Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity

by Peggy Holman

Overview

Change is everywhere these days—at times it seems like barely controlled chaos. Yet within this turmoil are the seeds of a higher order. When a new system arises from the ashes of the old, science calls the process “emergence.” By engaging it, you can help yourself and your organization or community to successfully face disruption and emerge stronger than ever.

In this profound book, Peggy Holman offers principles, practices, and real-world stories to help you work with compassion, creativity, and wisdom through the entire arc of change—from disruption to coherence. You’ll learn what to notice, what to explore, what to try, and what mindset opens new possibilities.

This work can be challenging but also tremendously rewarding. It enables new and unlikely partnerships and develops breakthrough projects. You become part of a process that transforms the culture itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605095219
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	09/06/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Peggy Holman is founder of the Open Circle Company, a management consultancy for business, nonprofit, and governmental organizations; cofounder of Journalism That Matters, an initiative that supports pioneers in the emerging news and information ecosystem; and coauthor of The Change Handbook.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION FROM CHAOS TO COHERENCE
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Engaging Emergence"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Peggy Holman.
Excerpted by permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction: From Chaos to Coherence 1

Part I The Nature of Emergence 13

1 What Is Emergence? 17

2 What's the Catch? 28

Part II Practices for Engaging Emergence 43

3 Step Up: Take Responsibility for What You Love 47

4 Prepare: Foster an Attitude for Engaging 58

5 Host: Cultivate Conditions for Engaging 68

6 Step In: Practice Engaging 79

7 Iterate: Do It Again … and Again 100

Part III Principles for Engaging Emergence 113

8 Welcome Disturbance 117

9 Pioneer! 122

10 Encourage Random Encounters 128

11 Seek Meaning 135

12 Simplify 143

Part IV Three Questions for Engaging Emergence 151

13 How Do We Disrupt Coherence Compassionately? 155

14 How Do We Engage Disruptions Creatively? 164

15 How Do We Renew Coherence Wisely? 171

In Closing: What's Possible Now? 181

Summary of Key Ideas 191

About Emergent Change Processes 201

Notes 213

Glossary 219

Bibliography 223

Acknowledgements 227

Index 230

About the Author 240

What People are Saying About This

Ronald and Marty Linsky Heifetz

“Provides practical advice for orchestrating conflict and moving through discomfort to reach a new coherence.”--(Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, cofounders of Cambridge Leadership Associates and coauthors of Leadership on the Line and The Practice of Adaptive Leadership)

Margaret J. Wheatley

“A dance manual for how to move gracefully with the disruption, uncertainty, and mystery that are part of life’s rhythms, how to welcome interruption and discontinuity as opportunities for creativity, community, and greater capacity.”--(Margaret J. Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science)

Peter Block

“Very useful in giving structure and form to ways of dealing with the unpredictable and volatile way the world comes at us. A powerful antidote to the change management illusion that the future can be driven, engineered, managed, and drilled.”--(Peter Block, author of Community)

Editorial Reviews

In Engaging Emergence Peggy Holman does the best job yet of showing us how managers and change agents can use the insights of complexity theory for planned, transformational change.  Highly readable and practical, Holman provides useful, concrete illustrations that make it easy to understand a difficult topic.”
—Gervase Bushe, Professor of Leadership and Organization Development, Segal Graduate School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada and author of Clear Leadership

Our times requite new levels of understanding. Courageous, creative, collaborative — read emergent — processes are key to getting there. Peggy Holman's new book helps us appreciate why such process are needed, how they work, and what it takes to get them to happen. It makes important contribution.
—Charles Johnston, MD, author of The Creative Imperative and Hope and the Future

“Emergence and its associated chaos are happening at an accelerating pace.  Ms. Holman offers practical perspectives for working with Emergence creatively as a source of opportunity.”
—James B. Shaffer, Chief Operating Officer and Dean, School of Business, University of Southern Maine

For those who feel battered by change and chaos, Peggy Holman's book is a tonic. The intelligent, optimistic and caring voice with which she facilitates complex, even contentious groups in transition permeates the pages. Engaging Emergence is at once pragmatic and palliative — good for the mind and heart.
—Jill Geisler, Group Leader, Leadership and Management Programs, The Poynter Institute

Russell Ackoff wrote: „The only thing harder than starting something new, is stopping something old.  Peggy Holman's "Engaging Emergence" gives us hope that we can step beyond the irrelevant entrainment of the past, bring forward what is useful and effectively operate into the uncertain and unknown future. Recognizing that not all of us thrive on uncertainty and ambiguity, Peggy helps ground is in useful ideas to embrace and thrive into our futures. By giving language to the practice of engaging emergence, she also lifts us beyond a theoretical idea to a place of useful practice.
—Nancy White, author of Digital Habitats

“Engaging Emergence is a crucial guide for navigating transitional moments in social systems — from group upsets and business challenges to global financial meltdowns.  Holman brilliantly applies a 14-billion-year historical perspective in ways that give us the eyes to see opportunity amid chaos, the heart to trust the process, and the mental toolkit to effectively nurture evolutionary breakthroughs.”
—Connie Barlow, author of Evolution Extended

“This book is most relevant and will be of great service to change agents attempting to bring about complex transformative change – the type of change needed to successfully reinvent our world and the major task of humanity at this moment in time.  Thank you for stepping up to the challenge of grounding this elusive concept into an actual change strategy.” 
—David Gershon, president, Empowerment Institute and author of Social Change 2.0

From the Publisher