Learning by doing in systems change

Peer learning is the backbone of our work at the Sanctuary.

We have convened over 30 cohorts over the last few years, and we love the magic that happens when systems leaders, and folks working to address systemic issues across a field or region get to come together over time and become friends.

Last year, we decided to share our approach, and we delivered our first ever Peer learning for systems change training.

It was a lot of fun and it gave us the opportunity to dig into our methods and to share our commitment and genuine passion for this work.

And most importantly, by doing this, it gave us a new perspective on why we work this way and why we believe it is important. Here are some of our reflections:

We don’t have systems change all figured out

In 2016, Rachel and I met through a mutual colleague. We shared a vision for communities of practice in systems change, we knew there was a gap in the field and we both felt passionately about the need for peer wisdom and support in this work. So, we came together to create the Systems Sanctuary because we both had significant experience leading systems change initiatives and we get the pain and the joy. We have been there.

While we both had decades of experience to share, we also knew that we didn’t have systems change figured out. We. just. don’t. have. systems change figured out….. If we did, then we wouldn’t be where we are today — in a climate crisis, the rich getting richer, persistent and growing inequities etc.

How do we move then when we don’t have the answer?

This is a posture

Peer learning creates the opportunity for collective and emergent intelligence to help inform our work. When we come together and share our challenges, our edges, our learning, we contribute to a collecting “seeing” and sense making that offers important feedback into the field, to help inform what next, and our action.

This is the most important aspect to this work. It moves us from a posture of having the answers to one of humility. It allows us to be vulnerable in the messiness of our lives, realities and the challenges we are addressing. It recognizes that leadership is a collective, shared and distributed practice. We realize we don’t have the answers, and we are not alone.

These are important capacities and practices in systems change work, yet when we look around, we are still largely operating in a world that seeks certainty, defined outcomes and values silver bullet solutions.

Peer learning is a powerful way to subvert that dominant culture and to kick start an initiative that can learn and act across an ecosystem. And it is a powerful way to lead leaders into their vulnerability, to give each other permission and doorways into our complex humanity and to create this new norm together. This leads me to the next insight.

Peer learning approaches are gendered

All of the folks that signed up to our Peer-learning training were women; working both at the margins and in the centre of dominant systems. Many of the initiatives that adopt peer learning in an ecosystem are led by women identified leaders.

Some questions we were left with were — Why did a majority of women sign up for our course? Why is this approach harder to sell to dominant power, or to male dominated leadership? Why, when we meet with funders do they need the polished professional solutions, high tech, academic prowess and impact measured metrics?

Peer learning is an approach that embodies the values we espouse in systems change. It demystifies the power in traditional leadership; it values the collective, it shifts hierarchies to interconnectivities and it moves value from expertise to practice. This approach to change is counter-cultural.

It’s no wonder that I feel like we are speaking another language in many spaces and especially to large institutions that don’t ‘get us’. I remember in my early days, sitting with funders attempting to share the vision of a peer learning community, and I was met with empty stares. It didn’t fit in the innovation heavy trend of the day. The culture of peer learning is a direct challenge to the hierarchical and dominant ways the current systems operate and it surfaces the contradiction and tension within the change sector.

But Rachel and I have followed our vision and persisted like good systems leaders do. And we see a trend. More folks are getting it and now we are scaling our work. Also, many of our participants are working not just to change the systems they are working in, but they they are dissatisfied by the dominant culture of systems change field too. It can be toxic, it can look like business suits and it’s burning people out.

The lineages and roots of our peer learning approach are drawn from women thought leaders, intersectional feminist praxis and social justice practices.

What is your lineage?

We draw on many lines in the creation of our spaces. And while we are facilitating learning about systems change, these lineages predate the current systems change field of practice. This is the work that informs our practice:

Popular education: We draw on Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and adult education models that begin with experience, connect learning through exchange, build skills and then move into action for social change. We are in a learning spiral that moves towards action. Bell Hooks, Teaching To Transgress builds on Freire’s work, and adds an intersectional feminist and race lens to the approach and work and understanding of power.

Communities of Practice: Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze have influenced both Rachel’s and my work for decades. Taking Emergence to Scale is an important frame to understand how networks evolve into communities of influence with a capacity to disrupt and shift harmful systems. In fact, we use this model to help ecosystem initiatives see the multiple levels of their intervention and specifically to help practice communities move from sense making into action.

Intersectional feminism: Intersectional feminism offers a critically important power lens to the relationally focussed systems change world. It centers lived experience, healing and care and re-centers resources and power. We have researched and written about weaving these two practices; how they complement and support each other.

Our culture:

We mix these peer learning methods with a very intentional culture. If you sit with us in a circle you will very quickly feel the intimacy of the space. We clearly let everyone know that this is an invitation to be human. We invite the messiness of reality and everything in the background; kids, challenges, and all the parts of us that dance in life.

As women and moms, we know that this is really important and we don’t cut it off. You don’t have to perform, you are invited to be yourself. We value mature emotional intelligence, open hearts and we also invite the joy. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and we are a light team, we adapt to meet what comes.

Ultimately, we are building community and camaraderie; we are spreading our culture and this is where the beauty and possibilities live.

Learning from others

We are grateful to have worked with many systems leaders across the globe in this way; collectively, in teams and ecosystems. Our practice deepens as we learn with others too.

We have been inspired by pioneering leaders who are also challenging polished solutions dressed up as systems change. We resonate with and learn from #warmdata work and Nora Bateson, who tells us that learning is evolution, it’s the way we evolve.

We are also inspired by Luis Alejandro Tapia, the Illuminate network doula who leads in the deep learning spaces and connects the systemic with his guidance in emergence. Illuminate is where we are also working to connect systems change learning globally. We are like a small web of next wave systems leaders feeling our way around to help advance the field of practice.

There are many ways into the various streams of systems change. Peer learning and communities of practice start with and honour the very beauty and wisdom of each practitioner. In this way, experience trumps expert knowledge and we get to swim in the complexity that lives in our humanity and the world.

Interested in joining us? Get in touch!