Debbie Frieze and Bob Stilger are co-presidents of the Berkana Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on connecting and supporting the pioneering efforts of life-affirming leaders around the globe. In a recent conversation with Leverage Points editor Vicky Schubert, they described the scope and direction of Berkana's work.

LP: Please tell us about how Berkana was founded and how it has evolved over its 14 years.

DF: Margaret Wheatley co-founded Berkana shortly after writing Leadership and the New Science, to explore the ways in which a living systems perspective could expand our understanding of how change happens. One of the founding questions was, "What would the world look like if we acted from the belief that the leaders we need are already here?"

BS: In the early years, Berkana laid the groundwork for understanding leadership as an organic system rather than a mechanical one. It encouraged people to view the whole system rather than concentrate on the personality and characteristics of a single leader.

LP: Has Berkana taken an active role in developing leaders who shared that perspective?

BS: That's been part of the evolution. During the 1990s, more and more organizational and community leaders came forward with examples of how they were operating from a living systems perspective without ever having named it as such. We wanted to understand and support this growing phenomenon. By 2000, Berkana was looking for places where this kind of leadership was being practiced around the world in order to, among other things, bring that experience back to the U.S.

DF: We've evolved toward the practical and the practicable. We're asking, "What are the conditions that allow self-organization to happen?" We support 12 leadership learning centers around the world that are consciously observing what this process looks like in practice--noticing what the patterns are, being able to name them and work them and explore them. The Berkana Exchange connects these learning centers so they can share their practice and their learning.

Amplifying Our Impact: Strategies for Unleashing the Power of Relationship

You are a pioneer. You know that change begins with you. You have begun to cultivate an inner strength that enables you to risk tough decisions and bold initiatives. You also know that you cannot do it alone. Your ability to spark and sustain innovation depends on networks of countless people--in the cubicles around you and across the globe--whose actions are inexorably bound to your own.

Join us in exploring how we can expand our capacity to:

• engage others in change processes that lead to real and lasting results
• scale up from local initiatives through the power of relationship
• hear each other's voices and capitalize on each other's unique perspectives--in pursuit of mutual goals

In a recent post to the System Dynamics Society listserve, Richard Tait, the chief advisor for strategy development in New Zealand's Ministry of Economic Development, commented on the benefits that a systems thinking approach can provide in the modern public policy environment. He reports that he has begun what will probably be a long journey to try to get systems thinking and system dynamics approaches included in the toolkit for policy analysis in his own and other public sector organizations. His reflections may be encouraging to others trying to nurture a systems thinking instinct in their teams: