How to build systems leadership capabilities:

COVID-19 has changed the development landscape. Progress toward the SDGs has been reversed. The tectonic shifts and blind spots surfaced by our current moment have underscored the need for new capabilities to navigate the Decade of Action and seize emergent opportunities for systems transformation. 

Integrated solutions must go beyond optimizing the status quo. Deep systems change starts with fostering collective capacities to situate the ‘self’ in systems, to operate from a place of connectedness between our minds, hearts, and hands and between each other, and to move from ego-system to eco-system awareness. 

In June-September 2020, UNDP partnered with Presencing Institute to host a series of dialogues aimed at building such capabilities for awareness-based collective action. Drawing on the energy and insights from the initial dialogues, it continues this journey in 2021 with a movement to build and sustain architectures of learning and connection for the cultivation of transformation literacy and action confidence within the UN system and beyond. 

Among the entry points will be a series of six global dialogues in the first half of 2021. These virtual gatherings and learning spaces invite UN staff into a unique space to understand and apply approaches from Theory U to the complex challenges at the core of our work. The sessions will take the core questions of the 2020 HDR on Human Development and the Anthropocene as a point of focus for co-inquiry into mechanisms for systems transformation. 

For an even deeper-dive into this process: Starting in February, a 4-month action-learning journey for UN practitioners (teams and individuals who apply) will provide an opportunity for staff to hone their action confidence by applying transformation literacy approaches to problems of their choice. 

Watch this space for opportunities to take part in and contribute to the movement.