“A crisis is the end of an illusion.” Jerry Weinberg.



We could describe our current situation this way.

Of course, these situations are not a surprise to everyone. Many people are quite unsurprised because they’ve been living it and/or doing the work forever.

Many have been aware at some level, but not known what to do. Many people—like me— are now looking for active ways to shift this situation. Shrugging and hoping for a return to normalcy only sets up another cycle.

Many of us have been learning about complexity + complex adaptive systems for a couple of decades. We’ve been testing this knowledge in our orgs.


Now the time this put knowledge put to work. Use what we know to influence the vector of the larger CAS.

Things build and build until they crash or spin out of control. Many small stresses pile up until a structure fails. Many seemingly unrelated factors entwine to create a pattern.

This is what happens in CAS.

What do you do when the crash happens and chaos breaks out?

Breathe. 



Act to move out of chaos. Sense where stability is possible. Respond to move out of chaos. That may mean moving physically. It may mean finding some small action that will reduce the chaos around you, just enough to take a purposeful action.

You may be able to do this for a larger or smaller scope of the system. You may only be able to do that for yourself.

That is ok. It is a start.

It is actually essential. You need to be able to access your resourcefulness and your brain and move into problem solving.

It may seem that the situation is beyond the scope of your fixing. 



This is the road to disempowerment. 



Things built and built, piled and piled, combined and entangled to create the current mess. Many factors. Some we can influence.

Walk back from the big pattern to what is local. Walk back from what is institutional to what is individual. Find some place where some action to shift some part of the pattern is possible.


Find the end of one of the threads that wove this cloth.

Start where you are. Do what you can, with what is available to you.

It will be slow grinding work.

It is this slow, grinding work that will make it far less likely that the system will snap back to status quo, for the next build up to the next crash.

Work on the myriad small things that contribute the situation.

If it is showing up with a broom to sweep up broken glass, do that.

If it is telling you cranky uncle or your cousin or your co-worker that you don’t want to hear it next time them make a comment that demeans or dehumanizes, do that.

If it is educating yourself about the events and decisions that got us where we are, do that.

If it is noticing that the candidate pool for an open position is monotone and monochromatic, do that. Then find out how to find more diverse candidates.

If it is calling your elected officials do that. Tell them the issues you think are important to address.

Go to public meetings.

Be sure to put on your patience pants first.

It may not seem very big. It may not seem like it will make a difference.

But we got to the cataclysm bit by bit. We can create something different in the same way.

If many more people join those how are already acting with intention, it will go faster.

working on something small may not seem like working on “the real problem.”

But most systemic problems cannot be moved directly. You have to work on all the little things that contribute to the pattern and hold the pattern in place.

It won’t be fast. It won’t be easy.

We are not floating along on the river of history. We have to paddle, and paddle hard.

We can’t just wait for someone else to solve it.

We can’t just hope our elected officials fix it.

Enacting laws and administering policies are part of it (and a big part of how we got here).

The laws and policies that contributed were the will of some people at some point in time.

Show there is a different will now. But don’t stop there.

Do the day-to-day stuff. The stuff you can touch, even it if seems tiny.

There are people who want you to believe the situation is intractable. Only if we let it be. Only if we decry the big pattern and fail to pull on the threads that wove the cloth.

Weave in different threads to create a different pattern.

There are those who benefit from the status quo + will try to return to it.

Arguably, I benefit from the status quo. But I believe I will benefit more from a world w/ justice & a more generative paradigm.

As Paul Wellstone said, “We all do better when we all do better.”

If we all do our little bit, we stand a chance of counter-acting that. If we find some people to work with, we have a better chance.