#3 Networks may save us-A conversation with David Ehrlichman

Welcome to The Way Forward: Regenerative Conversations Podcast # 3.   I am Jim Burke the producer.

While top-down hierarchal organizations have historically been good at addressing complicated issues, we are now faced with complex problems that need a new way of organizing that engages collectively many people who can feel ownership of the issues.   For David Ehrlichman (ehrlichman@converge.net) one of the biggest challenges our civilization faces in the way forward, is how we as humans organize and concentrate power

Our hosts Alain Gauthier and Dr John Izzo talk with David about his journey co-founding Converge and Hats Protocol and writing the book “Impact Networks: Create Connection, Spark Collaboration, and Catalyze Systemic Change”.  We learn that in his early work with non-profits David felt that he was just addressing the symptoms of a massively broken system.  He began asking himself how he could work across organizations and even across sectors.  This led to his work integrating network science and systems thinking into cross-sector multi-stakeholder collaborations.   David talks about a quality of leadership that is facilitative and not directive, where it supports people coming together and discovering what they can do collectively.  David sees this as a deliberate process which allows for emergent results. It is planful, but it plans for emergence. He shares with us that his personal mission [in life] for many years has been to catalyze others to make their greatest contribution.  He feels hopeful because he sees a paradigm shift happening with the increasing focus on networks as a different type of organizing structures.

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