R e p o Rt N o 1 f Ro m Wa s a N I s l a N d
aug u s t, 2 0 17
Global
Networks
Strategies and learning
with peers
„Today, the notion of the network is one of the most used – and
overused – terms in any context: the popular press, government policies, corporate strategies, blogs, tweets, and everyday conversation. Many social phenomena can be usefully
thought of in terms of a network-from families to social communities to the Internet-with the latter at least partly responsible for the dramatic growth in interest in networks. ´Network´ seems to play the same role in the social, economic, and
political discourse of the twenty-first century that the concept
of ´machine´ did in the twentieth: it is a fundamental organizational metaphor for our times. (…)
The key is not to see the conflict system as a problem to
be solved, or to attempt to impose change on it, but instead to
map, observe, and listen to the system to identify the spaces
where change is already happening and try to encourage and
nurture them.”
– Ben Ramalingam1
“Serendipitous networking is essential because, in the real
world, it is impossible for a central agent to do everything. No
agent can possibly have enough information and time to broker all the potentially useful connections in a Rainforest. For
example, leaders frequently promote institutional collaborations, such as between scientific and business entities, but they
rarely work as promised.“
– Victor W.Hwang, Greg Horowitt2
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2
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Aid on the Edge of Chaos, Ben Ramalingam, 2013, Oxford
The Rainforest: the Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley, Victor W.Hwang, Greg Horowitt, Regenwald, 2012, Los Altos Hills
Contents
Introduction
Reflections
The Civic City (ex: We Live in Awkward Times) – Charles Landry
Networks and Polyamory – Helen Yung
Partnerships Spur Innovation Capacity:
Secondary Operating Systems as Innovation Catalyst – Tim Draimin
Ecosystem strategizing – Thomas Vellacott
World Wildlife Fund and Impact Hub: A Case Study –
Gabriela Gandel and Thomas Vellacott
Learning Ecosystems – Anna Birney
Leadership in spaces of intersection – Katherine Watson
Colophon
Appendix 1: Participants
Appendix 2: Suggested Reading
Partner
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Introduction
Global Networks
Networks are a powerful and growing vector for social change. Considering the complex nature of today’s global challenges, solutions need to be
reactive to an ever-evolving landscape of players and circumstances. Networks are a fitting way to approach this complex challenge and if wellmanaged, networks help us share and use knowledge across sectors and
geographical boundaries.
Nevertheless, networks can also inadvertently
become echo chambers that reproduce societal silos
of like-minded people and mindsets, insulated from
important challenges to their thinking and knowledge. Like many positive change phenomena, they
have a “shadow side” that needs to be anticipated,
understood and mitigated.
When talking about generative networks, we
have in mind networks that contribute to a positive
social change. Without diving too deep into network
theory, here are some loose guidelines we stood by.
Impactful (or generative) networks are
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future oriented, solutions focused and have a
long-term outlook,
align the efforts of individuals and institutions
to increase impact and strive for system change,
reinforce the participants’ motivations to be
active contributors,
enable ongoing communication and learning to
deepen insight and knowledge,
are cognizant of the emergent character of the
knowledge required to achieve their systemlevel goals,
reflect the values of openness and transparency,
reciprocity and sharing,
manage a creative tension between distributed
power and insightful servant leadership offered
by their support platforms and
are ethically grounded in support of enhancing
public goods.
The following reflections in this report are contributions to and results of the Wasan retreat on Global
Networks in August 2017 and are centered around
three areas of questions and insights:
1 . W h at I N f R a s t R u c t u R e c a N s u p p o R t
t h e d e v e l o p m e N t o f g e N e R at I v e
Net WoRk s ?
What kind of social infrastructure underlies generative networks, and how technology can help support
these relationships. How can effective networks be
built and maintained?
Inspired by Charles Landry and his positive
(utopian?) perspective on the `Civic City´ where
togetherness in difference meet and mix well, we
discussed the macro level changes and the climate of
ideas in our increasingly nomadic world. Yes, there
are emerging conditions in this time of crumbling
certainties supporting the foundation of networked
and collaborative approaches.
For networks to be impactful and generative, they must be designed and curated with a high
level of intention. Meanwhile, it is important to be
aware of power dynamics so that each player can
fully participate unhindered. If networks are overly
hierarchical, they become slower moving, and more
vulnerable to the loss of a few key players. For networks to be resilient, they must be deeply connected
so that their success does not rely on any one person
or organization. A flatter hierarchy enables networks
to be “anti-fragile”, as an attendee put it.
A key element of this social infrastructure that was
discussed is the importance of a common focal point
(or focus) for the network’s work, like the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Common goals and objectives allows a network to
develop a common goal and language, and can act as
a barometer against which to assess success.
Even if such a clear goal is not present, networks can still enable a dynamic process of alignment between key players.
2 . h o W c a N o R g a N I z at I o N s d e v e l o p a
N e t W o R k e d Way o f t h I N k I N g ?
Are there characteristics that distinguish a networked approach from the way we are used to lead
organizations? What does adopting a networked
mindset mean for the way our organizations are led
and structured?
During the retreat, Helen Yung prompted us
with her question “What can networks learn from
polyamory?”, provoking a deep discussion on loyalty
and our readiness to transformation.
Our conversation concluded that porous organizations seem to be more innovative than that
siloed and insulated ones. As an example for the
openness of an organization towards other systems
we discussed the concept of a secondary operating
system, that infuses the main entity with a renewed
innovation capacity. This topic is explored in more
depth in “Partnerships Spur Innovation Capacity: Secondary Operating Systems as Innovation Catalyst”,
a piece kindly contributed by Tim Draimin.
What is called for in today’s highly uncertain
conditions is an approach to strategy that starts by
redefining the outcome of strategy as an ongoing
process, rather than an inflexible strategic plan. Thomas Vellacott´s reflection on how to strategize ecosystems was the starting point for our discussion on
strategies for networks.
We’ve also included another first-hand account
of how a partnership has had generative qualities on
the work of two organizations. Gabriela Gandel and
Thomas Vellacott wrote a piece about the effect that
the World Wildlife Fund and Impact Hub Network
partnership has had on both organizations.
3. hoW caN le aRNINg s ys tems aNd
le adeR shIp suppoRt Net WoRk s
c o N s ta N t ly e v o lv e a N d c R e at e
I m pac t ?
In order for networks to be impactful, knowledge
needs to be mobilized within and for the change
makers who are a part of them. We need to create the
supporting infrastructure – a learning system – that
becomes the connective tissue between the current
and emerging practices of networks – supporting
citizens to be agents for positive social change. Anna
Birney records our conversations in this thread,
creating a concept and proposal to take forward.
We discussed leadership in networks as a
combination of ingredients – a set of attributes of the
whole system. Leadership facilitates visioning and
becomes part of a shared vision, rather than being
the vision, or owning the vision. It requires actively
listening, empathy and the willingness to shift focus
when appropriate. It is responsive, flexible and adaptive in the face of the speed of change. Leadership
trusts and knows that effectively working together
and achieving shared impact moves only at the speed
of trust, as Katherine Watson writes in “Leadership
in spaces of intersection”.
This report is an invitation to learn about the
Global Network Retreat, and to join the community
of individuals adopting networked thinking as a lens
for social change.
Enjoy!
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About Wasan Island
About Us
Wasan Island is located on the traditional territory
of the Anishinaabe peoples, who have been there for
millennia. Prior to settlement, the Muskokas were
rich hunting grounds that supported many families
and communities throughout the year. Today, several
First Nations live close to Wasan Island, including
the Rama, the Wahta and the Wasauksing.
Today, Wasan Island is a magical retreat centre
that lends itself to deep, reflective thinking. The
retreat center was founded by the Breuninger Foundation. The foundation operates the island in partnership with the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the BMW
Foundation, Community Foundations of Canada, and
the McConnell Foundation. At this retreat, we were
grateful to have representants of each of the five
partner foundations present at once: a first!
Meetings on the island happen amidst a soundscape of quiet waves, chirping pileated woodpeckers
and the sound of crackling leaves. Wonderful smells
permeate as the devoted team cooks up the evening
meal.
It is the perfect place to take a step back and
reflect on our work in a deeper, slower way.
In August 2017, 22 practitioners, funders, academics
and artists from nine countries gathered at Wasan
Island in Canada to reflect on how networks can
strengthen their positive social impact, their resilience and adaptability to respond to global challenges.
The idea to this retreat was born in February
2017 during an annual meeting of the partners of the
“Wasan Places” invited by Helga Breuninger Foundation to Paretz (Germany). We identified the topics of
“Network of Networks” and “Impactful Networks” as
relevant for all us.
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McConnell Foundation partnered with others
to create the 10-year network experiment of SiG
(2007-2017) to foster a Canadian ecosystem for
system change,
Community Foundations of Canada entered
a new stage in development of the network of
nearly 200 members in Canada,
the growing Impact Hub Network now consists
of 95 Impact Hubs with 16.000 members,
Breuninger Stiftung supports the exchange of
placemakers and a global network of “Wasan
Places”,
BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt coordinates a
global Responsible Leaders Network, and
Robert Bosch Stiftung in 2017 founded the International Alumni Center, a Thing- and Do-Tank
for alumni communities with social impact.
We decided to start a coordinated exchange on generative networks and to invite colleagues from North
America and Europe to a retreat in summer 2017 on
Wasan Island.
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Design of the Retreat
A networked approach was a guiding principle in the
design and process of the retreat, as well as it being
the focus of the retreat.
In practice, there are several ways to design
using a network approach. We played with power dynamics, developing a non-hierarchical atmosphere
in which there were no experts: everyone felt comfortable sharing and engaging honestly. The facilitation was shared, fluid and flexible. Facilitators were
not there to direct or lead. We used nature and the
magic of the island to support the deep discussions
and working sessions – participants could be found
on walks in pairs, or sitting a dock, flip chart paper
flapping in the wind. We believe this connection
with nature helped deepen relationships.
The retreat was designed around the questions
participants arrived with, not around a predetermined, fixed agenda. The process supported the
retreat’s purpose - for participants to learn from
together and to develop strategies. Taking a network
approach in the design enabled us to create an environment where anything could be shared and said.
‘A detour through relationships is the fastest
way to success.’ (Helga Breuninger)
The Connecting Global Networks Retreat was rich
in insights and observations. Some of those insights
centered around the organization of the retreat itself.
Attendees appreciated the opportunity to slow down
and reflect in the setting of Wasan Island. In fact, a
resounding theme was the importance of building
places of belonging and connection, like the Breuninger Foundation has done at Wasan Island in Canada
or at Paretz in Germany.
Attendees also appreciated the diversity of
attendees from different countries and the range
of academics, practitioners, and an artist. We were
lucky to have the presence of Helen Yung who was
tasked with bringing an artistic practice and reflections to the space. Her presence encouraged others
to think differently, unlocking further potential for
creative thinking.
Why Networks?
At the retreat, we had a conversation about why networks are important. Anna Birney kindly reflected
the collective wisdom in the following piece:
Love, human touch, joy
Trust, social capital, kinship, roots
Relationships, people, communication
Value exchange, transaction, value added
Experience, encounter, time, orchestration
Potential, serendipity, miracle, doors, opportunity
Shared intent, shared problems, putting a question
into the relationship
Adaptability, flow, strong and weak, looseness, energy
Potential to reconfigure, restructure and shift to a
new system
By Anna Birney
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Reflections
Ch a r le s l a ndry
The Civic City
We live in awkward times. The world is turning to its darker face. The
zeitgeist is one of rising anxiety. The grey zone disappears. Deep fractures
are emerging within our world. Our social and our tribal nature and our
ingroup and outgroup instincts are in tension as our world continues to
shrink and our cities become more mixed, more nomadic and more diverse.
We are in the midst of redesigning the world and all
its systems – legal, moral and political as well as the
economy and our infrastructures for a digital age.
The crucial question is: ‘will the public interest be put
centre-stage’.
Our built environment has been designed for
how we lived and worked 50 years ago and more. A
reverse engineering process is necessary to adapt to
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the digital age as well as to create new infrastructures that live within its hard-engineered fabric.
Place matters as never before in spite of our increased virtual interactions as people need physical
place to anchor themselves in. The public realm rises
dramatically in importance and as working patterns
change gathering places and especially third spaces
have renewed relevance.
The volume, velocity and variety of instantly available data streams combined the ‘anytime,
anyplace, anywhere’ phenomenon changes how we
interact with space, place and time.
Digitization represents a tectonic shift providing computing with an immense force. Its devices
are changing society and social life, culture, levels
of connectivity, the economy as well as cities. These
devices are both liberating and potentially invasive.
The impacts and influence of the digital age
are vastly stronger than some tinkering on top of
business as usual. They will be as powerful as the
climactic changes that swept through our world with
the industrial revolution 200 years ago.
Old certainties are crumbling and systems are
breaking at escalating speed. Apprehension is in the
air as we seek to invent a different kind of city. Periods of history involving mass transformation can
produce confusion: a sense of liberation combined
with a feeling of being swept along by events. It takes
a while for new ethical stances to take root or to
establish a coherent worldview that makes the most
of our increasingly nomadic world.
Taking an eagle eye view of change-making
projects across the world you detect an eager longing.
It is bursting out for this ‘Other City’ where the dictates of finance are curtailed; one that resolutely, yet
with imagination and verve, addresses the faultlines
and dilemmas of urban change and seeks to bend the
market to a bigger picture and more ethical purposes.
This is a city that: contains the ever-widening
gap between haves and have nots; that prefers to
open out to the world rather than closing in; that
sees the opportunities in problems so might lead the
way in creating the 4th clean, lean, green industrial
revolution; and that has the courage to deal with the
creeping corruption and criminality that pervades
so much of public life and erodes the civic fabric.
This is perhaps the Civic City where togetherness in difference meet and mix well. It tries to find
a pathway through the major faultlines, dilemmas
and potentials of our time – shared lives, inequality,
environmental distress, urban vitality, the desire
for involvement and engagement and most importantly, at a personal level, the longing for meaning
and a sense of wholeness. So, this is a place where we
reinvent anchorage, an urban commons, connection,
possibility and inspiration.
“The people must come first. Where they do not, sooner or later, they will overthrow their governments. The technology that is fueling
the transformation of the social and economic order within nations – from hierarchies to networks – gives the people more power to
destabilize politics than ever before. Their governments also have more power than ever before, but borders and walls, whether physical or digital, cannot ultimately contain the power of a connected citizenry.
Open societies, open governments, and an open international system are risky propositions. But they are humankind’s best
hope for harnessing the power not only of states but also of businesses, universities, civic organizations, and citizens to address the
planetary problems that now touch us all.”
- Anne Marie Slaughter1
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How to Succeed in the Networked World: A Grand Strategy for the Digital Age”, Foreign Policy, NovemberDecember 2016
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helen y ung
Networks and Polyamory
At the retreat someone asked me, “What is a secondary operating system?”
I hesitated, then reached for a metaphor instead: “It’s like if you had a second home. Another household, with another partner, and so you got to
run that household differently. Do things differently. And if what you learn
in that home, in that relation, you might sometimes bring back to your
other home.”
Polyamory is the practice of having many ‘romantic
or sexual partners’. I suggest you think of it, literally,
as the practice of having ‘many loves’. Author and
Jungian analyst Robert Johnson writes,
“Sanskrit has 96 words for love; ancient Persian has 80, Greek
three, and English only one. This is indicative of the poverty
of awareness or emphasis that we give to that tremendously
important realm of feeling.”
Humans love in many more ways than we
can name. Polyamorous people love many – openly
sharing their lives with more than one partner. Each
love is distinct – a different relation, a different commitment, a different offering. As humans, we grow
through relationships. Our experience of the world –
mentally and physiologically – is changed when we
are in contact with others – particularly when their
systems are not like ours. We live larger through our
relations.
Life is enriched by pluralism – “the energetic
engagement with diversity.”
What do networks have to learn from polyamory? What does polyamory give us to consider about
the network mindset?
Polyamory is different from dating, or promiscuity, because it is committed and transparent.
The network mindset is different from ‚networking‘
because there is commitment to playful discovery, to
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mutuality, to collaboration. The emphasis is developmental, not transactional.
Polyamory calls attention to eros, passion, in
our discussion of ‘networks’ and the ‘network mindset’. What motivates you? What drives you? Plato
argues that eros helps the soul recall knowledge
of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of
higher truth.
Polyamory recalls, too, the corporeal, recalls
the body to the conversation about capital, resource
and information flows… The network transcends
while simultaneously is animated, enlivened by the
flesh. Networks pull, push, drag, elevate and dance
around or with the humans they serve. How they
serve is up to us.
Networks as polyamory is an exciting, provocative suggestion. The dizzying concept of freedom, the
aura of counterculture cool, the pursuit of pleasure –
all of it knit with responsibility, trust, shared values,
and willingness to be vulnerable, to communicate,
and to devise alternatives.
The network mindset is about untying some of
our ideas about the ways things have to be. What if
we allowed ourselves, our organizations, our teammates, more freedom to explore our roles? Beyond giving permission, what if we challenged each other to
be more available to discover different ways of being?
It is said that no one person can fulfill all of our
needs. We acknowledge that no one organization can,
on their own, solve any one of our social or environmental issues. The point, though, is not that we
lack the ability to act alone – but about growth and
possibility. The point is not about fear – but about
the courage to offer more of you to the world, and
to be open to receive more of the world’s gifts. To be
open to mutual joy. To be open to discovering that
you have more inside you and that you can be offered
more than you might have let yourself believe – more
talent, more insight, more wisdom, more ability,
more energy, more fulfillment. To be open to transformation. To be open to letting each connection
develop you in delicate and immense ways.
Whatever your personal opinion of polyamory
is – consider it a metaphor, a thought experiment –
what kind of lover are you? Generous, inspired,
hesitant, shy, searching, mysterious, queer, quixotic,
cherished or imaginative? In a network, how do you
bring your best self forward, and who is that?
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T im dr a imin
Partnerships Spur
Innovation Capacity:
Secondary Operating
Systems as Innovation
Catalyst
“In the last century, the competency of an organization was measured in
terms of its operational excellence… In the twenty-first century, it is going
to be measured in terms of its innovation capacity.”
- Banny Banerjee & Stefano Ceri in Creating Innovation Leaders, 2016
Most organizations are not designed to be innovative.
Compounding this, over time a natural tendency of
institutions is to become more siloed and insulated
from outside pressures, stimuli and disruptions.
This socialization process mitigates against flourishing innovation capabilities. Good ideas, says
Steven Johnson in his book Where Good Ideas Come
From, “want to connect, fuse, recombine…to reinvent
themselves by crossing conceptual borders... When
one looks at innovation in nature and in culture,
environments that build walls around good ideas
tend to be less innovative in the long run than more
open-ended environments.”1
In other words, we need porous organizations. “Organizations with porous boundaries,” explains the
nonprofit consultancy Bridgespan, “have leaders and
structures that encourage the free flow of ideas and
information within the organization and between
their organizations and the outside world. They actively fight against the intellectual insularity that often develops within teams, silos, and organizations.”2
The pace of change in the 21st century is making
unrelenting demands on organizations to be able to
change and adapt. If a leader is interested in intro-
2
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Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From,
Riverhead Books: 2010
Laura Lanzerotti, Daniel Pike, and Nidhi Sahni
with Amira Bliss, The Bridgespan Group,
Building the Capacity to Innovate: A Guide for
Nonprofits, 2017 (PDF)
ducing more innovative mindsets, approaches and
change-producing processes, what are strategies he
or she can pursue?
One option is to establish a “secondary operating system,” a strategy developed by Harvard’s John
Kotter. While all organizations have a primordial
focus on their primary goals and role, they can find a
way to create a secondary, or dual, operating system
that allows them to pursue new ideas in a context
relieved of the pressures of the primary operating
system.
“The solution,” writes John Kotter in Harvard
Business Review3, “is a second operating system,
devoted to the design and implementation of strategy, that uses an agile, network-like structure and
a very different set of processes. The new operating
system continually assesses the business, the industry, and the organization, and reacts with greater
agility, speed, and creativity than the existing one. It
complements rather than overburdens the traditional hierarchy, thus freeing the latter to do what it’s
optimized to do.”
Kotter has developed a set of principles to
empower a secondary operating system approach
including: creating urgency around a big opportunity, establishing a volunteer team of passionate people
capable of overcoming institutional barriers by
tapping into many change agents, giving them real
permission to innovate and lead, identifying and removing barriers to change, and ensuring the organization sustains two systems maintaining a dynamic
flow of information and activity between them.
Stephen Huddart, President and CEO of the McConnell Foundation, developed a variant of Kotter’s
secondary operating system. As he explained at the
2017 SIX Funders’ Node, he used McConnell’s active
participation in the Social Innovation Generation
(SiG) partnership (2007-2017) as the foundation’s
complementary system and source of new ideas.
SiG’s partners (which besides McConnell included a university, an innovation convergence hub,
and an innovative nonprofit) explored and experimented in depth with many new ideas including:
social finance and mission-related investing, social
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innovation labs, social innovation education and acceleration programming. Through its involvement in
these SiG activities, McConnell was exposed to many
new ideas and connected with practitioners leading
proven innovations. SiG became a gateway through
which new ideas and new relationships enriched and
empowered internal McConnell changemakers and
shifted culture.
In turn this led to new experiments being pursued directly by the foundation’s staff. They covered
grantmaking, capacity building, program research
and program prototyping. SiG became a type of
on-demand resource that provided not just a wealth
of ideas but more direct access to personal advice
and coaching for McConnell initiatives and change
processes.
The result? Today McConnell is recognized
as one of Canada’s leading practitioners of social
innovation through grantmaking, capacity building,
policy advocacy, multi-stakeholder initiatives (on
topics as diverse as climate change, mental health,
food security, etc), and open-sourcing its experiences
new policies and procedures with its peers.
“The inevitable failures of single operating systems hurt us now,” says John Kotter. “They are going
to kill us in the future. The 21st century will force
us all to evolve toward a fundamentally new form of
organization…” Secondary operating systems are a
valuable means for social purpose organizations – as
well as businesses – to make these transitions.
John Kotter, “Accelerate! How the most innovative companies capitalize on today’s rapidfire strategic challenges—and still make their
numbers,” Harvard Business Review, November
2012
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T hom a s V ell aCoT T
Ecosystem strategising
1. the challeNge to cl a ssIcal
b u s I N e s s s t R at e g y
Classical approaches to business strategy, as practised in many companies and non-profit organisations today, commonly have as their outcome a
strategic plan. In the process of formulating such a
plan, management analyses an organisation‘s surroundings, its position and its specific competencies.
Management then formulates an intended response,
based on this analysis, often in the shape of a plan
that includes a long-term vision, multi-year objectives and a more or less detailed plan of activities,
by which to achieve the set objectives. Performance
indicators are defined, either activity-based (milestones), performance-based (e.g. EBIT) or defined
relative to competitors (e.g. market share, brand
perception) – or a mix of the three.
Strategic plans are often based on four assumptions
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The medium-term future is broadly knowable
Industry structure and political conditions are
stable or change in a predictable fashion
Industry dynamics are primarily competitive
Strategy formulation and implementation are
distinct phases
Cascading objectives down the organisation
enable each employee to make their contribution to the overall strategy
In many industries today, these assumptions no
longer hold. Industry certainties are being fundamentally challenged, such as the energy sector being
disrupted by rapidly sinking costs of electricity from
solar and wind. Companies’ average lifespans have
shortened dramatically and new competitors come
to dominate markets almost overnight. Political parties that once dominated national politics are being
eclipsed by newcomers.
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The value of a three-year strategic plan diminishes quickly in times of high uncertainty. However,
despite fundamental changes in their surroundings,
many organisations cling to the classical approach to
strategy and continue to produce multi-year strategic plans. Their response to greater uncertainty and
faster change is to increase the frequency with which
strategic plans are reviewed and adapted, but neither
the rigid approach nor the underlying assumptions
are questioned. Too often, this results in a vicious
circle, where the increased frequency of strategic
planning overwhelms an organisation, which in turn
leads to superficial analysis (SWOT analysis, anyone?), necessitating ever more frequent review and
adaptation.
2 . e c o s y s t e m s t R at e g I s I N g
What is called for in today’s highly uncertain conditions is an approach to strategy that starts by redefining the outcome of strategy: The outcome is not
a product, the strategic plan, but rather an ongoing
process, a set of conversations. Strategising, in this
sense, ceases to be a distinct phase that is repeated
at regular intervals, but rather becomes an ongoing
reflection, inseparably intertwined with implementation. This allows new people joining the organisation to become part of the strategising conversations
from day one. They are not asked to simply accept
the strategy their elders wrote, but become part of an
ongoing process of challenging and fine-tuning the
direction of the organisation. ‘A set of conversations’
may sound vague, and to avoid a lack of precision,
the current stage of each of these conversations
should be regularly summarised, in order to provide
a succinct articulation for anyone joining the conversation, seeking a quick overview or needing to
communicate it.
Such an approach to strategising focuses
on creating platforms for conversations around
three themes: Impact, ecosystem and experiments.
Ideally, these conversations will involve both an
organisation’s staff as well as outsiders. A platform
for conversations shared among different actors
within an ecosystem allows them to calibrate and
align their views of impact, ecosystem and experiments.
2 .1 . I m pac t
Non-profit organisations, by definition, aim to
achieve societal impacts. More recently, a growing
number of for-profit companies also aim to contribute to broader societal goals. When formulating their
impact contribution, both non-profit and for-profit
organisations risk falling into one of two traps: To
make unhelpfully vague statements of intent (‘We
aim to give back to the communities where we operate’) or to get bogged down in arguments over attribution (‘That’s my impact, not yours.’).
Instead, organisations should create platforms
for an open and ongoing dialogue about impact by
discussing metrics and sharing stories.
2 .1 .1 . m e t R I c s
The dialogue about metrics usefully focuses on three
levels.
The natural place to start is to ask whether
positive or negative change is occurring at the macro
level: Are poverty rates rising or declining? Are we
on track to limit climate change to less than 2ºC?
Are species numbers going up or down? Does the
picture differ depending on region? What explains
the trends? Note that this is not about what ‘we’ as
an organisation are achieving, but whether ‘we’ as in
all the actors together are making a difference: Are
we collectively bending the curves? Since the world’s
governments agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, there is a shared set of
goals and indicators which can help understand
changes at the macro level. By referencing the SDGs,
organisations can link their own dialogue about
impact into the broader conversation about progress
against the SDGs.
The second level focuses on the contributions
that an individual organisation is making to collec-
19
tive impact. This is not the tired discussion of who
should rightfully be allowed to claim certain impacts. Instead, the dialogue at this level asks different
stakeholders in what way and to what effect one’s
organisation contributed to collective impact. The
aim is not to out-compete each other, but to better
understand how the ecosystem of actors functions,
who contributes what, how effective a role one’s own
organisation plays and what we can learn to further
enhance the ecosystem’s collective impact. A word
on competition: Often competition in the commercial arena coexists with cooperation on impact. Two
retailers may be bitter adversaries when it comes
to growing market share and margins, but happily
work together on greening their supply chain, thereby increasing their collective impact.
The third level of dialogue discusses an individual organisation‘s health. Just as a single organisation may be healthy but fail to have impact because
the larger ecosystem is weak, so for an ecosystem to
thrive, it depends on its constituent organisations
being in good health. ‘Health’ includes financial
resilience (not limited to short term financial performance) as well as measures such as access to talent
and employee satisfaction.
The dialogue about metrics at the levels of impact, ecosystem and organisation will include both
a discussion of what the right metrics are and, more
importantly, what their readings mean and what
hypotheses might explain emerging trends.
2 .1 . 2 . s t o R I e s
A dialogue about metrics is important, but, on its own,
insufficient. It needs to be supplemented by stories to
provide context, interpretation and inspiration.
Stories make impact come alive and link the
three levels of metrics (e.g. illustrating how organisational health enabled an organisation to contribute
to the impact of the broader ecosystem). Different
stories about what the desired future looks like help
illustrate impact metrics and calibrate different
visions. The aim is not to come up with one sanitised
‘corporate vision’ for the entire organisation or coalition of organisations, but rather to inspire and build
on each other‘s vision. Stories about past successes
help different actors understand how the ecosystem
functions, define what success looks like and provide
motivation for current struggles. Stories of failures,
possibly the most valuable of all, help identify and
share learnings.
20
2 . 2 ecos ys tem
The second platform for conversation revolves
around the question of what role one’s organisation
should play to enhance the impact of the broader
ecosystem. This builds on the learnings from the
second level of the metrics dialogue described above,
but goes beyond understanding the organisation’s
current role to defining the future role and what
competencies, partnerships and values are necessary
to successfully play this role.
Roles vary. Beyond the obvious description
of an organisation‘s geographical or thematic focal
areas, it‘s worth considering the level of intervention – do we tackle an issue directly or work on the
underlying drivers and root causes – and whether
the organisation is focused on implementation or
on enabling others to implement. Organisations are
rarely one or the other. Instead, roles vary from one
area to the next. Also, some degree of direct implementation experience may be necessary to be a good
enabler/orchestrator of others. Still, the skill set for
working on species loss in the field is very different
from what’s required to influence the financial flows
causing species loss, although the ultimate objective may be identical. Roles evolve over time, often
starting with a strong focus on an immediate level
of intervention and on direct implementation. As
the organisation grows more experienced, this role
may shift to addressing underlying root causes and
working through others, in order to effect change at
greater scale.
There is no right or wrong role for an organisation, but there can be a mismatch between the role
aspired to and the competencies brought to the table:
We might be running a highly effective communitybased poverty reduction scheme. If we decide that
subsidies and trade regimes are an important root
cause driving poverty, we need to first acquire a very
different skill set if we want to effectively intervene
at this very different level. Acquiring the necessary skills can be done within the organisation or
through strategic partnerships, the latter often being
faster. In such a partnership, two or more organisations with complimentary skills team up to work on
shared objectives, each bringing their very specific
strengths to the table. The partnerships an organisation choses to enter into should be the result of the
role it defines for itself and the skills this requires. It
necessitates an honest assessment of the competen-
cies required and where these can be found, in and
outside the organisation.
Finally, the role an organisation chooses to play
requires not just a specific skill set, but also a set of
values that correspond to the role envisaged. For
example, an orchestrator role requires that relationships and alliance building are highly valued. It also
means an organisation needs to have the humility
required to be content working behind the scenes,
leaving the spotlight to others.
2 . 3 expeR ImeNts
When surroundings change rapidly and unpredictably, detailed planning loses much of its value. At
the same time, experimentation gains in importance.
Experiments allow an organisation to take risks,
make mistakes and learn – all while limiting the
downside risk in case things go wrong.
Experimentation is not the same as aimless
wandering. It involves a rigorous process of assembling teams, designing prototypes, testing different
options, seeking early feedback, collecting data and
rapidly adapting one’s approach based on stakeholders’ reactions.
Experiments can take place at different scales,
from one-person efforts to multi-locational initiatives, lasting anything from a few weeks to several
months.
Distinguishing between experiments on the
one hand and the projects and activities common
in more classical approaches to strategy on the
other may seem like mere semantics. The difference, however, is considerable. In a planning-based
approach, management fixes objectives and defines
multi-staged activities, believed to lead to achieving
these objectives. Experimentation based strategising
tests a hypothesis, but assumes a number of possible outcomes, the further direction being entirely
dependent on the learnings from the experiment.
Successfully running experiments and building and
managing a portfolio of experiments, requires a specific set of skills and values, very different from the
planningbased cultures of common to many established organisations.
Experimentation-based strategy involves
assembling a portfolio of experiments, each testing a
specific hypothesis. Conversations about the portfolio of experiments allow learnings to feed back into
the conversations about impact and about the ecosystem, as described above. While experimentation
may (and should) take place at all levels and as part
of any activity, enabling continuous improvement,
the portfolio of experiments being managed by an
organisation’s leadership will make up only a small
proportion of all activities. Leaders will pay disproportionate attention to these experiments. They will
want to ensure rigour, sufficient resourcing and a
strong focus on sharing learnings across individual
experiments. If an experiment proves successful,
leadership will want to scale it up, mainstreaming it
and adapting its operations accordingly.
Replacing the classical strategic plan by dynamic conversations about impact, ecosystem and
experiments enables organisations to quickly adapt
to changing circumstances, speed up learning and
thrive both as individual organisations as well as in
their role as participants in broader ecosystems.
21
g a b r iel a g a ndel a nd T hom a s V ell aCoT T
World Wildlife Fund and
Impact Hub: A Case Study
The partnership between Impact Hub (IH) and WWF builds on 6 years of
collaboration foremost between WWF Switzerland and IH Zurich – with a
focus on the incubation of environmental solutions – or WWF Switzerland
and IH Global – which explored joint learning & prototyping activities
around communities of practice and impact measurement. The new phase
of the partnership aims to scale the joint programs and workshops, share
learning across borders, onboard new offices to the partnership and build a
deep strategic alliance in each country and across borders.
the W Wf ’s peR spectI ve oN the
pa R t N e R s h I p
Innovation is essential for natural conservation to
achieve transformational impact faster. Our goal
of the partnership is to find, accelerate, and scale
solutions to tackle the world’s most pressing environmental challenges as well as create economic
opportunity for local communities.
Three examples how the partnership shapes up in
practice
•
I m pac t h u b ’ s p e R s p e c t I v e o N t h e
pa R t N e R s h I p
Many of the social entrepreneurs supported by IHs
address themes like energy, food, and oceans, some
of WWF’s key focus areas. Together we aim to convene innovators from our complementing networks,
identify high potential solutions and provide these
with access to WWF’s expertise in natural conservation & scaling.
22
•
•
Sustainable Seafood Accelerator by IH Tokyo
and WWF Japan: 4 months acceleration program which builds a support ecosystem around
individuals who are implementing sustainable
seafood practices by identifying champions across the value chain of seafood, training those
through workshops and mentorship to scale
their impact and showcase their work to the
local community
Innovate 4 Nature by IH Vienna and WWF
Austria: 1 year program which starts with an
awareness raising campaign, workshop throughout Austria and a challenge where individuals
with solutions to food challenges (consumption,
production, waste) can apply to win the participation in an incubation program.
Climathon by WWF Regional Team in Africa
and IH Kigali: 2 day event where 40 stakehol-
ders from diverse backgrounds learn about the
environmental challenges of the city, do field
trips to dive into the topics, develop collaborative solutions and create an action plan to take
those forward
All three examples were done as a pilot with a smaller scale in 2016 and implemented again in 2017 using
the learnings made to redesign and increase the
scope of the programs.
otheR pRogR ams INclude
Deforestation Challenge in Sao Paulo, Fellowship
programs in Milan (plastic topic) and Manila (sustainable energy), Business Model Innovation in Zurich,
Healthy Ocean Accelerator in Amsterdam.
23
e N a b l e R s a N d b a R R I e R s o f d e e p s t R at e g I c ( v s . p R o g R a m b a s e d) c o l l a b o R at I o N
eNableR s
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
24
Shared vision and goals
Complementary skill-sets and networks to build
on each other
Needs aligned to internal organisational strategies
Champions on both sides who are first movers
and showcase the potential
Openness to pilot, experiment and learn from
different approaches to collaboration
Inspiring stories that build trust
Eye level partnership and interest on both sides
Sharing success factors & reasons for failures to
ensure the advancement of concepts for programs and events
Codification of collaboration formats (toolkits,
blueprints, etc.) that can be reused (when adapted to local circumstances)
baRRIeRs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Understanding and synchronisation of organisational:
Structure (NGO vs. Bottom Up Network with
Hybrid Legal Forms )
Process & timing
Culture & mindset (conservation vs. entrepreneur)
Unlocking sustainable funding for long term
collaboration & innovation
Who pays for programs/events?
Who pays for coordination?
Business model vs. fundraising story?
Building personal relationships between partners beyond initiators
Lack of trust
Workload on top not embedded
Partnership on eye-level
W h at d o W e d o t o o v e R c o m e t h e
baR R IeR s IN pR ac t Ice ?
1.
2.
Organisational understanding &
synchronisation:
a.
Designed workshops to support local IH
and WWF teams to get to know each other,
understand each other’s values and create
a mindset shift
b. Regular strategy & alignment sessions
and engagement of each other in
strategic development efforts (i.e. WWF
Switzerland on Advisory Council of IH
Global)
c. Visible website to promote the reasoning
behind the partnership, key success
stories and provide formats for
collaboration that have proven their
impact in local realities
Unlocking sustainable funding:
a.
Initial coordination costs covered by
WWF Switzerland. Currently, exploring
different opportunities for co-fundraising
within and outside own networks, which
requires dedicated fundraising focus on
both sides
b. Possible options for a business model
format to be explored once activities
expands
3.
Building personal relationships:
a.
On-boarding calls to share overarching
picture of the partnership and ongoing
support for the local teams while building
the relationship
b. Hosted introductions by internal WWF
and IH champions which help individuals
to ease into the relationship vs. always
start a new direct relationship
about Ih
about WWf
Impact Hubs make up a global network of people,
places, and programs that inspire, connect and catalyze impact build on the believe that change requires
collective action. Part innovation lab, part business
incubator, and part community center, the 100+ Impact Hubs around the world offer 15000+ members
around the world a unique ecosystem of resources,
inspiration, and collaboration opportunities to grow
impact.
WWF is one of the world’s largest conservation organisations with offices in more than 80 countries and
6,200 full-time employees. The organisation values
the support of more than 5 million people and over
the 50 years of its operation has followed the mission
to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live
in harmony with nature.
25
a nn a bir ne y
Learning Ecosystems
In order for networks to be impactful, knowledge needs to be mobilised
within and for the change makers who are a part of them.
We need to help them navigate their own learning –
learn how to learn. We need to support the network
members with the ability to intuit and act effectively for change. We need to connect people to the
right resources, insights and support, removing the
friction in talking to one another. We need to create
the supporting infrastructure to achieve this. By
learning together you can support individuals and
networks constantly evolve and address the complexity in achieving their goals (aligning to the SDGs for
example).
knowledge, tools, case studies, resources that already
exist – on how to create change. It would also be able
to be searchable by the domains and areas that have
originated, for example the SDGs, geographical and
sector contexts. Participants at Wasan Island are
already bringing together and creating some of this
content, including but not exclusively:
•
•
t h e pa R t s o f a l e a R N I N g s y s t e m
•
A learning system becomes the connective tissue
between the current and emerging practices of networks – supporting citizens be agents for change.
The five parts presented here are suggested as
being elements of a learning system that might work
with networks.
•
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Open source platform collating resources for
change
Gatherings of experienced practitioners –
translating knowledge
Supporting community mobilisers provide
learning experience for practitioners
Setting up a network of learning curators
Proving places to meet and convene
1 . o p e N s o u R c e p l at f o R m c o l l at I N g
ResouRces foR chaNge
Disruptive Imagining – cataloguing futures
techniques
Academy for Systems Change – developing content on systems change from their network
ESADA Business school –Social Innovation
Labs
SIG/ SIX – social innovation knowledge hub
Impact Hubs and methods of Art of Hosting
The School of System Change is already in the process of collating many of the tools, case studies and
key practitioners in an interactive map of the Frameworks of the field (see below). We are also exploring
how it can be a navigation guide for practitioners to
help them design and implement their change work.
This might form the beginning of such a self-organisation contribution platform.
However, knowledge accumulation is nothing
without the living organism that surrounds and
supports it. We need to create not just a database but
support a learning system around it.
2 . g at h e R I N g o f e x p e R I e N c e d
p R a c t I t I o N e R s – t R a N s l at I N g
kNoWledge
A wiki is a website or database developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user
to add and edit content. Standing on the shoulders
of giants – Such a platform would link together the
26
To help the emerging field see itself, the practitioners
who have been developing experience in delivering
change in these different areas need to be brought
together. This gathering would help contributors not
only share their own knowledge but learn from each
other. Knowledge and materials also need to be made
more accessible and engaging to emerging practitioners, alongside these gathering communicators,
editors, artists can be brought in to help translate the
work into different channels.
3. suppoRt INg commuNI t y mobIlIseR s
p R ov I d e l e a R N I N g e x p e R I e N c e s f o R
p R ac t I t I o N e R s
Many networks have nodes with people whose role it
is to specifically support their networks learning and
knowledge. Examples include:
•
•
•
•
Community foundation exchange in Canada
Impact Hub hosts across the Globe
Members of the SIX network
Groups within the Bosch Alumni Network
4. set t INg up a Net WoRk of le aRNINg
c u R at o R s
A learning system will not be useful or a living entity
without the intentional feedback loops that support
learning. This system will set up networks of journalist, ethnographic researchers, learning curators who
would help create stories of transformation, case
studies and act as pollinating bees to feed and crosspollinate within the platform. This can also support
a developmental evaluation process, that can follow
experiments and start to both demonstrate the value
of taking these approaches as well as tracking and
reporting on impact.
5 . p R ov I d I N g p l a c e s t o m e e t a N d
coNveNe
These community mobilisers are usually local, connected into the needs of the practitioners and can
play a role in supporting the networks learning and
capacity. They often do not have all the resources
they need to design learning programmes and pull
together tools and knowledge for their network.
A system of support that can be adopted and
adapted locally by these mobilisers needs to be codeveloped and tested. Steps that would need to be
taken include:
Networks, as groups of people, need to meet and
come together to share and learn. This usually happens in spaces and places. A network of places, such
as Impact Hubs or other places where civil society
might come together could be created to support the
overall learning system.
A digital learning environment – that is self-organising and sits alongside the wiki might be created
to support learners in and across different networks.
A continual piece of work from this retreat is to
explore what this learning environment might look
like for different networks.
1.
suggested possIble Nex t steps
2.
3.
Identify the potential mobilisers who you can
design a system with together, prototyping and
refining the approach to supporting learning in
their networks
Support mobilisers as a learning community
Codify and refine the approach – putting in
place the backbone function enabling others to
adopt.
The School of System Change have already started piloting a learning package – Basecamp – that
can support practitioners navigate the field of practice and enable them to be learners. We are currently
pulling together a Basecamp Design Toolkit which
could be one of the ways to support the need of these
mobilisers. We are also looking at the backbone operating and business model that might support these
community mobilisers deliver such programmes and
other learning experiences.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Find the funding and resources to continue to
curate the open source platform – testing the
need and format
Host the gathering of experienced practitioners
in 2018
Find community mobilisers who are willing to
test and trail the learning approach
Develop and prototype a learning curator
approach
Explore how to create local and digital places
for learning
27
K aT her ine WaT son
Leadership in spaces of
intersection; Are we ready?
The subtitle “Are we ready?” is explicitly a question to all of us, collectively –
it is a provocation. I know that I cannot answer the question and I suspect – I hope – that my reflections will raise more questions in your minds.
Asking powerful and challenging questions is fundamental to 21st century
leadership. Leading and learning – and unlearning – are two sides of the
same coin.
There is one definition and distinction that I would
like to get out of the way at the outset – I am keen to
talk to you about leadership – not leaders. Leadership is a capability, not a position. Leadership is a
potent combination of ingredients and most importantly, leadership can come from anywhere – not
exclusively “the top”. In fact we need much more
leadership and the recoginition of a full range of leadership attributes rather than exclusively searching
and yearning for answers and direction from heroic
“leaders”
The arc of my reflection begins with: What are
some of the powerful influences that are shaping the
world we live in? (What are the lines?) What energies
do we need to harness in order to transition to a future that is equitable, sustainable and just for everyone? What spaces must we enter into – to colour and
to be coloured by? And finally…. What is the nature
of leadership that we need to unearth and nurture?
Certainly the digital shift has marked our recent past, our present and future – it was a phenomenal change for my generation but many of you – digital natives – have been born into it. In the wake of
this shift, I would like to highlight four interrelated
forces or influences: 1) Speed of change; 2) the increased scale of the global challenges with which we are
28
faced; 3) movement and mobility; and 4) the potential
of connectivity and interdependence to address our
challenges.
Marshall McLuhan notably said “Today each of
us lives several hundred years in a decade.” Speed is
a consideration in this thought but also an increasing
understanding of multidimensionality (as opposed
to linearity) – the conflating of time and space.
This speed of this change has impacted the way
we think, interact, experience and consequently we
need to think about how education should change,
how our public engagement changes, how our systems should evolve, how we can better problem solve,
build and share knowledge – in far different ways.
scale of challeNges
The scale of challenges we face cannot be addressed
in singular ways and by the institutions that have
grown over the past generations. Alliances and
alignment for impact – collective impact – is crucial.
We cannot unpick the entangled global environmental, economic, political, and cultural crises – through
simple cause and effect analysis. Past solutions are
out of sync and the speed at which everything moves
is overwhelming.
Speed of change and scale of challenges means
that we cannot expect to research, gather information, reflect and make a clear and fool-proof analysis
in order to arrive at fully informed choices – which is
certainly how we have been accustomed to working
and most definitely how much policy has been developed. Please do not misinterpret this as my saying
that the time for research and reflection is past – certainly not. However, we need to make closer connections to practice and lived experience and we may
need to make the best informed choice at any given
moment – to risk more. And we absolutely need to
be more inclusive in the perspectives we bring to any
given problem.
m ov e m e N t a N d m o b I l I t y
Hand-in-hand with speed and enabling technologies,
everything in our world is in movement or impacted
by movement – people, ideas, goods, information,
communication, organisations, institutions. This
movement, by consequence, brings change – change
that is rife with opportunities and challenges. You
and I are privileged in that we move by choice and
the systems that we have built have fostered the
inherent opportunities from which we benefit. At the
same time, global upheaval has resulted in unprecedented forced movement from peripheries to centres,
from places of scarcity to places of abundance, from
places of despair to places of hope.
Where tethered technology meant that one was
interacting, engaging, learning from a fixed place –
mobile means that the engagement goes back into
the real world. We can order thinking and engage
with others in ways not considered before – juxtapose, connect and relate – and construct meaning out of
these relationships.
coNNec t I v I t y
Movement and mobility brings intersections that
have contradicting outcomes that we see in somewhat equal measure – connection and disconnection – convergence and divergence – collision and
collusion. We need to recognize and understand
these conflicting results – levering the positive and
countering the negative – in order to benefit from the
power of connectivity and the potential to address
global challenges of such increased scale.
Despite these inherent conflicts, the greatest potential of connection remains that it can help us to see
ourselves as part of an ecosystem, a great network
29
that is interdependent and requires systems thinking and systems acting. Connection has the power
to move us from “I to we”.
s pac e s o f I N t e R s e c t I o N
Given that movement has facilitated our “relocation” – either physically or through ideas and concepts – it also allows us to interact and to enter into
spaces of intersection.
This is the space “in between” – one can see this
as an interstitial space, a gap – a space of transition –
a space of “nothing”, a buffer and in fact a deepening
and widening gulf between the two (or more) spheres
that are approaching one another. Or – it can be a
rich space of exchange where 1+1 becomes 3 – where the perspectives and differences of each bring
a new reality. There is excitement and possibility
that grows in the spaces in between. We sometimes
stumble into these spaces unexpectedly and need
to figure out how to navigate them. But rather than
happening onto (and into) them by chance, we should
eagerly seek them out and boldly step in with a spirit
of exploration, opportunity and experiment.
30
l e a d e R s h I p I N s pa c e s o f I N t e R s e c t I o N
Given this understanding of spaces of intersection –
who leads and how? I would like to illustrate and
speak of “ingredients” for leadership, rather than
qualities. Intersection and new practices that emerge
from them demand new ingredients. 21st century
leadership will both seek out spaces of intersection,
fostering the exciting “spaces in between” and new
forms of leadership will emerge from unexpected
places within these spaces.
Leadership by necessity should follow purpose – purpose or value that is bigger than self, bigger
than a single organisation, or a specific and focused
mission and recognize where the actions fit in a larger ecosystem that is working towards change – leadership considers “we” and not “I”. Leadership means
not knowing the answer but asks vital questions –
challenging beliefs that stand in the way of a better
world. It galvanises people around the questions to
seek shared answers – with others, not for others.
Jayne Ifekwunigwe in her essay, “When commoning
strategies travel” wrote: “We can build a shelter by
ourselves, but we need more than two hands to make
a home.”
Leadership recognizes where it can act and
sees how this action connects to bigger issues. It recognizes the contribution to the greater whole, sees
where it fits in a solution. Leadership does not think
and act in silos and actively seeks to build bridges
between silos. Leadership understands independence in an interdependent system.
Leadership animates networks by being a hub
in a wider ecosystem.
Leadership considers its value in terms of
building social capital. To quote Charles Landry,
“With financial capital the more you spend, the less
you have, with social capital, the more you spend, the
more you get.”
Leadership is the courage to enter into the
unfamiliar – to bring others along and help them in
their own anxiety. But it also the willingness to be
led when another opportunity presents itself.
Leadership facilitates visioning and becomes
part of a shared vision, rather than being the vision,
or owning the vision. Reaching that vision requires
actively listening, empathy and the willingness to
shift and adapt – seeing and following new pathways
as they open up. It is responsive, flexible and adaptive in the face of the speed of change.
Leadership is recognising what you do not
know – what perspectives can be brought to the table
to bring knowledge that you do not have – it is open,
inclusive and values and respects all perspectives
equally. Leadership brokers knowledge – it is always
learning and co-learning, rather than being the font
of all wisdom.
Leadership trusts and knows that effectively
working together and achieving shared impact
moves only “at the speed of trust”.
Leadership is curious, responsive and reflective – it recognizes patterns and sees connections and
acts and engages on multiple levels.
Leadership builds agency – recognizes, shares
and passes on leadership – everywhere that leadership is needed – be it setting out in new directions,
“mainstreaming” and scaling, building bridges, translating and bringing change.
Leadership fosters the myriad of possibilities,
not one view – what could be, not what will be.
Leadership is responsibility, action and “doing
what you can”.
31
32
Colophon
For those who weren’t present, we hope this report gives you a glimpse of
the content and spirit of the retreat. We invite you to reach out, join our
ecosystem, and let networked thinking work its magic on your organization and your partners.
We identified many next steps at the end of the
retreat. These commitments revolved around four
themes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Include a practice of networked thinking in
individual organizations (e.g. Review governing
structure of the organization, introduce the
board to networked thinking, bring networked
intent to organizational culture);
Collaborate with other attendees on a given
project;
Link various networks nationally and
internationally;
Co-develop the networks ecosystem.
We’d love to hear from you. If you want to chat, please email Darius Polok darius.polok@iac-berlin.org
The retreat was planned and designed by Tim
Draimin, Hinnerk Hansen and Darius Polok. Louise
Pulford at Social Innovation Exchange (SiX) (www.
socialinnovationexchange.org) and Niamh Leonard
at the McConnell Foundation (https://mcconnellfoundation.ca/) facilitated the retreat together and
penned the documentation of our reflections.
We owe deep gratitude to Kelsey Spitz from Social
Innovation Generation (SiG) for helping plan and
design the retreat. We thank Volker Hann, Helga
Breuninger, and the entire Wasan Island team for
being so warm and welcoming. You create a truly
magical environment.
Many thanks as well to all the attendees. You
each brought a valuable and unique perspective to
the discussions.
Like the design and facilitation of the Wasan
Island retreat, this report is a collaboration: we thank
all those who contributed pictures and writing to
this piece. Your works make this report come alive,
and help illustrate the collaborative nature of the
retreat and the ensuing work.
coNteNt edI toR s
Niamh Leonard, Louise Pulford & Darius Polok
l a N g ua g e e d I t I N g
v I s ua l c o N c e p t a N d d e s I g N
Maxim Neroda
photos
Tim Draimin, Volker Hann, Niamh Leonard,
Darius Polok
33
A ppendi x 1
Participants
I a N b I R d , Community Foundations of Canada
a N N a b I R N e y, School of System Change; System Innovation Lab, Forum for the Future
h e l g a b R e u N I N g e R , Helga Breuninger Stiftung
m a R ta c e R o N I , Academy for Systems Change (also MIT)
t I m d R a I m I N , SiG National
g a b R I e l a g a N d e l , Impact Hub Global
l o t f I e l - g h a N d o u R I , Creative Society Group
m a R k u s h I p p, BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt
k I R s t e N h o m m e l h o f f, Mercator Foundation
s t e p h e N h u d da R t, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
c h a R l e s l a N d Ry, International Consultant
N I a m h l e o N a R d, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
o k s a N a o R a c h e va , Vladimir Potanin Foundation
k y R I a k I pa pa g e o R g I o u , ESADE Business School
da R I u s p o l o k , International Alumni Center (iac Berlin)
l o u I s e p u l f o R d , Social Innovation Exchange (SIX)
a s t R I d s c h o l z , Sphaera
va N e s s a t I m m e R , One Earth
t h o m a s v e l l a c o t t, WWF Switzerland
k at h e R I N e Wat s o N , European Cultural Foundation (ECF)
h e l e N y u N g , Artist
34
A ppendi x 2
Suggested Reading
1.
“Of the network” and “A networked organization,” by Cassie Robinson, Strategic Design
Director at Doteveryone (Medium, 2017)
2. “Achieving Greater Impact through Systems and Platforms,” by John Hagel, co-chairman,
Deloitte LLP Center for the Edge, and Gemma Mortensen, chief global officer, Change.org
(Medium, 2017)
3. “Seeing the connectedness of things is the starting point for understanding a world that
otherwise appears baffling…Connexity Revisited”, by Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive of
Nesta, in Network Logic: Who Governs in an Interconnected World? (Demos, 2004)
4. “Surmountable Chasms: Networks and Social Innovation for Resilient Systems,” by
Michele-Lee Moore, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University
of Victoria, and Frances Westley, The J.W. McConnell chair in social innovation at the
University of Waterloo, in Ecology & Society (16)1, part of a Special Feature on Resilience
Through Multi-scalar Collaboration (2011)
5. “Accelerate! How the most innovative companies capitalize on today’s rapid-fire strategic
challenges—and still make their numbers” by John Kotter in the Harvard Business
Review, November 2012
6. “Building the Capacity to Innovate: A Guide for Nonprofits” by Laura Lanzerotti, Daniel
Pike, and Nidhi Sahni with Amira Bliss, The Bridgespan Group, 2017
7. “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” by Steven Johnson,
Riverhead Books: 2010
8. „Complexity in Networks: A Guided Tour“ by Melanie Mitchell, Professor of Computer
Science at Portland State University (YouTube video, 2010)
9. “Participate: The Power of Involving Business in Social Impact Networks” by Anna Muoio,
core team at Monitor Institute, and Noah Rimland Flower (Monitor Institute, Deloitte,
and Rockefeller Foundation, 2016)
10. “How to Succeed in the Networked World: A Grand Strategy for the Digital Age” Article
by Anne-Marie Slaughter, current President and CEO of New America (Foreign Affairs,
November/December 2016), summarizing some themes of her book listed below.
11. The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World by AnneMarie Slaughter (Yale University Press, 2017)
12. Fostering a Canadian Ecosystem for System Change by Geraldine Cahill & Kelsey Spitz
(SiG 2017)
35
Partner
We see ourselves faced with powerful challenges: the
problems arising from climate change, the financial
crisis and growing poverty can no longer be solved within the “classical” structures of politics and
administration alone. What is needed is a process of
rethinking, new approaches and more commitment
from all involved. We are convinced that we can effect this necessary change only as a civil society. For
this we must create new forms of participation and
strengthen the individual sense of responsibility. We
work on a local, national and international basis and
cooperate with people who have set out to foster integrated, sustainable and interlinked ways of thinking
and acting. We invest in the ability of people to learn,
to cooperate and to lead. We initiate and set up networks and establish platforms with those who have
ideas and visions for the 21st century. Through our
work we wish to contribute to making this century a
just and peaceful one.
www.breuninger-stiftung.de
areas: Migration, Integration, and Inclusion, Social Cohesion in Germany and Europe, Sustainable
Living Spaces.
Since it was established in 1964, the Robert
Bosch Stiftung has invested more than 1.4 billion
euros in charitable work.
www.bosch-stiftung.de
J. W. McConnell Family Foundation is a private
philanthropic organization funding programs that
support Canadians in building a more innovative,
inclusive, sustainable, and resilient society. The core
purpose of the Foundation has remained constant
since its founding: to improve the quality of life in
Canada by building communities that help people
develop their potential and contribute to the common good. The vision is a Canada where all people
feel a sense of belonging and contribute as active
citizens to improving the well-being of all.
www.mcconnellfoundation.ca
The Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH is one of Europe’s
largest foundations associated with a private company. In its charitable work, it addresses social issues at
an early stage and develops exemplary solutions. For
this purpose, it plans and implements its own projects. Additionally, it supports third-party initiatives
that have similar goals. The Robert Bosch Stiftung is
active in the areas of health, science, society, education, and international relations.
Moreover, in the coming years, the Foundation
will increasingly direct its activities on three focus
36
The BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt promotes
responsible leadership and inspires leaders worldwide to work towards a peaceful, just and sustainable
future. Through our activities, we aim to advance
the Sustainable Development Goals of the United
Nations 2030 Agenda.
We inspire leaders, through our leadership
programs and encounters, to take their social and
political commitment to the next level – across communities, cultures and countries.
We connect leaders through our global BMW
Foundation Responsible Leaders Network, a diverse,
collaborative and joyful community that drives positive change through collaborative action.
We invest in impactful organizations while
encouraging leaders to embrace venture philanthropy and impact investing as effective tools for social
change.
www.bwm-foundation.org
Social Innovation Generation (SiG) is a group who
believes that serious social problems can be solved.
Our focus is on fostering social innovation to achieve
impact, durability and scale by engaging the creativity and resources of all sectors.
SiG seeks to address Canada’s social and ecological challenges by creating a culture of continuous
social innovation. Our focus is on social innovation
that has the potential for impact, durability and scale.
SiG is a collaborative partnership founded by
The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the University of Waterloo, the MaRS Discovery District, and
the PLAN Institute. Our ultimate goal is to support
whole system change through changing the broader
economic, cultural and policy context in Canada to
allow social innovations to flourish.
The International Alumni Center (iac Berlin) is a
Think & Do Tank for alumni communities with
social impact. It was founded by the Robert Bosch
Stiftung and advises foundations and other nonprofit organizations in its alumni work, helps with
practical solutions in the design of impact-oriented
networks and initiates new forms of cooperation.
With the founding of the iac Berlin as an open platform, the Robert Bosch Stiftung aims to support the
creation of a global network of change-makers from
different sectors.
The iac Berlin coordinates the Bosch Alumni
Network, which brings together former and current
fellows, grantees, and staff members of the Robert
Bosch Stiftung and its partners, to support their
activities and foster cross-sectoral exchange and
international collaboration.
www.iac-berlin.org
37
“The key is to focus on learning rather than on solutions. Systems change in unexpected ways, but planners can learn to
expect the unexpected. They can learn to embrace the feedback
they get based on how their actions affect the behavior of the
system. The goal of a development project should not be to
meet predetermined benchmarks but to learn which elements
of one´s initial understanding of the system were right and
which were wrong. Which elements of a project nurtured the
system in positive ways and which did not? These lessons can
bring a sense of humbleness, which will encourage planners to
listen to what the system is telling them instead of assuming
they know best. Listening to the system means accepting the
fact that systems change best when systems change themselves, and the job of those wanting to be of help is to learn about
where change is already happening, or is ready to happen, in
the system.“
– Roberto Ricigliano 1
1
Making Peace Last, Roberto Ricigliano, 2016, Routledge