This episode, features SiG Director, Cheryl Rose. Cheryl is a Senior Fellow with The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and has spent many years working to support social change agents through education and training that helps them to have more impact. Cheryl shares a wealth of knowledge in how we can think about changing systems and sectors.
Having been a mentor and coach to many disruptors, she reminds us to hold a systems lens or a complexity lens when thinking about generating change. For her, generating change is about accepting the honest complexity of our world. What are the implications of confronting honest complexity? With this question, she reminds us that change takes a long time and takes significant investments of resources. In the conversation, she stresses that resources are not just related to money, but are also connected to the social capital we invest in the problems we seek to solve. She warns us to stay away from shiny attractive ideas and to think about how these interventions can impact the system you seek to change.
For her, real systems entrepreneurs, in her experience, practice humility as a genuine asset in the work that they do. She asks listeners to think about who is the best person to implement an idea? So you have come up with an idea, take some time to consider, are you the person who has the skills and is well positioned to bring this idea into the world. Cheryl shares a number of insights that should make us pause, and think. What are the implications of confronting honest complexity? Hope you enjoy this episode.
Hope you enjoy this episode.