Beyond Peak Collaboration to Deep Collaboration
League of Intrapreneurs Impact Learning Network
“We’ve gone past Peak Collaboration. People confuse signing up to a charter as collaboration. It’s not - it’s just feel good BS. I’m interested in collective action, making a difference in the here and now.”
A VP at a global brand recently shared this view with me while discussing the role of collaboration in tackling complex systemic issues like climate change.
We were discussing the idea that it “takes a system to change a system.” That, no one company or organization can deliver systemic outcomes on their own. We need to work together.
So, if we have passed Peak Collaboration, what’s next?
This is the question Flor Estrade, and I have been exploring along with our close community of weavers, network leaders and system-preneurs since we set off last year from the League of Intrapreneurs, a global network of institutional innovators working to tackle systemic challenges from climate change to health inequity.
As co-founders of The League, we are strong believers in the power of community - for finding people who “get it” and “get you”; for expanding your network of critical connections, for learning how to develop and scale solutions and for growing skills for courageous leadership.
The League is a special and unique group of humans. And yet, by its nature, it is a learning community with the links to direct action harder to track and measure.
As we look around at the knotty problems facing our communities, we want to understand how networks and communities are contributing more directly to systemic change. We want to zero in on the DNA of successful collective action networks.
What makes them tick? How do you curate the participants and the journey?
What infrastructure - human and financial - is required to fuel them?
And what type of change is possible? What does systems change look like in the field?
We are tuning in to the incredible work being done by people and organizations like: Together Institute, Pando Funding, Wasan Network and System Sanctuary and inspired by the real life examples being championed by Ivo Degn of Climate Farmers, Leslie Johnston at Laudes Foundation, Jeroen Maas with Digital Health Care Coalition, and the team behind Aliados.
We are organizing a first learning lab in Oxford next month to dive deeper into how networks are driving transformative change in Europe’s agri-food system and will share insights from this gathering in future posts.
Are you working on Deep Collaboration for Systems Change? We’d love to hear from you!
