Last June, Brenda Zimmerman (co-author of the book Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed) came to Winnipeg to speak to the real life stories of social innovation at home and around the world. The book, as she described it, is 'for ordinary people who want to make connections that will create extraordinary outcomes'.
This is how the world is changed...
(excerpt from Chapter 2 of Getting to Maybe)
- Support vision, people with a strong sense of calling, and emergent possibilities.
- Support intense interactions, networking and information exchange among those who have the potential to tip a system in a new direction.
- Remove barriers to innovation.
- Speak passionately about the things that really matter to you.
- Practice expressing your vision and calling in a way that helps you attract others of like mind and commitment.
- Watch for the simple rules that sustain and hold in place the existing sysstem, and work to understand the attractors that will need to change and be confronted in the process of social transformation.
- Expect that when real change starts, your own interactions as well as those of others will change. Expect this to feel risky.
- Support social innovators in getting to maybe by helping them articulate their passion and commitment. But don't force their passion and commitment into the boxes of operational goals and logic models.
- Watch and listen for those who articulate a vision that you share, who are acting on a calling that inspires you. Watch for individuals from whom you can learn. Watch for groups of fellow travellers with whom you can journey.
- Take the plunge, prepared to learn - to be disappointed, to be energized, to be up and down, but most of all to learn - about what works for you, what engages you, what matters to you, where you feel you can make a difference.
- Allow for imperfections - in yourself and others.
