Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

by Adrienne Maree Brown

held accountable for our mistakes than forgiven our inaction. Group Agreements At the beginning of a meeting of people who don’t work together regularly, it helps to set some agreements in place. If people are working together regularly, just have some standing agreements. Here are some of my favorites for emergent spaces: Listen from the inside out, or listen from the bottom up (a feeling in your gut matters!); Engage Tension, Don’t Indulge Drama; W.A.I.T.—Why Am I Talking? Make Space, Take Space—a post-ableist adaptation of step up, step back to help balance the verbose and the reticent;103 Confidentiality—take the lessons, leave the details; Be open to learning; Be open to someone else speaking your truth; Building, not selling—when you speak, converse, don’t pitch; Yes/and, both/and; Value the process as much as, if not more than, you value the outcomes; Assume best intent, attend to impact;