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Any new paradigm challenges fundamental assumptions and beliefs. Old habits make it difficult to step across the line into new ways to think and act. For 20 years, the HSD community has built bridges from the closed-system paradigms of the past to the open-system opportunities of the future. We have tried our best to be gentle, patient, and subtle in our invitations, but time is running out! The challenges are urgent, and we are impatient! So, we are engaging in two initiatives to break through into the future: Dragons of Complexity and Adaptive Action for Sustainability!

This is the third in a series of blog posts that follows up on Margaret Mead’s famous statement, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”   In Week 1, we talked about ways people come together in an emergent process to work toward a shared goal. (HSD tool: Complex Adaptive Systems) In Week 2, we talked about competing forces that decision makers must balance as they move toward shared action. (HSD tool: Interdependent Pairs)

This week, let’s talk about what can help people take the next step beyond where they get stuck trying to change the world. How can HSD help you start a movement, respond to an affront, or leverage difference to bring about change.

Margaret Mead said it first, and we see it play out all around us in today’s landscape. Small groups of committed people who are willing and empowered to step up are changing patterns of interaction, decision making, and action around the world. In HSD In HSD we think of these as daily shifts in patterns of economy, society, and politics.

No two HSD Associates is the same. Each one recreates the HSD vision in a unique alchemy of passion, context, commitment, and capacity. Each in our own way, we bring the HSD vision to life every day:

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.