Californians and Water: From Crisis to Connectivity

California’s attempts, present and past, to help achieve effective water governance and sustainable water use have usually been riddled with contentious and conflict ridden interactions. Often attempts become ensnared in litigation between the diverse stakeholders rather than finding ways forward that address the real issue of limited water supply that all Californians must face.

Yet representatives on the California Roundtable on Water and Food Supply (CRWFS), came together over the past four years and agreed on a transformational, whole systems approach they called “Connectivity ” to address California’s water and food supply issues. This post reflects on how they can to this remarkable resolve […]

2018-09-26T00:05:58+00:00February 2nd, 2015|Change, Research|0 Comments

William Bridges and Transitions

In the early 1980’s William Bridges wrote his first popular book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes. His work found wide acceptance and Bridges became an internationally known speaker, author, and consultant advising individuals and organizations in how to deal productively with change.

In the 90’s he published Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, a guide for supporting change in organizations. Since then he has written several more related books with his most profound book on change The Way of Transitions: Embracing Life’s Most Difficult Moments in 2001.

In his first book Bridges makes some very important points about the human capacity to deal with change and the pattern that basically defines any change process. Bridges early writing significantly draws on studies by renowned anthropologists such as Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner and Marcia Eliade that highlight the archetypal patterns of change and how these patterns can be so clearly observed in indigenous cultures.

Indigenous traditions show us how we as human beings always have supported significant experiences of change on the individual and community level through rituals of passages such as initiations. Today, however, […]

2018-09-20T20:06:02+00:00June 5th, 2013|Change, Indigenous Wisdom, Research|0 Comments

Change Fluency

Change is an increasingly pervasive phenomenon. In this global world we cross increasingly more boundaries, cultures and belief system. We have expanded our sense of freedom and exponentially increased the range of choices we have. At the same time many of us have become disconnected from a sense of belonging to place, community, and the organizations we work for. The complexity and ambiguity created by these conditions are obscuring the path and patterns of change contributing to increasingly more change processes being interrupted, neglected and even abandoned.

The sociologist Arpad Szakolczai captures the impact that the pervasive presence of continuous change has on us in the following way: “Human life is not possible and worth living without some degree of stability, meaning and sense of home. Liminality [the transformative phase in a transition process] is indeed a source of renewal, a restoration of meaning and the pouring of fresh wine into an old bottle. But if there are no proper “bottles”, the fermenting power is diluted and lost. If everything is constantly changing, then things always remain the same.” (Reflexive Historical Sociology, 2000)

All of us, especially those who are responsible for leading […]

2018-09-20T20:10:39+00:00February 10th, 2013|Change, Research|0 Comments