Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

by Adrienne Maree Brown

The word “strategy” is a military term, which means a plan of action towards a goal. I want to really emphasize the “a”s in that sentence—there is a practice of narrowing down, identifying one path forward, one strategy, one way, one agenda, one leader, one set of values, etc. Reducing the wild and wonderful world into one thing that we can grasp, handle, hold onto, and advance. We do this in movement all the time. I have been in countless meetings where there was a moment of creative abundance and energy, and then someone said we needed to pick one thing to get behind, or a three- or five- or ten-point plan. What came next was sometimes very compelling and visionary. Other times—often times—it was reductionist, agreeing on the lowest common denominator, the least exciting thing, because that was the only place there was unity. There was often a general sense of dissatisfaction and collective shrugging into this unity that was not invigorating. Authentic, exciting unity takes time, and lots of experimenting.