Resources

As I watered my plants today, I marveled again at their regenerative power. All they need is dirt, water, and sun, and they get bigger and healthier over time. Some of them don’t even need dirt, but that is a different story. Even the orchid, who holds back for months, surprises with blossoms when I least expect it.

“Nothing is Intractable.” That’s the tagline on the HSD website. It’s the footer in our stationery. It’s on the first slide of every PowerPoint deck we create. We believe it’s true. And we continue to get questions about how that’s possible when life is so complex.  

Think of the last time you created a new tool that worked in a surprising and gratifying way. Or think of your most recent “Eureka!” moment as you resolved a thorny issue. Did you think, “I should share this with colleagues!”? And then, when you made time to sit down to write about it, did the words refuse to come?  If you are like either one of us, it’s not just that words wouldn’t come! You couldn’t figure out how to start, what needed to be said as your core message, or how to bring it to a close!

We talk about change as an orderly sequence from past through present and into future. That is not how most people experience change, though. The concept of ‘stretch and fold” is a better mirror for our experience of change in human systems. In this week’s post, Glenda explores the emergent nature and living paradox of transformation in complex systems.

Each year at this time, we plan the Adaptive Action Labs (AALabs) for the next year. We consider a number of factors in selecting the topics. What challenges are clients talking about? What questions do we hear from Associates? Which of the AALabs has been successful in the past, and which ones should be put aside for a year or two? Ultimately, after these questions, the anchor we always come back to is this: What topics will best help individuals and groups live out the HSD Vision?

Historically, autumn has been considered the season of harvest. Summer’s stretch transforms water, sunlight, and nutrients to create the bounty of harvest. In autumn’s folding, we celebrate the abundance that will feed us during winter’s resting times. Autumn has been honored in many traditions as a time of thanksgiving for this abundance. A quick perusal of the Internet provided me insights about these kinds of celebrations around the world, at different times, in both the northern and the southern hemispheres.

In HSD, we think about resilience as “capacity to adapt and maintain system functioning in the face of the uncertainty and turbulence of complex change.” In this blog post, Royce explores three important lessons we’ve learned in talking with people about their need for and experiences with resilience in recent times.