I was recently invited to take part in some exciting work where we will be thinking about what community and infrastructure will look like over the next fifty years. I’m thrilled to be involved in this work, which has me thinking deeply about adaptation, and what leadership will be required in the years ahead.

Humankind is at a peculiar place in history – as we stay busy tinkering with our everyday business routines, keeping productivity on track, there is a monumental shift happening beneath our feet. One which will have us falling flat on our collective backsides if we don’t move with it.

I have often been accused of being too direct. Too blunt. Goodness knows, I have accused myself of these things.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘straight talking' lately. As the election has rolled on in all its absurdity, I’ve become increasingly frustrated and disappointed, as the noise of immediate concerns and band-aid, quick fix solutions prevail again. Neither of the major political parties names the existential crisis we are amid, nor even the real underlying causes of the housing and cost-of-living crisis.

Yesterday, I watched a video of the renowned economist, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Istanbul. Now there’s a guy who talks straight! As I watched, I kept wondering whether the Trump administration would let him back into the USA!

Nearly all my clients this year have been experiencing disruption. It's not the type of disruption we used to lead and say, "Yeah! Let's disrupt ourselves. Let's be innovative!"

Instead, it's a deeply disturbing disruption forced on teams by outside events.

The kind of disruption we all felt as COVID-19 emerged five years ago in March 2020 challenges the pattern of our everyday lives and work. It asks us to reconsider "what is our purpose now?" It also asks deep questions about who we are and how we want to be perceived as we respond. It goes right to the core of our identity as people and as 'leaders'.

As I've been working with teams and organisations that are experiencing disruption, some paradoxical observations and lessons have emerged.

Contrary to the mainstream's wild acceptance of the need to make everything in business AI-dependent, we should think twice. AI has risks other than taking over the world and ruling us (although that is a risk). We risk losing our creative thinking capability.

I use a little simple AI, and probably more than I know since it appears everywhere. My Zoom account has AI assistance. As I am writing this, a bot watching over my every keystroke is prompting me to change my grammar.

As an author, I recognise the importance of writing to learn what I think.

Those challenging interactions that require us to adapt and evolve are as much about transforming ourselves as they are about influencing the person we are engaging with.

What was the first really difficult conversation you ever had to initiate?

I remember mine very clearly.

Recently, in the news in Australia, there has been a public debate about the national problem of domestic violence against women.

A quick 'google search' of the number of cultural changes needed within Australia may overwhelm you. The list includes the Federal Parliament (since 2020) and Defence forces and police forces.

At first glance, these issues may seem separate from each other. But of course, they’re not.

These issues signal deeply misogynistic tendencies within our society. The issue in parliament may be seen as a symptom of our societal challenge to deal with attitudes to women, and the way that is expressed - whether that's physical, emotional or verbal.

During the last week, I have been preparing for a presentation/workshop with senior leaders in local councils. I've been asked to share ideas about working in complexity with a group with very different roles. As I listened to the challenges that were being faced, I realised just how complex the task was!

Last week I spent a day with a fabulous group of middle to senior leaders who are involved in a major organisational merger. Involved is a word that is too objective and distanced to describe their experiences. Terms such as embroiled, entangled, or enmeshed may be better terms.

The organisation is changing at such a pace that some team members are feeling threatened by potential (and as yet unknown) changes. Most are working beyond the realms of their usual role in terms of scope and time on the job. The priorities are unclear. What is most important? Everyone is tired. And there is another 12-24 months to go yet.

I just received some feedback from a presentation I delivered a week or so ago. Overall, it was very good feedback, but one bit of feedback stood out as both familiar and frustrating (it occurs to me that this could also be relevant to my previous post about bubbles and triggers).

So here I go!

This particular piece of feedback suggested that the work with the group had been ‘theoretical’ and ‘academic’. It's not the first time I've received feedback like this, and it comes with a sense of being inconsequential at the same time. “Oh, it's an interesting theoretical,” so it can't possibly be pragmatic!

I know why it emerges. It's because I spend time talking about how the way we think about things influences what we do. This is a conceptual piece of my work.

What reflections do I have on the past week that may turn into something useful for us all?

• Two stabbings in Sydney of which to make meaning.

• A new client is emerging in the implementation of climate policies and strategies. In the 'getting to know you' space, we are trying to understand each other's needs.

• A coaching conversation with a valued leader in the sustainability space where the inquiry began with the use of language in our paradigm-shifting world and became 'meaning-making'.

So, let's zero in on understanding each other and meaning-making. This topic builds upon my newsletter last week about having 'difficult' conversations about existential topics (like current climate science and what we need to do now).

This week, I’ve been preparing to facilitate a short workshop for a group to explore how to have ‘difficult conversations’ together. These are not just difficult conversations about someone’s work performance not being what it should be; they are conversations about big, complex, and quality-of-life-determining issues.

These are conversations that matter!

Some folk reminisce and talk about how we have lost the capability to share different perspectives – to listen to each other. They talk as though we used to be able to do this. I wonder if this is true or not.

Yesterday, I facilitated a team responsible for supporting/enabling resilient communities. One team can't really be responsible for that, can they!?

However, this highly skilled (and very willing) team engage across the entire state system to help us all change for a sustainable future.

Part of our conversation was about how to catalyse or continue to fuel the impetus for broad social change. We started talking about ‘comms plans’ and behaviour change…. But if the change, sometimes referred to as The Great Turning, only required this, the job would be done!

What are we missing?  What are we assuming is true, but is not?

“This needs to change to make that happen.”

That's our first instinct, isn't it? That change is something that happens outside us. I see sustainability professionals changing things in the environment around us, but very few people stop long enough to realise that there are different types, or even levels, of change

The simplest of changes that we make are substitutional changes. A popular (and recent for myself) substitutional change would be switching from fossil fuel cars to electric vehicles. It doesn't really require a change in our habits or a change in our way of doing things or thinking about things. It's just taking one type of technology and substituting it for another.

I was preparing for a professional development program for myself last week, and I was reading and watching a video by Jem Bendell, who employs a lot of critical theory in his work.

Critical theory is about being aware of the ways in which we can become captive to our assumptions and the cultural context around them. There are ideas, and even words that have become so ingrained in our culture and our minds, that they just ‘common sense’ over time. We never question them.

In this video, Jem asked the question:

“How does even having the word ‘leader’ impact us?”

This really struck me as an important question, especially in these times when we need so much change.

Most people consider WHAT they want to change and assume they know HOW to change.

But, when people think about the nature and dynamic of change, they often say things like "enabling sustainable change". What they generally mean by this is that they want the change to 'stick' or endure. That's our usual interpretation of sustainable - something that endures in this state for a long time...

This is a personal story this week. I was outside last night feeding our old horse (still a gorgeous boy at 28), and I walked past a wire structure - a cage my other half built two cats ago.

Two cats ago is the measure of time because the structure is a very large cat cage. When the kids came home with a new rehomed kitten from the RSPCA about 20 years ago, my husband decided the cat would not be an outdoor cat. You see, he loves all the native birds that live around our house in the hills.

So, having made this decision, he went out and purchased timber and wire mesh and spent quite some time building a lovely large cat cage outside. He even built the cage around a gum tree so the cat could climb. The wire netting over the top would stop the cat from escaping. He figured we could put the cat inside. The cat would have a nice time outside. The birds would be safe. Win/win/win! Right?

The increasing cost of living has been a big topic in Australia this past 6 months or so, and the ABC 4 Corners program broadcast an investigation into the 2 major supermarkets Monday night.

So, how do we understand this accusation of price gouging, and how do we change this complex challenge for the better?

I facilitate psychological adaptive work. To do this, I intend to create environments where people begin to think and feel differently about a specific challenge or even themselves.

Last week, we commenced some new work within an organisation where many people knew each other’s names but didn’t actually ‘know’ each other. We created several spaces within our ‘agenda’ (a process of exploration) for them to share about themselves beyond the standard CV and learn about each other as people.

A quick note to keep in mind for this newsletter: Though the prompt for this newsletter is linked to recent political developments, my intention is not for this to be a political post. Rather, I want to look at how we respond to these sorts of events, especially how leaders changing past decisions can easily be seen as breaching trust.

The recent Labor Party government's about-face on the stage 3 taxes in Australia has resulted in a media focus on the inextricable links between leadership and trust.

You might think this is an issue of such magnitude that this conversation is irrelevant to you. If that's the case, you are wrong from a personal and broader system perspective.

It is not a daily event but a common one, leading to the realisation of the importance of time, identity and the process of contemplating a change to support adaptation.

Yesterday I was thrilled to announce on LinkedIn that i had purchased what I hope is the last ever, litre of petrol I need to buy for a car. I was chuffed, to say the least.

I pick up my new electric vehicle this coming Saturday. It marks a significant milestone in my quest to live a more sustainable life. And that is no easy ambition within the constraints of the different systems we all live in. So, as I hung up the petrol bowser pump, I felt a growing sense of elation as I realised what I was doing and the satisfaction of 'living my values'. This is important to my sense of identity: a person and practitioner talking about change for sustainability in organisations. Our solar panels will charge the car and help us function when the power goes out in the main grid. We are becoming more self-sufficient energy-wise. True on one level and more complex on another.