Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

by Adrienne Maree Brown

For instance, humans so far have generally deified and aligned with the “king” of the jungle or forest—lions, tigers, bears. And yet so many of these creatures, for all their isolated ferocity and alpha power, are going extinct.

While a major cause of that extinction is our human impact, there is something to be said for adaptation, the adaptation of small, collaborative species.

“Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions”—I

group of caterpillars or nymphs might not see flight in their future, but it’s inevitable.

She also said “all that you touch you change / all that you change, changes you.”

natural selection isn’t individual, but mutual—that species only survive if they learn to be in community.

often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free.

We need each other. I love the idea of shifting from “mile wide inch deep” movements to “inch wide mile deep” movements that schism the existing paradigm.

I suspect that to really transform our society, we will need to make justice one of the most pleasurable experiences we can have.

We learn that tests and deadlines are the reasons to take action. This puts those with good short-term memories and a positive response to pressure in leadership positions, leading to urgency-based thinking, regardless of the circumstance.