Resources

Duck Shit Tea, Yarning & the Magical Space In Between Things.

When Tyson wrote to say that he and his family were coming to Manitou Aki – the lands of the Anishinaabe, currently known as North America – the timing coincided with my writing retreat.

The only way I could swing it was to rent an Airbnb, go site-seeing by day and write by night. So, this first retreat is an experiment. What happens when we drink bowls of tea, yarn, and spend a week with my weapon-wielding rock star brother-in-law and his family in a shared Airbnb in the Falls? …

Connecting Inner and Outer Well-Being in Social Innovation Education.

Authors: Aneel Chima and David Germano

Publication: Stanford Social Innovation Review

Why social innovation education programs need to develop students’ inner well-being alongside their knowledge of the field, and five principles to help lead the way.

Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada.

Author: Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson, Syrus Marcus Ware

Publisher: University of Regina Press

Until We Are Free contains some of the very best writing on the hottest issues facing the Black community in Canada. It describes the latest developments in Canadian Black activism, organizing efforts through the use of social media, Black-Indigenous alliances, and more.

The Crisis in Greece & Unexpected Gratitude.

Author: Vanessa Reid

Publication: Peterborough Dialogues

Since 2011, through the Systemic Innovation Zone (SIZ-Hellas), we have been witnessing and living the incredible stories and movements of people on the ground in Greece, in their communities, across the country and beyond. People who are birthing new systems, ones that return us to the meaning of democracy, where citizens self-organize around what is needed, and what we dream is possible in service to the Commons.

What It Takes to Lead Through an Era of Exponential Change.

Authors: Aneel Chima and Ron Gutman

Publication: Harvard Business Review

No, it isn’t just you — the pace of change has picked up. More than that, whereas we used to experience disruptions followed by periods of stability, change now is increasingly perpetual, pervasive, and exponential. To keep pace, leaders need to take a different approach than the “leader as hero” model — the solo, individualistic leader who inspires certainty in a deterministic way forward. The authors suggest a new approach, which they call Sapient Leadership, inspired by conversations held at Stanford in the spring of 2020.

Learning As Social Innovation

Authors: Julian Norris and Laura Blakeman

Publication: Social Innovations Review

Learning drives social innovation. It is the desired outcome, the primary tool and the personal praxis shared by all social innovators. In this paper we describe a whole-person learning initiative that seeks to build social innovation competencies and capacities and we discuss the growing conversation between inner work and system change approaches.

Relational Systems Thinking.

Authors: Melanie Goodchild with Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Roronhiakewen (He Clears the Sky) Dan Longboat, Kahontakwas Diane Longboat, Rick Hill and Ka’nahsohon (A Feather Dipped in Paint) Kevin Deer.

Publication: Journal of Awareness Based Systems Change

We explore the notion of the need to decolonize systems thinking and awareness. Taking a specifically Indigenous approach to both knowledge creation and knowledge sharing, we look at awareness-based systems change via a Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) two-row visual code. The authors explore the sacred space between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of thinking and knowing, to identify pathways for peaceful co-existence of epistemologies.

Growing Still. Reflections on the Inner Work Dialogues.

Authors and Hosts: Laura Blakeman, Saralyn Hodgkin and Cheryl Rose

The TLN emerged from the social innovation field towards the end of 2018 and regularly convened interested practitioners for a collective, nuanced exploration of how transformative change happens. Our intention was to deepen our understanding of the critical relationship between inner change in individuals and outer change in society.

The creation of a series of virtual dialogues and this accompanying written piece was sparked by the interest expressed by the community to raise awareness and share learnings about how inner work strengthens leadership for change.

Braiding & Balancing Wisdom.

Featuring: Marti Spiegelman, Todd Hoskins, & Melanie Goodchild

Podcast: Leading from Being

Marti and Todd welcome guest Melanie Goodchild, founder of the Turtle Island Institute, to discuss systems change that centers on relationships for mutual benefit. Melanie shares her experiences and wisdom on complexity, resilience, balance, and what we all need to move forward together, carrying centuries of indigenous wisdom and her Anishinaabe perspective alongside her Western academic education.

ISHPIMING: The Above World.

Speaker: Melanie Goodchild

Platform: Red Sky Performance REDtalks

This unique REDTalk featured Melanie Goodchild who spoke to the shifting colonial narratives and about the world above while introducing Anishinaabe cosmology and star knowledge.

Conscious Closure: The Wild Life of Dying.

Speaker: Vanessa Reid

Platform: TEDx Toronto The Annex Women

For everything there is a season, and this includes our social innovations and collective endeavours. Vanessa Reid graciously takes us into a part of our work and life that we rarely talk about: How do we generatively and with awareness work with the cycles of living and dying, both personal and collective, to touch into the unique qualities of life activated in the time of dying?

How the Black Lives Matter movement sparked global support.

Featuring: Syrus Marcus Ware

Platform: CBC

Activist, scholar and artist Syrus Marcus Ware talks to CBC host Asha Tomlinson about how the death of George Floyd has sparked worldwide protests and support.

Centered at the Edges.Thoughts on reflective practice and system entrepreneurship.

Author: Cheryl Rose

System entrepreneurs courageously step right to the edges of what is now – and what could be. They need to be supported with time, learning and mentorship to embrace reflective practice so they’re able to do inner work for complex personal development – because this, ultimately, enhances our collective efforts to ensure the well-being of people, communities and our planet.

The Role of Deep Purpose Making in Human Flourishing.

Speaker: Aneel Chima

Event: The Global Purpose Summit

Our current cultural moment demands the very best from us individually and collectively. In an age of ever-accelerating cultural rhythms, of hyper-complexity, and of tech ubiquity, what is the future of human flourishing and, most importantly, how do we practice and propagate it? A common thread unifying the range of possible answers is, simply put, cultivating deep purpose. Finding purpose and making meaning is at the core of the human enterprise–it fuels motivation, builds resilience, gives focus and direction to our lives, and galvanizes communities into transformation. During this talk we will explore the intersection of purpose and human flourishing because without deep purpose there exists no foundation for individual or collective flourishing.

Sit with the Discomfort.

Speaker: Syrus Marcus Ware

Event: The Walrus Talks

From the Walrus Talks National Tour: We Desire a Better Country. Recorded May 31st, 2017 at The Carlu in Toronto. Syrus Marcus Ware is a visual artist, scholar, and activist currently completing a Ph.D. in environmental studies at York University. In 2016, he received a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship for his research on disability and race within contemporary art settings. A core member of the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter, Ware is also a facilitator and designer at the Banff Centre and the inaugural artist-in-residence at Daniels Spectrum, a cultural centre in Toronto’s Regent Park.