Facilitating formal and informal opportunities for enhancing understanding of the key system drivers and leverage points for change.

All problems are embedded within some larger system. Often, however, that system is often not explicitly considered or defined and participants in any particular system may not be fully aware of the range of relationships and forces affecting how and why a system behaves in certain ways. Systems thinking, the integrating discipline for a learning organization, is also fundamental to community change practices. As noted by Peter Senge, “vision without systems thinking ends up painting lovely pictures of the future with no deep understanding of the forces that must be mastered to move from here to there.” Without systems thinking informing our selection of plausible future scenarios, desired outcomes and strategies, “the first condition for nurturing the vision is not met: a genuine belief that we can make our vision real in the future.” [i] Any process or tool seeking to create fundamental and enduring improvements in environmental integrity and community sustainability are more likely to be used if they effectively identify the most critical causal forces and key leverage points for change in these larger systems, providing information to potential users that will actually make a difference in decisions and subsequent results.

“Thinking is the place where intelligent actions begin.”v Yet, both individually and as a society, we are speeding up our processes and giving ourselves less not more time to think and reflect. Learning – individual, group and community – requires that spaces for reflection exist and that institutions and community members reclaim the necessary time to talk, reflect and share their experiences. “Discussion, dialogue, conflict, and reflection are part of the learning process.”vi Yet we must create and allow the necessary time and space for each one of these processes if they are to be positive community-building experiences that facilitate collaborative learning and improved performance toward community goals.

“If we feel we're changing in ways we don't like, or seeing things in the world that make us feel sorrowful, then we need time to think about this. We need time to think about what we might do and where we might start to change things. We need time to develop clarity and courage. If we want our world to be different, our first act needs to be reclaiming time to think. Nothing will change for the better until we do that.”vii
v Margaret Wheatley, “Can We Reclaim Time to Think?” Shambhala Sun (September 2001). Accessed at http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/timetothink.html
vi Moore and Brooks, p. 11
vii Margaret Wheatley, “Can We Reclaim Time to Think?” Shambhala Sun (September 2001). Accessed at http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/timetothink.html

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