Overview
What is Stepping into Systems?
Stepping into Systems is our new introductory series to systems change, covering fundamental topics and concepts: What is Systems Change?; The Importance of Systemic Worldviews; and Working Systemically for Transformation. This series has been informed by practitioners from diverse lineages from around the globe to honour the multiplicity of systems practice, and has been created in partnership with Glider.
Our intention is to lay fertile ground for you to navigate the diverse field of systems change and increase your capacity to see the world with a systemic perspective.
This series is for you if you have been curious about systems change and don’t know where to start; if you are seeking a point of view that embraces rather than minimises complexity; and if you want to explore the ‘how’ of systems change rather than the 'what’.
What are the Open Learning sessions?
We invite you to explore each video with us through three 1-hour online sessions - one for each film. We're hosting these alongside practitioners in the field to create space to learn in community, as well as hear from those with a deep systems practice. In hopes we can welcome many people from around the world, embedded in many different ways of knowing, we're hosting across two timezones: Americas/Europe and Australia/New Zealand.
In each session, we'll begin by watching the film and then head into a discussion on the concepts and themes that emerge. We'll get to hear from practitioners in the field and leave space for a Q&A. We will also help you get started on the session’s accompanying worksheet and share resources to support you to apply the learnings to your own work. Each session will last one hour.
Dates and times
| Americas / Europe | Australia / New Zealand | |
| Film 1: What is systems change? | Wed 4 October: 10:00 ET / 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST | Thu 19 October: 08:30 IST / 11:00 SGT / 14:00 AEDT / 16:00 NZDT |
| Film 2: The importance of systemic worldviews | Wed 18 October: 10:00 ET / 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST | Thu 26 October: 08:30 IST / 11:00 SGT / 14:00 AEDT / 16:00 NZDT |
| Film 3: Working systemically for transformation | Wed 1 November: 10:00 ET / 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET | Thu 2 November: 08:30 IST / 11:00 SGT / 14:00 AEDT / 16:00 NZDT |
Sign up
Sign up to join the sessions in the time zone best suited to you:
When you sign up for the series, you will receive email reminders for all three sessions. We have a limited amount of free spaces available for those who need them - no questions asked. Just enter promo code SUPPORTED at checkout and select the free ticket option.
What is systems change?
Our series begins with some fundamental questions of systems change - what are systems and what is systems change; exploring and embrace their qualities of, emergent, nested, interconnected and alive. This sets the stage in the series for foundational questions to multiple ways of understanding and knowing as we step into systems.
Our Americas/Europe session will be hosted by Anna Birney, CEO at the School of System Change. We will be joined by Dr Melanie Goodchild, Academic Director of Makwa Waakaa'igan at Algoma University.
Date: Wed 4 October
Time: 10:00 ET / 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST (1 hour)
Check your time zone
Our Australia/New Zealand session will be hosted by Saskia Rysenbry, Curator at the School of System Change, and Seanna Davidson, Founder and Director at The Systems School, and Jethro Lawrence at Glider.
Date: Thu 19 October
Time: 08:30 IST / 11:00 SGT / 14:00 AEDT / 16:00 NZDT (1 hour)
Check your time zone
The importance of systemic worldviews
The second video explores how our worldviews shape systems. We look at how what and how we practise at the small scale reverberates at bigger scales. We can see how our lineages shape us and different worldviews across all sorts of systems, including in socio-technical systems, where many of us hold multiple, sometimes conflicting, worldviews. Exploring our worldviews invites us to think about how we might act and be from this place.
Our Americas/Europe session will be hosted by Saskia Rysenbry, Curator at the School of System Change, and Abdul Dube, Graphic Recorder/Facilitator at Visual Confidence.
Date: Wed 18 October
Time: 10:00 ET / 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST (1 hour)
Check your time zone
Our Australia/New Zealand session will be hosted by Saskia Rysenbry, Curator at the School of System Change, and Seanna Davidson, Founder and Director at The Systems School. We will be joined by Eruera Tarena, Exective Director at Tokona Te Raki, Māori Futures Collective in Aotearoa.
Date: Thu 26 October
Time: 08:30 IST / 11:00 SGT / 14:00 AEDT / 16:00 NZDT (1 hour)
Check your time zone
Working systemically for transformation
The third video explores how we might think and act systemically in our changemaking work. As we step deeper into our practice, we look at inner work, seeing fractals and the relational patterns of change as well as what this means for our wider contribution to the whole; and how learning is change.
Our Americas/Europe session will be hosted by Rodrigo Bautista, Design and Innovation Lead at Forum for the Future. Joined by Juanita Zerda, Director at Collective Change Lab, and Ana Lucía Castaño Galvis, Professor at University of the Environment (UMA).
Date: Wed 1 November
Time: 10:00 ET / 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET (1 hour)
Check your time zone
Our Australia/New Zealand session will be hosted by Saskia Rysenbry, Curator at the School of System Change, and Seanna Davidson, Founder and Director at The Systems School.
Date: Thu 2 November
Time: 08:30 IST / 11:00 SGT / 14:00 AEDT / 16:00 NZDT (1 hour)
Check your time zone
