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This article was co-written by the ELP Asia Pacific core team (Bel Villavicencio, Jayce Pei Yu Lee, John Stubley, Katie Stubley, Manish Srivastava, Pramita Indrarini and Shobi Lawalata, with input from the extended team (Bradley Chenoweth, Chenny Galano, Crystal Huang, Jim Mackintosh, Lili Xu, Marisol Lopez, Masatoshi Torii, Megan Seneque, Renu Burr, Shenali Perera and Zaka Indra).
The Asia Pacific Ecosystem Leadership Program (ELP) is an intensive in-person and on-island program in Bali, Indonesia, for change makers and innovators across sectors and across the Asia Pacific. It is comprised of three modules over the course of three years, with the first module taking place next month. The program offers all participants the opportunity to co-cultivate the kind of systems practices appropriate for our time and our specific places, activating the deepest sources of knowledge, inspiration and action for awareness-based systems change. For more details on the ELP Asia Pacific program, and to register, click here.
Recently, the Asia Pacific ELP hosting team came together to reflect on the journey towards launching the inaugural module this August 13–16. Here are some of the things that emerged during our conversation.
The Need for Ecosystem Leadership and The ELP Journey
It is clear that our world is experiencing unprecedented disruptions, and any systemic transformation can no longer be accomplished by individual effort alone. Instead, transformative change requires the integration of new social technologies and social arts to achieve deep consensus and collaboration within human society.
Over the last several years the Presencing Institute, in collaboration with a number of partners, has felt the need to convene an ecosystem of leaders to activate an increased, collective capacity for transforming our future.
A few years ago we noticed that there were many organisations focussed on supporting social innovators and social entrepreneurs who were developing single solutions or businesses in response to a social or environmental problem. While this is absolutely critical, we also noticed that there was another group of people who were less supported; we referred to these people as ecosystem leaders — the people focussed on shifting whole systems.
Some of the common qualities that we noticed amongst these ecosystem leaders include:
- An awareness of the larger system they are operating in
- Often experimenting with multiple systemic interventions or projects (not only one)
- That they do a lot of ‘invisible work’
- That their leadership does not come from a formal role but from how they are willing to take responsibility for the ecosystem, no matter the level of their official role
- They have a desire to build the ecosystem leadership capacities of others
- Whatever their formal role is in the system, it often requires some form of facilitation between multiple system players.
Exploring Ecosystem Leadership and the 2019 Global ELP
The global ELP hosted by the Presencing Institute in 2019 brought together 60 practitioners and leaders from around the world who shared the qualities above. It was dedicated to exploring and focusing on the different aspects of leadership in the new era: not just centralised planning and control, but also the capacity to facilitate dynamic and generative social fields. This global initiative combined tools and practices such as systems thinking, systems sensing, container-building, social technologies, social arts, distributed prototyping, and action research. During the program the practitioners/leaders identified three key characteristics of future ecosystem leadership: that it would be distributive, emergent and disruptive.
Through the program, the ecosystem leaders refined and further developed the Ecosystem Leadership Principles below through a practice research process. These principles are still evolving and can currently be seen as ‘guiding torch-lights’ to navigate through complex, disruptive and urgent challenges.
Regional ELP Activation
During the global ELP we had ‘regional cluster’ groups which led to different regional initiatives, including regional ELPs. The first regional program launched in Latin America in 2023; this has been followed by the upcoming inaugural ELP Asia Pacific Module 1 in Bali this August; ELP Africa is being planned for Rwanda; and ELP Latin America Module 3 is being hosted in Mexico in 2025. Further ELPs are being considered in Europe and North America. You can read the ELP Latin America report for 2023 (PDF) at the end of this page.
The ELP Asia Pacific team has taken an ecosystem approach to hosting this program. We are working as one team across three organisations: the Presencing Institute, United in Diversity (Indonesia) and TRAIL (Philippines). Due to the essential roles of social arts and transformative research in awareness-based system change, we also have a social arts and research team. In addition, we have ‘ecosystem hosts’ from particular countries and thematic areas (such as a regenerative landscape focus supported by Commonland). Each member of the hosting team is a practitioner in Theory U and also an ecosystem leader themselves. The common thread amongst each of the team members is that, throughout our decades of work, we have been holding the question: “How do we co-create systems change for a better future?”
What is Really Needed at this Moment in Time?
When the ELP Asia Pacific hosting team came together to share what ecosystem leaders in our local places were needing or longing for, here are some of the things that emerged:
Collective learning
In an increasingly fragmented world we feel the strong need for people to come together in spaces of collective learning where we can sense what is most needed.
Our current structures are not supporting the change we need to see
There is a growing sense from across our networks that our current structures and ways of doing things are not creating the impact we need to see. Funding is becoming more competitive and governance structures are shifting in unprecedented ways. We noted that while there is more awareness of sustainable development approaches in our nations — such as net zero targets, ESGs and SDGs — there is also a sense that deeper work is needed if we are going to collectively create the change we want to see. We know that we need to come together at this point in time to generate collective insights to help move us forward.
Decision-making in times of disruption
Many of us spoke about new ways of systems knowing that are needed to support ecosystem leaders to make good decisions in times of disruption. Our current methods of evaluation, knowing and research feel like they are not supporting us in the times when we actually need them the most. We know that developing new tools for achieving systems knowing, accountability and decision-making is critical.
The ability to design systemic interventions for polycrises
Each of us spoke to the multiple interdependent crises we are witnessing in our own places — climate change, economic recession, wide-spread poverty, mass depression, and more. We know these problems require completely different responses to even five years ago. It’s clear that we need to learn new ways of designing systemic interventions that respond to the inter-connectivity of the crises that we face. It feels like each leader we are listening to is holding a similar question of, “What can we do to pursue a better world for the future — for our next generations?”
Amplifying stories of regeneration
There is a sense of overwhelm and fatigue in the movement for aspirational change. We need to learn how to amplify our stories of regeneration in a way that is not ‘one-upping’ each other and in turn leading to negative competition or fragmentation. We need to actively cultivate hope and agency.
Reliable and tailored tools for systems change
In recent years there has been a mushrooming of tools, frameworks and ideas within the field of systems change. There is a desire to practise and learn tools that we know can anchor us within this complex work. We also noted that a consequence of funding becoming restricted across our networks is that each organisation has to have a strong identity and selling point for their own way of ‘doing good’. Our collective aspiration is that the ELP Asia Pacific has a balance of sharing reliable methods, as well as unleashing the deep observation skills needed for each person to find confidence and creativity to tailor make their own systems-change interventions appropriate for the context they are in as well as their unique skill sets.
Generative methods for systems change and research
There is a strong recognition that mainstream practices and methods are only taking us so far. There is therefore a desire to continue to practise and further develop generative methods and tools. We will also explore the concept of ‘fourth person’ knowing as outlined in the article Fourth Person: The Knowing of the Field.
Contextualising our work in this time and our places
Many people have emphasised the importance of seeking to understand the most critical elements to drive change, and to grow these in the places and contexts we find ourselves in. In the Asia Pacific there are strong knowledge traditions that come together: Indigenous, Eastern and Western. We believe that it is important to build on the best of these traditions, as well as collectively generate new knowledge to guide us in this moment in time.
Creating strong enough holding spaces for the change that is needed
When people are asked what they are longing for they speak about finding spaces where we consciously tend to the social field we are working in. In times of polarisation and fragmentation we need to work diligently to cultivate the social space between us.
Social arts and the artwork of system change
In the 2019 global ELP we wove social arts throughout the program. We focussed on three key arts 1) Social Presencing Theater (SPT) 2) Generative Scribing and 3) Social Poetics. We noticed that all social arts help people to ‘co-sense’ and ‘co-see’ the system, as well as enable ‘social field knowing’ that makes the next ‘wise move’ visible. It was noted that while there have been significant advances in the science of systems change, that it is time to add to this (as Joseph Beuys pointed to) the art of systems change — meaning not just that we make use of the social arts (current and emerging), which is also necessary, but that the activity of systems change, in addition to being a scientific pursuit, should also be experienced as an artistic practice — one that is creative enough to work with a future that is not yet but which seeks to come about through our activity.
ELP Asia Pacific Module 1
The ELP Asia Pacific seeks to lean into what we are noticing above, and begin the journey of building our collective capacity to respond to the polycrises of our time. Some of the elements that the program will contain are:
- The opportunity to hear from Otto Scharmer about his latest pieces of work on ecosystem leadership capacities and systems ways of knowing (4th person knowing). This is a unique opportunity to hear the crystallisation of years of practice and reflection on the process of ‘presencing’
- Experiential practice of awareness-based systems change tools and methods
- Case studies about how Theory U has been applied and contextualised across the Asia Pacific
- Spaces for collective learning
- Generative facilitation, research tools and methods.
The Hosting Place (Kura Kura Bali)
Module 1 of the ELP Asia Pacific will take place at the iconic Three Mountains building — a large bamboo structure on Kura Kura Bali.
Kura Kura Bali spans 498 hectares on Bali’s Serangan Island, which also serves as the home to United In Diversity’s Bali Campus. This special economic zone aims to enhance Bali’s tourism industry by emphasising green living that balances human, nature, and spirituality. Kura Kura Bali integrates renewable energy sources, sustainable water and waste management, and extensive natural coverage including mangroves and coastlines that will bear witness to the unfolding of the Asia Pacific activation in the ELP. You might catch a sight of sea turtles or rays while taking in the natural landscapes, or spot some egrets. The Kura Kura Bali project is designed to foster a sense of community and well-being in line with the Balinese principle of happiness — ‘Tri Hita Karana’ — -which rests on the harmony between the environment, people, and spirituality. Serangan Island itself is iconic in its own right, known as the site of the 1300-year-old Sakenan Temple which is one of the seven most sacred temples for the Balinese people.
Three-Year Journey Overview
The journey of the ELP Asia Pacific across three modules from 2024–2026
As you can see from the above image, the ELP Asia Pacific will consist of three modules, with one module taking place each year. Every year will build on the last and connect to the practitioner certification pathway for the u-school for Transformation. There will be ecosystem activation between the modules each year. We will share more details on the overall journey soon.
The ELP Asia Pacific launches with ‘Module 1: Ecosystem Foundations’ on August 13–16, 2024.
Click here to learn more and join the Asia Pacific ecosystem leadership journey.
