Creating and Transforming in Chaos and Complexity

Photo credit: Cory Doctorow | CC BY-SA 2.0Photo credit: Cory Doctorow | CC BY-SA 2.0

There is and will be hurt in healthy ecosystems, and so the question becomes: how do we respond differently to hurt when it occurs; prevent it when possible; and, when not possible, how might we prevent hurt from becoming enduring harm, which in the long-view challenges the possibility of a lasting interdependent whole? 

These enduring, intersecting, inherently harmful systems of oppression we seek to address—racialized capitalism and imperialism—are complex. Within this landscape of complex systems change, there are situations, places, problems, and terrains that are complicated, chaotic, and clear. What’s needed in each is different.

In complex systems change, what worked previously may not work today or tomorrow, no matter how much expertise and resources are thrown at the problem. Leaders are called to increase their capacity to navigate emergence and the unknown, iterating toward vision, harnessing what works, and letting go of what doesn’t, seeding clarity in transformation while addressing what is known. 

Today, leaders increasingly navigate unrelenting chaos (often intentional and strategic) as multiple systems collapse simultaneously. These conditions can move us off purpose and feed isolation and confusion, as many in power use chaos to consolidate power and dissociate people from their bodies, emotions, and each other. From chaos, we must respond with vision. This requires inner work that supports us in cultivating greater ease and capacity to let go of our limiting patterns, so we can be grounded in purpose and possibility, and open to pivots and the kind of conflict that builds a multi-racial, thriving, interdependent future.