What do you do when you are faced with an intractable problem? Perhaps it’s a long-term issue but you’re caught up in a short-term world. Or it might be an issue where you can’t possibly know what the answers could be. Maybe your best efforts at change keep crashing on the rocks of the status quo. Perhaps you simply need some headspace. You might want to test out new approaches. Get some fresh thinking. If this resonates with you perhaps we should chat. It’s the space I work in.

I help teams create transformational change.

Our complex challenges defy easy solutions; many defy solutions at all. They arise in the intersections of our social, political, economic and environmental systems, systems that are clearly not working for the majority of humans or the planet that supports us. The resulting challenges defy our best attempts to define them, and even when we think we have a handle on them, they change. This emergence means that we can never fully understand the problem nor clearly define a solution. We need alternative approaches, and I have dedicated my work to helping design them.

Our traditional linear approaches and practices to impact, drawing on the wisdom of single disciplines or experts to address them in isolation, are necessary but not sufficient to create change. They work well where clear solutions to clear problems exist, yet even here we tend to run into challenges of implementation. We need flexible approaches to change that enable us to circumvent the tendency of the status quo to be self-sustaining.

Addressing societies most pressing challenges is one thing; it’s quite another to seek to change the systems and contexts from which they arise. Yet challenging outdated systems is the greater leverage point. Figuring out how we might do this is the journey I am on. I believe that only if we act with a system entrepreneur outlook of seeing the wider context and taking opportunities to experiment within it might we help create better systems for the future.

I’d love to connect with you if you are on a similar journey, or if I can support you on yours.

Ian B 🎯