I’ve been reading Adrienne Maree Brown’s “Emergent Strategy” and it’s been a powerful read, very different to other strategy or leadership books you can find, much more rooted in the soul and justice.
“The strength of our movement is in the strength of our relationships…Scaling up would mean going deeper, being more vulnerable and empathetic”
Being inspired by Octavia Butler, a science fiction writer, shows it can be easier to spot patterns from a completely different walk of life than reading a textbook. Perhaps it’s because you get more captivated by the stories of the characters that bring to life the values and behaviours of leadership.
1. Change is constant. Be like water.
2. There is always enough time for the right work.
3. There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.
4. Never a failure, always a lesson.
5. Trust the people, they will become trustworthy.
6. Move at the speed of trust.
7. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass.
8. Less prep, more presence. What you pay attention to grows
As a gardener, I’ve always found using plants as metaphors very powerful, so I love the work Brown documents from Complex Movements. even more so when we consider how nature has built its own resilience and adapted often far better than humans. What can we learn from nature?
How do we nurture adaptation rather than planning?
