sometimes toward less. They are sometimes called vicious or, when in a healthy direction, virtuous cycles. Balancing feedback loops are opposite forces responsively interacting, as needed, to counter each other, creating a dynamic stable state.

Clustering as like finds like. Diverse agents interact, feeding back to each other as like attracts like. Some individual agents bond around a shared characteristic, forming more complex systems, such as networks, over time.

Questions for Engaging Emergence

• How do we disrupt coherence compassionately?
• How do we engage disruptions creatively?
• How do we renew coherence wisely?

Principles for Engaging Emergence

• Welcome disturbance.
  How do we find potential in the midst of disruption?
  Ask possibility-oriented questions.
• Pioneer!
  How do we discover our way forward?
  Seek new directions. Think different. Break a habit. Act courageously.
• Encourage random encounters.
  How do we create conditions in which chance interactions among diverse members of a system lead to breakthroughs?
  Widen the circle of participation. Invite the diverse members of the system to take responsibility for what they love as an act of service.
• Seek meaning.
  How do we surface what matters to individuals and to the whole?
  Be receptive. Suspend the desire for closure. Ask reflective questions. Have faith that meaning arises.
• Simplify.
  What is the least we need to do to create the most benefit?
  Continually seek the essence at the heart of what matters.

Practices for Engaging Emergence

Step Up

How do we engage so that we achieve the best possible outcomes?

 

• Take responsibility for what you love as an act of service.

How can we use our differences and commonalities to make a difference?

Get involved with what matters, listening and connecting along the way.

• Listen: sense broadly and deeply, witnessing with self-discipline.

How do we more fully understand each other and our environment?

Pay attention using all of your senses to learn and adapt.

• Connect: bridge differences and bond with others.
  How do we link ourselves and our ideas with others similar to and different from ourselves?

Listen for deeper meaning to seek common ground.

Prepare

How do we equip ourselves to engage disturbance?

• Embrace mystery: seek the gifts hidden in what we don’t know.

What does it take to be receptive to the unknown?

Let go of the need for immediate answers.

• Choose possibility: call forth “what could be.”

What do we want more of?

Seek positive guiding images.

• Follow life energy: trust deeper sources of direction.

What guides us when we don’t know?

Work with the energies that are present.

Host

How do we steward what is arising among us?

• Focus intentions: clarify our calling.

What purpose moves us?

Tune in. Sense what is stirring in you, others, and your environment.

• Welcome: cultivate hospitable space.

How do we cultivate conditions for the best possible outcomes?

Create a spirit of welcome—physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

• Invite the diversity of the system.

How can we include the true complexity of the situation?

Reach out to those who ARE IN: with authority, resources, expertise, information, and need.

Engage

How do we engage emergence?

• Inquire appreciatively: ask bold questions of possibility.

How do we inspire explorations that lead to positive action?

Ask questions that focus toward a positive intention, and invite others to engage with us.

• Open: be receptive.

How do we make space for the whole story—good, bad, or indifferent?

Be willing to be more in questions than answers.

• Reflect: sense patterns, be a mirror.

What is arising now?

Get curious. Ask questions that tease out what is coming into being. Be a witness for another.

• Name: make meaning.

How do we call forth what is ripening?

Be receptive to a leap that can come from anywhere.

• Harvest: share stories.

Once meaning is named, how does it spread?

Tell the stories. Write, draw, sing, dance, etc. Capture the spirit in print, video, online, and other media. Since we absorb more through multiple forms of expression, the more media, the better.

• Iterate: continue to evolve.

What keeps us going?

Integrate what we know into what’s novel and what’s novel into what we know.

Emergence in Context

• Emergent novelty arises in occasional discontinuous leaps.

• Novelty is internalized incrementally over time as we weave together what’s new and what we know, establishing new operating principles (simple rules).
  • It starts slow.
  • Its evolution is nonlinear.
  • It spirals over the long sweep of time, returning to the same place, but different.
• Sustainability arises as new operating principles (simple rules) that work well in the new conditions are widely integrated into a system.
• Resilient social systems are well served by stewarding shared intention and tending to the social fabric of a system. They have the following:
  • A guiding image of a desirable future
  • Mutual support
  • An interactive, transparent communications infrastructure
  • Capacity for hosting conversations that matter
  • Capacity to engage emergence when disruptions occur
• A turning point occurs when we experience ourselves as part of a larger system.
• Harming another part of our social body—or our ecological body—is like cutting off an arm.
• When we know we are connected, we use our diverse skills and abilities to accomplish what none of us can do on our own.
• Macroscopes hold promise for scaling our work through creative use of technology.
• Ask possibility-oriented questions.
• Interact with people outside your comfort zone.
• Seek more nuanced perspectives that help us to see ourselves in context.
• Tell stories of upheaval turned to opportunity.

The Promise of the Macroscope

• A turning point occurs when we experience ourselves as part of a larger system.
• Harming another part of our social body—or our ecological body—is like cutting off an arm.
• When we know we are connected, we use our diverse skills and abilities to accomplish what none of us can do on our own.
• Macroscopes hold promise for scaling our work through creative use of technology.

Simple Ways to Get Involved

• Ask possibility-oriented questions.
• Interact with people outside your comfort zone.
• Seek more nuanced perspectives that help us to see ourselves in context.
• Tell stories of upheaval turned to opportunity.

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