Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity
By Peggy Holman
What would it mean if we knew how to face challenging situations with a high likelihood of achieving breakthrough outcomes?
Success can occur on the scale of the Belfast Agreement that 
brought peace to Northern Ireland. Or it can be like the Transition Town movement that supports communities in self-organizing around initiatives that rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions. Or it might be at the interpersonal level, as when people or groups reconcile their differences, improving the lives of families, organizations, and communities.
Since the early 1990s, I’ve sought to understand how to turn difficult, often conflicted issues into transformative leaps of renewed commitment and achievement. I’ve explored the use of whole system change practices that engage diverse people in creating innovative and lasting shifts in effectiveness. I’ve co-convened conferences around ambitious societal questions like, “What does it mean to do journalism that matters for our communities and democracy?” And I’ve delved into the science of complexity, chaos, and emergence—in which order arises out of chaos—to better understand human systems. In the process, I have noticed useful patterns, practices, and principles for engaging the natural forces of emergent change. Here are a few highlights:
All change begins with disruption. It’s obvious if you think about it. If there were no disruption, there’d be no need to change. By developing a healthy working relationship with disturbance, we can turn resistance and denial into curiosity and creativity.
Since disruption understandably brings out strong emotions, compassion is a great attitude to cultivate. At root, compassion means “to suffer with.” In other words, compassion reminds us that we’re all in it together.
Engaging disruption creatively helps us discover differences that make a difference. At the heart of engagement is a practice that helps people to maximize creativity, generating innovative ideas and establishing new relationships.
The practice is taking responsibility for what we love, as an act of service. This game-changing way of operating liberates hearts, minds, and spirits. It calls us to pay attention to what matters most, putting our unique gifts to use.
As we spread our wings—with all our diversity—it may seem like an invitation to chaos. Yet a meaningful organizing question and welcoming conditions provide spaciousness to explore differences and spark innovation, solidarity, generosity, and unexpected answers.
Wise, resilient systems coalesce when the needs of individuals and the whole are served. Discovering shared meaning turns “us” and “them” into a spirit of “we.” This shift is so counterintuitive! Many of us live with an unspoken belief that to belong, we must conform. We sacrifice to make compromises that no one likes and feel more isolated as a result.
The practice of collective reflection helps surface what matters to individuals and the whole. It can generate unexpected breakthroughs containing what is vital to each and all of us.
What’s Possible Now?
If a turning point occurs when we experience ourselves as part of a larger system, how do we create such experiences at scale?
Joel de Rosnay, author of The Symbiotic Man, introduced the notion of “the macroscope.” Just as microscopes help us to see the infinitely small and telescopes help us to see the infinitely far, macroscopes help us to see the infinitely complex.
Maps, stories, art, media, computer models, or some combination of these can provide a macroscopic view through which we come to know how we fit together. This perspective can clarify our own role and inspire commitment to others and to a greater good.
If the challenges ahead have you stumped, don’t despair. We are ideally positioned for a promising way forward. Ask possibility-oriented questions. Engage others creatively. Reflect together on what you learn. And share your stories of upheaval turned to opportunity.
Peggy Holman has designed and hosted meetings for diverse groups handling complex issues since 1992, including the National Institute of Corrections, Microsoft, and the Associated Press Managing Editors. In the second edition of The Change Handbook, Peggy and co-authors Tom Devane and Steven Cady profile 61 change methods, including Appreciatively Inquiry, Open Space Technology, and the World Café. Her new book, Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity (Berrett-Koehler, 2010), dives beneath these change methods to make visible deeper patterns, principles, and practices for change that can guide us through turbulent times.
Sign up for Peggy's webinar, "Order from Chaos: Practices for Turning Upheaval into Opportunity."
photo of flowers at Buckingham Palace by David Kessler