Riding Conflict

by Nathan Senge

In 2010, NOS staff members experienced systems thinking and organizational learning for the first time when co-founder Alejandro Robles and staff member and Academy Fellow Christian Liñán-Rivera attended the SoL (Society for Organizational Learning) Executive Champions’ Workshop. They began to tinker with these principles with fellow community members, seeking “to hold conflict rather than resolve it,” as Robles says.

“We began to practice dialogue in which people could suspend their mental models of what was going on and explore different perceptions and perspectives. We explored what we truly wanted to manifest together rather than just react to current problems. In this, I remember Peter Senge said, ‘Sustainability is not a problem to be solved; it’s a future to be created.’ That phrase made an impact on me. That changed the paradigm we were working in from one of conflict resolution towards one of creative tension.”

NOS staff members began learning how to encourage people to articulate and clarify their aspirations, and to explore the gap between these and the challenges in their present reality. That is, to feel open in expressing their frustrations and anxieties as they worked  towards actualizing their visions.

Building collective capacity to hold creative tension in this way is very different from merely writing vision statements and devising plans to achieve them. In 2011, this process helped the members of the Manglito community decide together to cease fishing all Callo de Hacha penshell clams in the Ensenada de la Paz bay until they could adequately regenerate.

During this regeneration phase, NOS staff members became practitioners of collaborative learning tools such as the daily “check-in,¹” whereby “each person can express their feelings and thoughts in an open space if they wish to.” While simple in principle, the cumulative effects of a regular check-in can help people feel more connected with one another, and gradually shift the rhythm of a sometimes menial work environment to one of organic reflection and action.

As they became more experienced in these practices, NOS staff members introduced them to other Manglito community members, who then began to practice them with one another. To hone their new skills further, NOS co-director Liliana Gutiérrez Mariscal and Christian Liñán-Rivera, would later become members of the first cohort of Fellows at the Academy for Systems Change.