Binging someone else’s reading list for their sustainability course

I am reading the course literature for a sustainability course that a colleague shared with me, to see if I want to use some of it in a similar course we are developing at the moment. Here are my notes to myself.

Systems and transitions

Andersson et al. (2014) look at “Societal systems–complex or worse?” and of course it turns out: worse… They distinguish complexity (often understood as self-organisation like a school of fish) and complicatedness (often top-down organisation like in engineering), and in combination of both, things become and stay wicked (like ecosystems or societies, which cannot be understood by understanding a complex and a complicated component, but are just wicked throughout).

Elzen & Wieczorek (2005) write about “Transitions towards sustainability through system innovation“. Innovation is usually a gradual, incremental change, but with that also slow. Transitions are more dramatic changes of large systems with multiple interconnected actors, factors, and levels, that are at the same time also much more difficult to achieve. Transition management and policies would need interactive learning and networks, engaging all kinds of different actors into the governance process, starting with vision building and learning. The authors end by stating that “Transition policy (or transition management in the broader sense) consists of a variety of efforts and actions, tuned to a specific situation and applied dynamically in the course of time as development progresses. Transition policy is a matter of long breath, far longer than the typical cabinet period, which in itself may already constitute a serious barrier to carry it out. This poses the challenge of developing robust long-term policies that are relatively unsusceptible to whimsical political winds.”

Rotmans et al. (2001) define transition in their article on “More evolution than revolution: transition management in public policy“: “Transitions are transformation processes in which society changes in a fundamental way over a generation or more“, but in a “gradual, continuous process of change“. They describe that transitions have several phases: pre-development where things are happening very slowly, then a take-off and acceleration where things suddenly happen very fast (which, in this context, typically still means at least a quarter of a century), and then a stabilization in a new regime. Transitions can take place on the micro-/niche level, regimes on the meso level, and socio-technical landscapes on the macro level, and influence and ignite each other. They highlight that “Transition management is based on long-term visions which function as a framework for formulating short-term objectives and evaluating existing policy“. An example of a long-term vision is “putting a man on the moon“. But working towards a long-term vision needs iterative refinement of interim goals and strategies. They write “A characteristic of transition management is that it achieves structural change gradually, without too much destructive friction in the form of social resistance.The rationale behind the gradual approach is that a transition can be brought about by the gradual transformation of an existing system, instead of the planned creation of a new system“. The authors stress the important role of governments in developing visions and shaping conditions (for example through laws, taxes, or funding for research) as well as “stimulating experiments (niche management), developing new partnerships and encouraging discussion of where society should be heading“.

Strategies

Meadows (2015) on “Leverage points — places to intervene in a system“. This is the list of places to intervene in a system (that also Lidgren et al. 2006 use in their analysis of what LU should do to take sustainability more seriously in teaching): Most effective (but also most difficult) is addressing and transcending mindsets and paradigms, then changing goals and distribution of power, rules for rewards and punishments, how information flows, then some more down to least effective. There are tons of examples what each of the leverage points means in practice, and the final message that “in the end, it seems that power has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly letting go“, which sounds like surprisingly good advice!

Collaboration and organisational learning

Cruz et al. (2009): “Towards a systemic development approach: Building on the Human-Scale Development paradigm” (where the reading instruction is to focus on Table 2). That table is a matrix of nine needs (from substinence to freedom) and four satisfiers (being, having, doing, and interacting). For example, for the need for understanding, we need to be critical and curious, have literature or teachers, do investigations, experiments, or studies, and interact in formative ways for example in schools or other communities. This is quite interesting!

Sandow & Allen (2005) explore “The Nature of Social Collaboration: How Work Really Gets Done“. Sounds intriguing! They state that “collaboration begins with listening“, and that “in true listening one learns from others” (interesting when reading this right after sharing the quote about reloading above…). They highlight the importance of trust which they define as “an emotional attitude that grows with the realization that someone understands you, because you come to see yourself, as in a reflective pool, through their observations and experiences in listening to you“. This leads to a reinforcing cycle of trusting – collaborating – listening – understanding – and more trusting. One very important advice (among other, more obvious, like “do no harm“, is to “Watch your language. It shapes your perception and affects your capacity to contribute“. “Leading with “ what to change” rather than with “ what to conserve” always creates resistance and leads an organization to overlook, unwittingly, what is already working“. Another very important advice is to consider the distinction between networks of collaboration and networks of ambition. Maybe this is the most important advice in the article in the context I am considering using it in — for students to think about how they work with others…

Schein (1993)’s article is “On dialogue, culture, and organizational learning“, which again stressed the importance of shared mental models which are only created in dialogue and through building trust first, and take time building, especially if built across cultural boundaries. Schein (1993) then gives fairly standard facilitation advice (e.g. arrange furniture so people sit in a circle, encourage conversations with the neighbor, make sure everybody gets airtime in the plenum, …), but also stresses that “we have to learn to listen to ourselves before we can really understand others“, which I think is a really important message for my context.

Leadership

Stewart (1993) describes “Future state visioning—A powerful leadership process“. Future State Visioning is about co-creating a vision what could be expressing it in values and actionable concepts, before considering what is now in order to not get dragged down but to think big (“What is can be a great barrier to what could be. Those who want to move forward through bold and effective change, should begin at the end—with where they want to be“), and steps for how to do that are presented in this article.

Holmberg & Larsson (2018) develop “A sustainability lighthouse—supporting transition leadership and conversations on desirable futures“. They discuss different conceptions of sustainability, starting from Brundtland to including more components, and create a basic, sufficient, and non-overlapping framework, the “lighthouse”. The lighthouse rests on a bedrock of ecological sustainability (which includes substances from the earth’s crust, substances produced in society, and physical means), has the tower of social (horizontal and vertical relations as well as equity and justice) and economic (natural, human-made, human and financial capital) sustainability. The guiding light consists of human needs & wellbeing (subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, idleness, creation, identity, and freedom). The idea is that the lighthouse model of sustainability can be used to foster conversations, guide transitions, and as a tool in backcasting. Interesting!

Isaacs (1999) introduces the concept of “dialogic leadership“, “a way of leading that consistently uncovers, through conversation, the hidden creative potential in any situation” (nice ambition!). In conversations in general, there are four possible moves: moving, following, bystanding, and opposing. If people get stuck in roles where they mostly only do one of the four, dialogue becomes difficult, so the art is to be able to choose and enact the appropriate move in any given situation, and even better, to slightly change the practice: for example, opposing needs to become respecting even in disagreement. Isaacs (1999) claim is that a dialogic leader (who isn’t necessarily a leader in an organisational hierarchy, but can also lead bottom-up!) needs to be able to be able to elicit people’s “genuine voices” to which the leader then listens deeply (One quote that really resonated with me is “people do not listen, they reload“. Unfortunately that is so often true!), respects the partner even if they disagree, and are willing to change their mind.

Senge et al. (2015), in “The dawn of system leadership“, write about system leaders like Mandela, and how they do what they do, for example that “[t]hey are so convinced that something can be done that they do not wait for a fully developed plan, thereby freeing others to step ahead and learn by doing. Indeed, one of their greatest contributions can come from the strength of their ignorance, which gives them permission to ask obvious questions and to embody an openness and commitment to their own ongoing learning and growth that eventually infuse larger change efforts“. They see the larger system (and help others see it, too), they foster collective reflection by “holding up the mirror to see the taken-for-granted assumptions we carry into any conversation and appreciating how our mental models may limit us“, and they “shift[…] the collective focus from reactive problem solving to co-creating the future“. Senge et al. (2015) also offer a guide for moving along the path, suggesting to learn on the job, balance advocacy on the one hand with listening to others’ opinions on the other, engage across barriers, and “letting go” in order to see new angles and develop new strategies, building your own toolkit over time, and working with other leaders. They end hopeful, describing “a growing awareness that the inner and outer dimensions of change are connected. As our awakening continues, more and more system leaders who catalyze collective leadership will emerge”

Ackoff (1999) introduces us to “transformational leadership“. The article starts out by pointing out that administration, management, and leadership, though often used interchangeably, are not the same thing: while leadership is about people following voluntarily “with enthusiasm and dedication“, management is about making people do what the manager wants them to do, and administration is about making people do what someone else wants them to do. So then in order to lead in a leadership sense, the leader “must encourage and facilitate formulation of an organizational vision in which as many stakeholders as possible have participated“. And then there is a lot more stuff that I totally did not manage to keep my attention on.

Ferdig (2007) writes about “Sustainability leadership: Co-creating a sustainable future“. In Ferdig (2007)’s understanding of leadership, everyone can take on responsibility to lead, but that means leading with others instead of over them, and the leader needs to recognize and foster their connection to people and natural systems. Ferdig (2007) uncritically uses a weak sustainability model with a focus on the “triple bottom line“, which I always find problematic, and that combined with an overuse of preachy claims about what a “sustainability leader” does makes this paper really hard to read despite its promising title.

Meyerson & Scully (1995) write about “tempered radicalism and the politics of ambivalence and change” on leadership from within. My summary here — worth checking out!

Kate Raworth on Marie Forleo’s podcast: Doughnut economics

After all that reading above, I decided that I had sat too much and moved too little throughout the day, and that I would go for a walk even though it’s dark and raining. And after starting and discarding some podcasts from my list, I somehow stumbled across Marie Forleo’s conversation with Kate Raworth about the planetary boundary doughnut. It’s a recording from 2021, but I did not notice that until I went to the episode homepage to link it here. But it made me feel so much better! I used to love Marie Forleo’s podcast a decade ago but somehow drifted away from it, glad I rediscovered it!

Anyway, I often use Kate Raworth’s TED talk as recommended background for my courses, and I know that I have explored the Doughnut Economics website when I first started working more on sustainability, but also that I rediscovered today, and now I am very motivated to do a Doughnut Portrait (introductory video here) of Lund University! In a nutshell, they distill it into the single question “how can our place become a home to thriving people in a thriving place, while respecting the wellbeing of all people and the health of the whole planet?”. This means looking at balancing the local aspirations and the global responsibilities, both for the ecological ceiling and the social foundation. It would be so interesting to do that!

Ackoff, R. L. (1999). Transformational leadership. Strategy & leadership, 27(1), 20-25.

Andersson, C., Törnberg, A., & Törnberg, P. (2014). Societal systems–complex or worse?. Futures, 63, 145-157.

Cruz, I., Stahel, A., & Max-Neef, M. (2009). Towards a systemic development approach: Building on the Human-Scale Development paradigm. Ecological economics, 68(7), 2021-2030.

Davelaar, D. (2021). Transformation for sustainability: a deep leverage points approach. Sustainability Science, 16, 727-747.

Elzen, B., & Wieczorek, A. (2005). Transitions towards sustainability through system innovation. Technological forecasting and social change, 72(6), 651-661.

Ferdig, M. A. (2007). Sustainability leadership: Co-creating a sustainable future. Journal of Change Management, 7(1), 25-35.

Holmberg, J., & Larsson, J. (2018). A sustainability lighthouse—supporting transition leadership and conversations on desirable futures. Sustainability, 10(11), 3842.

Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogic leadership. The systems thinker, 10(1), 1-5. (I read this here and assume that’s the article: https://thesystemsthinker.com/dialogic-leadership/)

Meadows, D. (2015). Leverage points-places to intervene in a system.

Meyerson, D. E., & Scully, M. A. (1995). Tempered radicalism and the politics of ambivalence and change. Crossroads. Organization Science, Sep. – Oct., 1995, Vol. 6, No. 5 (Sep. – Oct., 1995), pp. 585-600

Rotmans, J., Kemp, R., & Van Asselt, M. (2001). More evolution than revolution: transition management in public policy. foresight, 3(1), 15-31.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68.

Sandow, D., & Allen, A. M. (2005). The Nature of Social Collaboration: How Work Really Gets Done. Reflections, 6.

Schein, E. H. (1993). On dialogue, culture, and organizational learning. Organizational dynamics, 22(2), 40-52.

Senge, P., Hamilton, H., & Kania, J. (2015). The dawn of system leadership.

Stewart, J. M. (1993). Future state visioning—A powerful leadership process. Long range planning, 26(6), 89-98.

Featured image (and the one below) is the Old Limassol harbor (from 400 BC, so really old) that we snorkeled on. Super cool experience!

We were hoping for turtles in the sea grass meadows, but no luck…

But insanely beautiful color of the water, I still cannot believe that those colors exist day after day after day!

But also the underwater colors are nice!

And as always, I love looking at waves from underneath, light streaming into the water… Pity that I cannot be in the sea 24/7!