“Many of us have been socialized to understand that constant growth, violent competition, and critical mass are the ways to create change. (Read another post inspired by this book, “Emergent Ambition”, by Theresa C. Emergence aligns with how natural systems work, emulating interconnectedness and cooperation, over the more popular mechanistic based approaches. It’s a different way to go about changing the world, a different way to approach social justice and social action, learning how to adapt and become better at change. It’s about redefining our ideas and concepts of success. It’s about letting go of control, and the art of allowing, allowing things, ideas and movements, to arise organically from a ground level up rather than imposing our own ideas and demands on them from above. In this book, adrienne maree brown encourages us to use it as a strategy for life, living, and organizing.Įmergence is a complex mathematical concept but in the context of this book it boils down to letting things emerge rather than chasing or hunting down an outcome. Yes, let’s find a way to follow this emergent strategy.Įmergence is a concept that was popularized by chaos theory in mathematics, then adopted by systems theorists and applied to organizations and organizational development by Margaret Wheatley, subsequently adopted by many other movements and thinkers into an applied idea. We now know it is better to understand ourselves as embedded in nature: we are that, and to allow ourselves to once again become that so that we seamlessly flow with the currents arising and move effortlessly toward the future that is calling us.

Let’s allow ourselves to follow organic patterns that are emerging rather than a tired old script that was written by those who are not living in these times, who do not share our values, who did not understand how life works and thrives, who saw nature as enemy and something to be conquered and tamed. “Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.” ~Nick ObolenskyĪdrienne maree brown is a powerhouse leader with a new battle cry.

Brown emergent strategy