I don’t know about you, but agency is a hot topic right now in the circles I mix in.

Community organisations want people to have greater agency in shaping their lives and communities. Leadership programs aim to develop people who are willing and able to act. Employers want staff who take ownership and initiative. Governments and funders increasingly talk about community-led change, participatory decision-making and shifting power closer to the people affected.

Agency is generally agreed to be a Good Thing.

But what is agency, and how does it develop within, and between people?

We often assume that agency comes from the opportunity to participate. People join a leadership program, contribute to a community project or take part in co-design, and somewhere along the way they become more confident, capable and willing to act.

Sometimes they do, but participation alone doesn’t explain why.

What do people learn from the experience of participating - not only about the subject at hand, but about themselves, other people and what happens when they try to influence the world around them?

This is where agency develops.

Learning that we can make a difference

Imagine someone starting a leadership program unsure of whether they have anything useful to contribute. If the program is designed well, they are trusted with a real decision, test an idea, enlist the help of others and see something happen that wouldn’t have happened without them.

They haven’t simply learned about leadership. They have acquired a small piece of credible evidence that they can lead.

That evidence is important.

Self-efficacy - the belief that we are capable of acting effectively - doesn’t develop simply because someone assures us that we have potential, or we’ve been taught the skills. Encouragement may help, but experience is persuasive. We attempt something, draw on what we’ve learned, navigate the inevitable wobble and discover that we can have an effect.

The first experience doesn’t need to be spectacular. In fact, it’s probably better if it isn’t. Agency develops through a series of relatively ordinary, repeated moments: offering an idea that is taken seriously, exercising judgement, solving a problem, recovering from a mistake or seeing that someone acted on what we said.

These experiences can teach several related lessons: I can do something. Something can change because I acted, and through working with others, we can do something that I couldn’t do alone.

Seen this way, agency is not simply a quality that some people possess and others lack. It develops through the interaction between people and the world around them. It depends partly on confidence and skill, but also on genuine opportunities to act, a response or feedback from the surrounding environment, and some evidence of impact - that my action can make a difference.

This is important because people can’t develop agency through mindset alone. Someone may feel perfectly capable of contributing and still have very little real influence if decisions remain closed to them. Someone else may be given formal authority but hesitate to use it because experience has taught them that speaking up carries risk or changes nothing.

Agency is both psychological and practical. It develops within people, but also between people, and in response to the people, organisations, communities and systems around them.

When hope begins to grow

Hope grows through a similar process.

Hope isn’t simply optimism or the belief that everything will somehow turn out nicely. It involves being able to imagine that something different is possible, see one or more pathways towards it and believe that we, as individuals or people acting together, can take the next step.

This means hope can be built through action. When people experience even a small amount of movement towards something they care about, the future begins to look less fixed. A problem that seemed immovable becomes something that can be approached. One pathway becomes visible, then another.

The action doesn’t need to solve the whole problem. It simply needs to provide credible evidence that the current situation isn’t the only possible one. This is the developmental process.

When this happens alongside other people, the learning expands. People discover who will turn up, who brings knowledge they don’t have, whether disagreement can be worked through and whether responsibility will be shared. They learn that they don’t need to hold every skill, relationship or answer themselves. Their individual confidence becomes connected to relationships and to a growing sense of collective capability.

This is how a relatively modest activity might contribute to something much larger. Not because attending a meeting, planting a garden or joining a youth program automatically creates stronger, more capable communities or systems, but because the experience may give people credible evidence of their own and one another’s capacity to act.

A small accomplishment makes a slightly larger action imaginable. That action develops skills and relationships, which make further action possible. Over time, people may take on responsibilities they would previously have avoided, initiate rather than wait and become more confident that difficulties can be met collectively.

It becomes a reinforcing cycle: meaningful action creates evidence of capability and influence; that evidence strengthens self-efficacy and hope; and greater confidence, stronger relationships and a wider sense of possibility make further action more likely.

Creating real opportunities to act

Of course, merely inviting people to participate doesn’t guarantee any of this. It’s the design of the participation that makes the difference.

If we want a leadership program to develop agency, it must do more than ask people to discuss leadership concepts or absorb ideas from a particularly attractive slide deck. People need opportunities to exercise real judgement, work within real constraints, collaborate with others and influence something meaningful.

The experience needs to be supported, but not so tightly controlled that nothing important is genuinely in the participants’ hands. If every decision has already been made, every risk removed and every outcome determined, people may complete the activity without acquiring much evidence of their own ability to act.

The same applies to co-design, advisory groups and community and other projects. If we want people to experience agency, we need to be honest about what they can influence, give their contribution somewhere meaningful to go and make the response visible. An invitation into the room is not the same as an opportunity to shape what happens there.

Helping people recognise what they can do

This perspective therefore changes facilitation.

Facilitation becomes more than helping a group complete an activity or arrive at a predetermined outcome without anyone staging a small revolt near the tea and coffee station. It includes noticing when people are exercising judgement, taking initiative, drawing on one another’s strengths and attempting something they’re not yet certain they can do.

It also involves helping people interpret those experiences. What changed because they acted? What did they manage that they weren’t sure they could manage? Who made their action possible? What did they learn from the part that didn’t go to plan?

Without that reflection, a successful experience may be attributed to luck, the facilitator or the unusually capable person sitting nearby. Helping people recognise their own contribution, and the contribution of the group, turns an accomplishment into evidence they can carry into the next situation.

Noticing the early signs of agency

Measurement shifts as well.

Alongside attendance, completion rates and the other things that fit neatly into a spreadsheet, we can look for early signs that people’s agency is expanding. Are people initiating ideas rather than waiting to be asked? Are they exercising more judgement or attempting more difficult things? Can they see more than one pathway through a problem? Are they bringing in others, sharing responsibility and recovering when something doesn’t work?

We can also ask what people themselves believe they have learned. Can they identify something that changed because they acted? Do they have a stronger sense that their contribution matters? Are they clearer about who they can act with and what they might try next?

This is the point at which measurement becomes learning.

Designing for what lasts

These questions help create consistency across very different kinds of work. A youth leadership program, neighbourhood group, advisory coalition and cross-cultural project don’t need to use the same activities. But each can create genuine opportunities for people to contribute, exercise judgement, experience influence and discover what becomes possible through shared action.

The common thread isn’t a standard program. It’s a clear, shared understanding of how agency develops - one that has been named and can be used to guide practice.

Making that process explicit allows us to do more than trust that agency will emerge through a program or project. We can design experiences around the ways we think it grows, notice what people are actually experiencing and look for the small shifts that suggest something is changing. When those shifts don’t occur, we can ask what might be getting in the way and adapt the conditions around the work.

It also changes how we think about impact. We can ask not only what an initiative achieved, but what it left people more able to do. Are they more willing to initiate? More confident exercising judgement? Better able to act with others, navigate setbacks or see pathways that weren’t visible before?

Perhaps the lasting value of an initiative lies partly in what it accomplishes, and partly in the capability, relationships and expectations that remain after the initiative itself has finished.

Those may be the things that make the next step - and the possibilities we can’t yet see - come into view.

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Where does developing agency matter in your life or work? What experiences have helped you—or others around you—believe that change is possible?

Let me know!

Onwards and upwards,

Winter has descended in my part of the world so what better time to stay indoors, think and write…

Before my winter hiatus, I had the good fortune of facilitating a panel at the Community Foundations Australia Forum on ‘Leadership For Our Times'. We explored, in part, a question emerging in our regional and rural communities, - Who will lead our communities in the future?

Who’s going to take over the football and netball club?

Who’s going to join the committee?

Who’s going to sit on the board?

Who's going to step up when our community needs something done?

Across the country, many communities are grappling with ageing volunteers, busy lives and changing patterns of participation, questions about whose voices are shaping community life and the issue of succession - Who will lead us in the future?

This is not a new conversation. We’ve created leadership programs, governance training, mentoring opportunities and emerging leader initiatives to encourage and build community leadership for years. Community foundations, councils, state governments, chambers of commerce and not-for-profits have all recognised that healthy communities need people who are willing and able to step into positions of responsibility.

Yet one comment from the panel struck me, and maybe it helps explain why communities continue to grapple with leadership succession:

“The way we structure leadership today does not always fit the people coming next.”

Many people still want to contribute to their communities, but they're perhaps looking for more flexible, informal ways to do so. Maybe they're less interested in the kinds of long-term, formal commitments that previous generations often took on.

Which got me thinking: Is this issue bigger than leadership? Is the challenge less about leadership identification and development, and more about exploring a broader shift in how people connect to, participate in and contribute to community life.

Here’s my observation:

It’s not that people no longer care. Many care deeply.

They volunteer. They advocate. They organise. They contribute.

When I look around my own community, I see no shortage of people making things happen. They’re not necessarily leading organisations or holding formal positions but they’re connecting people, welcoming newcomers, organising events, supporting local initiatives and keeping the community together.

The title ‘leader’ might not sit comfortably with them. They don’t support their community because it’s ‘leadership’. They do it because they care about their place, a cause or the people around them.

So is our thinking about leadership is a little too narrow? After all, many of our leadership pathways were designed for a different era – one where people joined a club, organisation or committee, stayed for decades, gradually took on more responsibility and eventually stepped into formal leadership roles.

Some people still follow that path, but many don’t, because the model doesn’t work for contemporary lives that are more mobile, time-poor and less connected to traditional organisations than they once were.

Yet the people contributing to community life haven’t disappeared. If anything, they seem to be showing up in different places and in different ways.

So perhaps the question is not simply how we identify and develop future leaders.

Perhaps it’s also how we recognise, support and connect the people already contributing to community life.

Maybe community participation looks less like a ladder and more like an ecosystem?

And if that’s true, should we spend less time thinking about how we develop more leaders, and more time asking…

How do we support more people to contribute to their community? And how do we make visible the countless contributions that are already being made?

Leadership and Stewardship

As I’ve explored these ideas over recent weeks, I’ve discovered what feels like an important, adjacent idea to leadership:

Community stewardship.

Communities need leaders. They need people who can bring others together when something needs to change, respond when challenges arise, and help communities find solutions.

Sometimes that's the person who helps a town recover after a flood. Sometimes it's the community advocate campaigning for a new service, the school principal bringing people together around an educational or community challenge, or the board chair helping an organisation navigate a period of significant change.

But they also need people who help their community endure. The people who coach the junior football team year after year, connect neighbours to support, introduce people to one another, run the fundraising events, get to know the names and needs of their customers, join the community garden and build the relationships that hold communities together.

These are our community stewards.

Leadership and stewardship often overlap. The same person may do both at different times - but they are not quite the same thing.

Leadership often comes to the fore when communities need to move or adapt.

Stewardship is what helps communities stay connected along the way.

Leadership is often visible. Stewardship is more ‘behind the scenes’.

Leadership is important, but without the relationships, trust and participation that stewardship cultivates, collective action becomes much harder. Healthy communities need both.

The Hidden Pathway

The more I observe community life and become immersed in community conversations, the more I suspect that stewardship forms part of the invisible infrastructure that keeps communities functioning, because when you look closely, many leaders begin as stewards.

They start by helping. By volunteering. By caring about a local issue. By joining a club. By feeling that they belong. By contributing where they can.

They build relationships. They gain trust. They develop skills. And eventually, some step into leadership roles.

Leadership grows out of stewardship.

Historically, our communities created countless opportunities for this journey to occur. Sporting clubs, schools, churches, volunteer organisations, service clubs and community groups weren’t just places where communities got things done. They were places where people found belonging, learned to contribute, developed connections and discovered they had something to offer.

People didn’t join because they wanted to become leaders. They joined because their children played sport. Because they cared about their town. Because they wanted company. Because they wanted to help.

Leadership emerged later, as a consequence rather than a goal.

In ecosystem terms, these organisations were part of the soil from which both stewardship and leadership grew.

Community life today looks different from a generation ago. People are busier. Participation patterns are shifting. Communities are becoming more diverse. Traditional organisations no longer play the same role they once did.

Many of the functions once carried informally by communities are now supported by salaried workers, funded organisations and formal institutions. Activities that were once organised by volunteer committees, neighbourhood networks and local champions are increasingly coordinated through professional roles and sponsored programs. These changes have brought many benefits, but they may also have altered some of the ways people learn to contribute, take responsibility and shape solutions together.

This raises an important question:

If stewardship - and then leadership - emerge when people feel connected, valued and able to contribute, then perhaps we need to pay closer attention to the environments, situations and opportunities that exist in our communities to make those experiences possible.

What’s more, stewardship isn’t just about individual contribution.

When people contribute to their communities, they don’t just develop skills and confidence. They develop relationships, and over time, those relationships become pathways and networks through which support, information, opportunities and collective action can flow.

In many ways, the strength of a community depends not only on the number of people willing to contribute, but on the quality of the connections between them.

This is where my thinking about leadership begins to intersect with civility, social cohesion and wellbeing….

Why This Matters

In our local work through the Ballarat Civility Exchange - part of a broader national conversation about civility - we describe civility as creating the conditions in which people can connect and collaborate across difference.

Why does that matter?

It matters because increasingly communities are made up of people with different experiences, backgrounds, beliefs and interests. If we can’t connect across those differences, it becomes much harder to build the relationships that allow communities to function well - and harder for stewardship to emerge.

So perhaps it looks a little like this:

Civility ➜ Connection ➜ Participation ➜ Stewardship ➜ Cohesion ➜ Thriving

Except of course it’s not straightforward and linear and probably looks more like this…

You’ll notice wellbeing sits in there too. Wellbeing is increasingly understood to include connection, purpose, agency and the ability to participate in community life. Wellbeing in Victoria - The Victorian Strategy to Promote Good Mental Health - articulates this well.

This is where stewardship becomes particularly interesting.

People who volunteer, mentor, coach, organise, connect and contribute are not simply strengthening their communities. They are often developing friendships, confidence, purpose and a sense that they can make a difference, which is critical to wellbeing and good mental health.

Perhaps stewardship helps explain why conversations about civility, social cohesion, wellbeing and community resilience keep converging.

They may be describing different parts of the same ecosystem.

It may be that stewardship is not simply an outcome of a healthy, connected, cohesive community. It may be one of the reinforcing forces that helps communities pass the baton to the next generation, renewing, strengthening and sustaining themselves over time.

A Different Question

If that is the case - if stewardship is one of the ways communities renew and sustain themselves - then perhaps instead of asking:

“Who will lead us next?”

We should be asking:

“How do we create more situations in our community in which people feel able to connect and contribute?”

Perhaps leadership development is only part of the story.

If a healthy community is not simply one with strong organisations or capable leaders, but one that continually creates opportunities for people to participate, contribute and take responsibility in community life - one in which thousands of small acts of contribution and care happen every day, often unnoticed - then how do we support stewardship?

Maybe it’s listening more carefully to what matters to people and understanding the barriers that prevent participation.

Maybe it’s recognising and strengthening the places where belonging, connection and participation already exist.

Maybe it’s connecting people, organisations and initiatives that are already helping community life, to learn together and build together, and therefore flourish.

Maybe it’s amplifying stories of contribution, particularly from people and communities whose voices are not always heard.

Maybe it’s creating more visible pathways for people to become involved, contribute their skills and discover that they have something valuable to offer.

And maybe it’s becoming more conscious of stewardship itself.

Many of the people helping to hold communities together would never describe themselves as community stewards. That’s not language they would use. They may not even recognise the contribution they’re making.

Yet what we name, we tend to notice. And what we notice, we are more likely to value, support and strengthen. Perhaps one of the first steps is simply learning to see stewardship where it is already present.

Of course none of these activities will produce leaders overnight. But maybe the future of our communities depends less on finding the next person to take over the football club and more on ensuring there are plenty of people who feel connected enough to care about its future in the first place.

Onwards and upwards,

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Today I’m sharing something that I have been mulling over for a while…

There’s a lot of conversation in my professional circles about Australians’ declining trust in institutions. Trust is falling in governments, media, experts, corporate and international organisations. The degree depends on the data you reference, but the pattern is the same 👇.

The cause is usually attributed to poor leadership, misinformation, social media amplification, political dysfunction and general grievance that life is getting harder.

And those things do play a part, but that explanation has never felt quite enough for me.

I’ve been wondering whether something deeper is happening. Something more human.

What if we’re not losing trust only because institutions are failing? What if we’re also losing trust because we are seeing the complexity of the world more clearly than we once did?

For much of modern history, particularly in stable Western democracies, we lived with an implicit belief that institutions had a relatively high level of control over society.

Governments managed economies.
Borders contained problems.
Experts understood the world.
Leaders could steer outcomes.
Crises felt bounded and manageable.

But today’s world feels different.

In the past few years we’ve seen:

• How a pandemic that begins overseas can shut down local businesses.

• How a war on the other side of the world changes supermarket prices at home.

• How algorithms designed in Silicon Valley shape community cohesion in regional Australia.

• How climate events ignore political boundaries.

• How financial systems react faster than governments can legislate.

The systems shaping our lives are increasingly global, interconnected and difficult for any one institution to fully control - and I wonder whether we are beginning to sense that. Not in an intellectual sense necessarily, but emotionally.

Are we starting to feel that the world is less anchored than it once was? That perhaps those institutions we once trusted are no longer “driving the ship”. Or maybe they never were?

This is psychologically discombobulating for the average punter, because humans are not particularly comfortable with uncertainty.

We like visible cause and effect.
We like stability.
We like to believe someone competent is in charge.

And when things feel unpredictable or untethered, we search for certainty wherever we can find it.

Sometimes that looks constructive. We are seeing an interest in stronger local communities, mutual support, deeper relationships, and renewed civic participation.

But sometimes it looks like retreat.

Retreat into rigid ideologies or hyper-individualism.
Retreat into nostalgia or conspiracy theories.
Retreat into online and offline tribes that offer simple explanations for complex problems.

Uncertainty is exhausting and a coherent story - no matter how flawed - can feel emotionally safer than a complicated reality.

Complexity rarely offers emotional comfort. It’s messy and difficult to wrap your head around. Our instinct is to grasp tightly to something that makes sense. Something that provides solace, or explanation or a small sense of control. Even better if others are holding on to that same thing too. There’s solidarity in togetherness.

This is why I think the current moment offers an opportunity for community life.

If institutions alone cannot provide certainty in a deeply interconnected world, then community resilience may increasingly depend on something else:
Our relationships with one another.

Local trust. Social cohesion. Communities capable of adapting together.
Citizens who feel some sense of shared responsibility rather than waiting for institutions to solve everything on their behalf.

That doesn’t make our institutions irrelevant, but perhaps the role of institutions is changing too.

Maybe the future is not about powerful institutions delivering certainty to passive citizens. Maybe it is about institutions helping communities to build the capacity to navigate uncertainty together.

That’s a very different model of society. A more mature one.

And I reckon we are seeing the early signs of that shift.

I’ve noticed conversations emerging about participation rather than prescription. About institutions acting less as controllers and more as convenors, facilitators and partners in community life.

Community foundations are exploring systems change.
Governments are experimenting with deliberative processes.
Universities are moving toward co-design and lived experience.
Local communities are building networks of belonging and resilience.
Organisations are recognising that technical solutions alone cannot solve relational problems.

These approaches are often messy, slower and less linear than the models many of us grew up with. They require listening. Shared ownership. Adaptation. Trust-building. Patience, and tolerance of the discomfort of it all.

But maybe that’s the point. Interconnected societies are complex adaptive systems. They cannot be governed through certainty and control. They require relationships strong enough to hold uncertainty, communities capable of learning together, and institutions willing to share power rather than simply exercise it.

So maybe the work for the generations ahead is different. It may be less about finding someone to steer the ship for us, and more about learning how to navigate complexity together.

I don’t think we fully know what that future looks like yet.

But I suspect the conversations emerging in communities, institutions and civic life around the world are us trying to find our way there.

Onwards and upwards,

When we last corresponded, I challenged us to rethink how trust and belonging take shape in our communities (or our workplaces, or institutions). We have a tendency to roll out programs that educate or instruct or police behaviour, and then wonder why the behaviour we want doesn’t follow.

Did we not make it clear enough?

Did we not reinforce it enough?

Did we not tell the right people, at the right time?

Then we wandered over to explore the work that we are doing in Ballarat at present; work in which we’re thinking about this challenge a bit differently.

Instead of asking how do we build trust, we’re asking:

What changes the conditions in which trust becomes possible?

The feedback from you?

“This is intriguing. I’d like to know more.”

So…. for the past few weeks, I’ve been recording short audio reflections for members of our Ballarat Civility Collective - the very excellent group of individuals in our community who have been helping to shape this work.

They’re not polished podcasts or formal updates. They’re more like field notes.

They’re observations from inside the work we’re doing locally - noticing moments, environments, behaviours and tensions that might tell us something useful about how trust, belonging and civility actually develop in communities.

I thought I might start sharing some of them more here too, as a way of bringing you into the work - if you’re interested.

This week’s field notes come from the Ballarat Marathon.

Almost 12,000 runners.

300 volunteers.

Participants from 17 different countries.

$6 million flowing to the Ballarat economy.

$160,000 raised for charities.

Thousands of people across the city. Crowds gathering early. Roads closed. Cafes full. Supporters and runners everywhere.

And yet what stood out most to me wasn’t the event itself.

It was the behaviour around it.

People were patient. Encouraging. Respectful. Joyful. Looking out for each other.

No one was forcing that behaviour. No campaign was instructing it.

So what was happening?

🎧 Listen to this week’s Friday Field Notes

In this 4-minute audio reflection, I explore what events like this might reveal about the conditions that make prosocial behaviour feel natural and easy.

As always, I’m sharing this as a working observation rather than a definitive conclusion.

I’m curious what it brings to mind for you.

Onwards and upwards,

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Next week, here in Australia, the Royal Commission into Anti-Racism and Social Cohesion will release its interim report – a Royal Commission set up in response to the Bondi terrorist attack. Questions of division and cohesion are increasingly part of our public conversation, and this focus on how we live together is important. Of course we want more trust. More belonging. Less division.

But there’s something that worries me.

We tend to talk about trust and belonging as if they can be built directly - as if they’re outcomes we can deliver if we get the settings right. As if trust is something you can roll out. Or belonging is something you can design. Or cohesion is what happens when you get the right initiatives in place.

And when we think like that, the response tends to follow a pattern.

· Raise awareness through campaigns and public messaging

· Set expectations through policies and codes of conduct

· Reinforce the values we want to see through training programs and education.

All important. All necessary. But not always sufficient.

Because behaviour changes through more than instruction and messaging. It changes according to what’s happening around us, and what feels possible in the moment.

In the moments that matter, we, as humans, don’t draw on a set of abstract values.

We don’t say to ourselves, ‘Now what did I learn in that training program?’ or ‘What did they say about treating others with respect in that advertisement I saw?’

In moments of tension or difficulty, we respond to what feels safe or unsafe. To what we think others around us will do. To whether we feel able to speak, whether our views will be supported or shut down, or we’re better off staying quiet.

In those moments, we’re not always operating from our best intentions. We’re operating from instinct - reading cues, managing risk, trying not to make things worse. Or we’re operating from fear – fear that we’re losing power, or status or some form of resource.

It’s in these moments that we can shut down, or make things worse. We lash out or say something clumsy or default to defensiveness, withdrawal, or blame. And sometimes, those responses are reinforced rather than challenged. In some environments, unkind or intolerant attitudes or words are accepted, overlooked, or even rewarded.

When we see behaviour that destroys trust, or excludes rather than includes, or divides rather than connects, it’s not always that people don’t understand what a better response might look like. It’s just that accessing that version of ourselves - in real time, under pressure, or in environments that don’t support a different way - can be harder than we think.

In our recent work in Ballarat, we’ve been thinking about this a bit differently.

Instead of asking how do we build trust, we’re asking:

What changes the conditions in which trust becomes possible?

Because if behaviour is shaped in those small, real-time moments - and those moments are shaped by what feels safe, normal, and possible - then maybe that’s where the work sits.

Not just in what we say, but in what people experience when it matters.

· Is it okay to ask a curious question rather than state an opinion in this conversation?

· Does it feel safe to say, ‘I don’t know’ in this community meeting?

· Are we encouraged to sit with messiness, or grey, or discomfort in this work, or is action the only acceptable option, even when the direction isn’t clear?

· Do we respond to behaviour we don’t like with immediate judgement, or pause to reflect?

· What behaviour is tolerated in this environment – and what isn’t? And what are the signals that let us know?

We’re starting to explore these questions a bit more deliberately.

Nothing particularly grand. More a series of small experiments alongside work that’s already happening locally.

We’re paying attention to the conditions that shape how people show up - things like safety, participation, connection, and shared purpose.

Not as a framework to apply. More as a way of noticing.

Where do things feel strong?
Where do they feel a bit stretched?
What’s actually going on underneath the surface?

Alongside that, we’re working with a small set of practices.

They’re very simple.

· Stay curious.

· Build trust in small ways.

· Name tension early.

· Take one step.

· See your part.

· Hold things lightly.

On paper, they don’t look like much. They’re not a program. They’re not even particularly new. But maybe that’s the point. Because if trust and belonging really do rise or fall in small, everyday moments, then the work isn’t just about what we design, or getting that design right.

It’s about how we show up, in those moments.

It’s about everyday practices that open conversations up, instead of shutting them down.

It’s curiosity that cultivates empathy, instead of hardening judgment.

It’s asking, ‘Am I listening to understand, or just waiting to respond?’

Or ‘How could I name the tension here, without making it a fight?’

It’s exploring what progress might look like, however small, in a seemingly intractable situation. Or asking ourselves how we might be contributing to the way the situation is playing out.

It’s being willing to say, ‘What if I’m not completely right about this? Can I stay open to other possibilities?’

It’s very early.

We don’t have answers yet, and education, messaging and programs will still play an important role in building respect, kindness and tolerance in our community - but there’s a working hypothesis forming in the background:

Do small shifts in how we show up – at work, online, in our community - change more than we think? Can our everyday behaviour support unity, in a world that increasingly pulls us in the opposite direction.

That’s what we’re testing. I’ll let you know how we go.

Owards and upwards,

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I hope you’re finding peace in the midst of chaos 🌏

There’s something about global upheaval that prompts reflection and I’ve been noticing something in my work and world lately. This particular reflection was triggered by the words of Ian Bird, CEO of Community Foundations Australia, who delivered the 2026 Leadership Victoria Oration in Melbourne last Thursday night.

Ian spoke about the rise of communities in the context of global disorder and his observation that great Community Foundations help make sense of this disorder for their community and help them build and activate local agency.

I wholeheartedly agree with Ian on this. It’s something we are working hard towards at the Ballarat Foundation. But this notion of agency got me thinking….

Across community conversations, policy discussions and social impact spaces, we talk a lot about agency. It’s often named as something we want more of. We want people to feel empowered. We want communities to take ownership. We want less dependence on institutions and more local action.

But we rarely stop to ask a more practical question - How does agency actually form?

Because the more I explore this in a new (to me) context, the more it feels like we often treat agency as though naming it will somehow create it. As though if we encourage people enough - to step up, to take responsibility, to get involved - something will shift. That agency will just happen.

But that’s not quite how it works.

Psychologically, agency is the felt sense that “I can influence what happens next.” And that sense doesn’t emerge from language alone. It comes from experience.

It comes from the small moments where someone notices that action is possible, takes a step, and sees that something, however minor, has shifted as a result. Over time, those moments accumulate, a pattern forms and the belief strengthens.

“I can do something here. We can do something here.”

Without those experiences, something else tends to take hold. People still care, often deeply, but they begin to doubt that their actions will make any real difference. That’s when doubt settles in and behaviour changes.

You might hear it as…
“Someone should do something about that.”
“This is really a government issue.”
“What’s the point?”

It’s easy to interpret this as apathy, but I don’t think that’s quite right. More often, it’s a quiet erosion of agency. A shift from ‘I can’ to ‘it won’t matter’ or ‘that’s someone else’s job’ - and once that shift happens, it’s very hard to reverse.

What I’ve learned through many years as a psychologist working in human systems, is that agency isn’t a mindset we can simply encourage. It’s something that is built, or constrained, by the conditions people are operating within.

When you look closely, it tends to form through a kind of loop.

• Someone sees that there might be something they could do.

• They feel, explicitly or implicitly, that it’s okay for them to act.

• They have enough capability to take a first step.

• They try something.

• And then they see some form of impact. Not necessarily a big outcome, but something that signals that their action wasn’t pointless.

That experience feeds back into belief, and then the loop repeats. I refer to it as, ‘test and learn’.

Break any part of that loop - if people can’t see what’s possible, if they feel they need permission, if the next step is unclear, or if nothing appears to change - and agency weakens. Which helps explain why simply asking people to “step up” so often falls flat. If the conditions aren’t there, the message doesn’t empower. It creates pressure.

Here’s a very ordinary example:

A local resident notices that a shared space - a park, a street, a community noticeboard - isn’t being used or cared for in the way it could be. They have an idea. Nothing grand. Maybe a small clean-up, a simple sign, or a conversation with a neighbour.

But whether that idea turns into action depends on the conditions around them.

If it doesn’t feel like their place to act, or if they assume permission sits somewhere else, the idea tends to fade. If the problem feels too big, or the next step isn’t clear, it often stops there as well.

But when the conditions shift, even slightly, something different can happen. If small action feels acceptable, if the next step is obvious, if there’s even one other person willing to join in, they might decide to try.

So they do something small. They pick up some rubbish. They organise a working bee. They put up a sign. Then, very subtly, something begins to change. The space looks a little different. Someone else notices. A neighbour makes a comment and a conversation begins. Next time, another person joins in.

It’s not a dramatic transformation, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s enough for the action to feel worthwhile. Enough to register that it wasn’t pointless, and that’s what starts to build the belief - not just in the individual, but more broadly - that we can do something here.

This is when a positive spiral effect can take hold and action becomes more distributed. When people can see what’s possible, take action, and experience even small wins, they start to connect through doing, not just discussing. Momentum builds in small, often uncoordinated ways. It can look messy from the outside, but it carries a different kind of energy. The system feels more alive.

All of which raises a more useful question for those of us working in this space.

If agency is something that forms through experience, then how do we create the conditions for those experiences to occur more often?

In my work, I’ve found that the starting points are surprisingly simple, but they require discipline. Begin small enough that people can actually succeed. Make local action visible so that effort and impact are connected. Lower the (often invisible) barriers around permission. Build capability in the context of real work, not abstract training. Create spaces where people can act alongside others. Pay attention to feedback - what changed, what didn’t, what we learned.

None of this is particularly new. But it is often overlooked, because it’s easier to design programs than to design for human behaviour within those programs. It’s easier to name outcomes, like ‘agency’ or ‘mindset shift’, than to stay with the slower, more iterative work of creating the conditions that make those outcomes possible.

And yet, without that layer, the rest doesn’t quite work.

All of which brings me back Ian’s words about community agency.

What landed with me wasn’t just the idea that agency matters. It was his observation, from time spent with communities around the country, that relationships in our communities are often stronger than we realise. People are connected. They care. They are already doing things, often quietly and without recognition.

But the signals around those relationships are weak.

The activity is there, but it’s not always visible. The dots exist, but they’re not joined. From the outside, and sometimes even from within, it can look like not much is happening, and when it looks like nothing is happening, it becomes harder for people to believe that their own actions will make a difference.

Seen through this lens, agency isn’t just about individuals feeling empowered. It’s shaped by how clearly a community can see itself - its relationships, its efforts, its ever-present acts of contribution and change.

If those signals are faint or fragmented, unseen or uncelebrated, the loop struggles to take hold. People can’t see what’s possible. They don’t see evidence of impact. The belief that “we can do something here” never quite gels.

But when those signals are strengthened; when the relational infrastructure of a community is made more visible, when stories of action and impact are shared, when patterns of connection and contribution are surfaced, something shifts.

The loop becomes easier to enter. People can see where they might step in. They can see that others are already acting. They can see that action leads somewhere.

And that begins to change behaviour and build community agency.

This points to a different kind of role for those of us working in communities, including community foundations, local organisations, and civic leaders.

Our role is not just to deliver programs or fund initiatives. It is to help make sense of what is already there. To join the dots. To strengthen the signals. To share the stories and celebrate the successes. We have a part to play in making the often-invisible work of connection, contribution, care and civic action more visible to the community itself.

Because when people can see it, they are more likely to believe in it.

And when they believe in it, they are more likely to act.

And that, ultimately, is how agency begins to grow.

Tell me, are you seeing small acts of agency growing in your community? How might these be amplified?

Onwards and upwards,

Somehow we’re almost seven weeks into 2026 and wow, did it get busy, fast. Tomorrow we’re hosting the launch of the Ballarat Civility Exchange and as I ready myself, I’ve been reflecting on why creating the right environment matters more than delivering the right message.

What follows is:

• part observation of recent events

• part reflection on years of learning about how people adapt and learn

• and part reminder to myself that the structure of tomorrow’s event exists for a reason — and I need to trust it.

Here goes…

Every now and then a public moment makes people feel part of something, together. Not because someone told us to feel united. Not because a slogan demanded it. But because something in it feels shared, and worth being part of.

This year’s Super Bowl halftime show was one of those moments.

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. I don’t know anything about American football. I didn’t even watch the whole halftime show. What I saw, for 24 to 48 hours, was snippets of the show shared over and over on social media. It was everywhere.

If you missed it, Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny performed almost entirely in Spanish, unapologetically bringing his language and culture to one of the biggest stages in global entertainment. A stage that sits firmly at the intersection of sport, the arts and the commercial world.

The tone of his performance was clear - inclusion over division, pride without ego, love over hate.

Nothing about it told the audience how to behave. The atmosphere it created made connection with him, with his culture, with each other feel natural. That feeling didn’t stay in the stadium either. It flowed outward, across feeds and timelines, as people shared the parts that moved them.

There was a ripple effect of celebration. Visibility. Belonging, Joy.

This is the power of emotion in building belonging.

Positive emotions do something important to us, psychologically. They expand us. They make us more open, more curious, more willing to connect with others and ideas. They widen what feels possible. This is known as the Broaden and Build Effect.

This is what happened with the Super Bowl show.

No one had to run a workshop on unity or belonging. The celebratory, joyous environment of Bad Bunny’s performance did the work.

And that’s something I keep coming back to across so many domains.

When things feel fractured - politically, socially, culturally - our instinct is often to reach for instruction. More training. More awareness campaigns. More opinion pieces and messaging about how people should behave.

But behaviour rarely changes because we’ve been told what to do.

It changes when the environment around us makes a different way of behaving, easier.

Years ago, when I helped design and deliver our local community leadership program, we didn’t spend weeks teaching leadership theory. We didn’t hand out models or focus on techniques. Instead, we created an environment where people connected with each other, across sectors, workplaces and perspectives. Where they discovered and developed their individual strengths. Where they learned about their community through active immersion in it. Where they had the opportunity to work together on real projects.

We focused on creating an environment where people felt safe to be curious and reflective. Where they could learn through trial and error. Where they could build agency and hope.

Leadership wasn’t taught. It emerged from those conditions.

Our participants became more confident because they were contributing. More collaborative because they were working alongside others they knew had their back. More community-minded because they could see the impact of their effort in a space that was important to them.

The structure created the conditions. The behaviour followed.

The same principle applies across broader social change.

If we want more civility, more collaboration, more shared purpose, we can’t lecture people into it. We can’t rely solely on moral appeals or awareness campaigns.

We have to design spaces where respectful interaction is the default. Where contribution is visible. Where shared effort creates pride rather than defensiveness. Where people experience belonging while building something useful together.

Much of our public conversation right now runs on anxiety and outrage. Those emotions narrow us. They make us protective, tribal, defensive. But when people feel part of something positive - something constructive - their thinking widens. They become more generous. More creative. More open to difference.

That isn’t idealism. It’s just how humans work.

As we approach the launch of the Civility Exchange here in Ballarat, I can feel my instinct to over-engineer it to assuage my anxiety. To make the message perfect. To anticipate every question. To control every possible outcome.

“If I design it well enough, maybe the result will follow,” is the thinking.

But I know the message matters less than the environment we create.

If people feel invited rather than instructed.
If they can see themselves in what’s being built.
If participation feels real and hopeful rather than symbolic or performative. Then whatever connection or sense of belonging to this work that emerges will be stronger than anything we could declare from a stage.

Maybe that’s the reminder I need - and maybe it’s a useful one more broadly.

When we care about something deeply, our instinct is to tighten control.

But often the braver move is to create a space for belonging, exploration and sharing … and trust people inside it.

Onwards and upwards,

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Do you have a word for the year? A mini mantra that reminds you of your goals, purpose, or how you want to operate in the world for the year ahead?

My word for 2026 is anchored. I want calm without retreat, steadiness in movement and space for noticing and connection. Feeling anchored allows me to look for patterns and write about what I’m seeing.

January has been calm and restful, yet purposeful, and the following has emerged….

This piece brings together some recent thinking on AI, social cohesion, and current events in Australia, not as a technology commentary, but as a reflection on the conditions we are creating, and what they are quietly teaching.

I’ve just been reading a fascinating piece about Moltbook - the social media platform designed not for humans, but for AI agents. The author, Tess Posner, notes that at first glance, Moltbook looks uncannily like our social media: identity posting, group formation, sarcasm, niche communities. Then comes this line:

“Whether it diverges into something we can’t fully understand is an open question.”

For me, that sentence opens up a much bigger inquiry - not about AI, but about us.

There’s a growing tendency to talk about artificial intelligence as though it’s an independent force: something that might “take control,” outgrow us, or act against human interests. But AI doesn’t emerge from nowhere. It is created by humans, trained on human data, shaped by human incentives, and deployed within human systems.

It doesn’t begin with values of its own. It learns patterns. And the patterns it learns are the ones we repeat, reward, and scale.

Almost everything we experience in the modern world is a human invention. Time zones. Laws. Markets. Social norms. Technology. None of these are neutral. They are shaped by the beliefs, values, and assumptions of their time, and they act as scaffolds for behaviour. They quietly shape what feels normal, acceptable, rewarded, or invisible - mostly without us noticing.

AI is no different. It is not a separate moral challenge. It is a multiplier.

So the real question isn’t whether AI will become autonomous in some sci-fi sense.

The question is: what kinds of human behaviour are we currently teaching our systems to notice, optimise, and amplify?

This question feels pointed in Australia right now.

We are processing the shock of the Bondi attack - an act of violence that has rightly prompted grief, fear, and urgent calls for action. Now the country is on the cusp of a Royal Commission into antisemitism and social cohesion, acknowledging what many communities have been feeling for some time: that our social fabric is under strain.

When these moments occur, we often rush to downstream responses - policing, regulation, platform moderation, surveillance. Some of these responses may be necessary. But they are not sufficient, because they arrive after harm has surfaced.

The harder, upstream question is the same one AI forces us to confront:

What kinds of conditions are we creating, and therefore scaling?

Violence, radicalisation, and social fragmentation do not emerge in a vacuum. They grow in environments where fear is rewarded, grievance is amplified, identity hardens into opposition, and belonging is offered to those who conform. These dynamics are not fringe. They are reinforced daily through media ecosystems, political incentives, economic pressures, and online platforms optimised for attention not understanding.

If those are the patterns that “work” - that gain traction, visibility, and power - then both humans and AI systems will learn them.

This is where the parallel becomes unavoidable.

AI does not learn compassion because compassion is morally good. It learns compassion when compassion works. When cooperation gets better results than domination. When repair is taken seriously instead of escalation. When long-term wellbeing is valued over short-term gain. Those lessons are being taught and learned by humans all the time in our workplaces, online spaces, institutions, and communities.

Over time, these patterns become the ones that are repeated, reinforced, and scaled.

Just like our human systems, AI will scale whatever version of humanity we make most functional.

That puts responsibility squarely back where it belongs - with us.

If we reward tribalism, we should expect polarisation to deepen.
If we reward fear, we should expect control logic to harden.
If we reward competition without care, we should expect fracture.
If we reward individualism without belonging, we should expect isolation and despair.

But if we choose, deliberately, to reward care, compassion, empathy, repair, collaboration, sustainability and humanity, then those patterns become the ones that spread.

This isn’t abstract or idealistic. It’s practical.

Every system sends signals about what matters: through funding decisions, platform design, performance metrics, public narratives, and what we tolerate or interrupt in shared spaces. Over time, those signals shape behaviour. They shape culture. And increasingly, they shape the systems that learn from us.

This is why work on social cohesion, civility, and relational infrastructure is not “soft” or secondary. It is foundational. These efforts are about creating the conditions in which difference can exist without violence, disagreement without dehumanisation, and accountability without exclusion.

AI doesn’t create our moral challenges. It removes our ability to ignore the challenges we’re already facing.

If future systems end up behaving in ways we don’t recognise or can’t control, it won’t be because they escaped humanity. It will be because they faithfully learned from parts of us we failed to examine.

So perhaps the most important question this moment asks, across technology, violence, and social cohesion, is a deceptively simple one:

What kind of humans do we want to be?

We have more influence than we think. We must now decide whether we’re willing to use it deliberately, with thought, care, and an eye to the future we are building.

Onwards and upwards,

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Written in partnership with AI, drawing on human observation, understanding, values and ideas.

The Fun Stuff:

Tess Posner writes about the future of connection, creativity and meaning in an algorithmic age at Resonance. Highly recommended.

Triple J’s Hottest 100 2026 is on high rotation at Potential Psychology HQ.

I’ve had an Apple TV summer. Slow Horses for the sidelined, messy characters, moral ambiguity and snappy dialogue. Severance for everything - the production design and what it says about how our environment regulates our agency, the commentary on our relationship with work, the suspenseful restraint and the fact that it’s like nothing I’ve ever watched before.

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Today’s words are a piece I wrote for Ballarat’s local paper, The Courier. It was published last weekend (10 January 2026) and gives some insight into the work I will be involved with to build a better 2026 in my home town.

What will 2026 look like for you? Tell me in the comments below 💚

We like greeting a new year with thoughts of fresh starts. But many of us are arriving in 2026 carrying the weight of 2025.

After years of pandemic, disasters and economic pressure, last year exposed deep strain: polarisation shaped by global conflicts, eroding trust, generational divides, and online tensions spilling into everyday life.

Then, as we were preparing for family celebrations and summer holidays, lives were shattered at Bondi Beach by the deadliest mass casualty attack in Australia in decades – an attack driven by racism and hate.

The shock landed hard. It revived painful memories of Port Arthur and the Lindt Café siege. At the end of an already heavy year, it felt like acute loss: of people, of families, and of a sense of safety.

Yet, in the days that followed, Australians responded with care rather than collapse.

We queued for hours to give blood, with record-breaking donations. Stories of bravery and self-sacrifice spread - people shielding strangers, emergency responders exceeding every expectation, millions raised to support those most affected. In the face of violence, we chose to act for others.

This is not unique to Sydney or our bigger cities. We see this same instinct in Ballarat.

We saw it in the community search for Samantha Murphy. In the locally-led march demanding action on gendered violence. We see it in our sporting clubs quietly fundraising for families doing it tough. It’s our volunteers, our Rotary and service clubs giving time without fanfare. It’s the respectful tone of ANZAC Day commemorations. It’s in the everyday moments - drivers slowing to wave pedestrians across, and online communities helping reunite lost phones and pets with their owners.

This isn’t accidental or just good intentions in emotional moments. This quiet care and respect reflects a kind of social scaffolding that we’ve built over time: relationships, habits and shared expectations that help us respond with compassion instead of fear when what is important to us is under threat.

This is a deeply held commitment to helping our fellow citizens - often quietly, often without recognition - especially when it matters most.

We would be naïve to think Ballarat is immune to the fear and destructive forces shaping the rest of the world. Many of us have felt it in small, familiar ways: a conversation that escalates more quickly than it used to, a harsh comment online about a local issue, a sense that disagreement now carries more heat. We know that, if left unattended, these dynamics could shape who we are.

But they haven’t - at least not yet – and this is where Ballarat’s social scaffolding matters.

Our willingness to show up for one another is our strength: a strength that must not disappear when things get difficult. We cannot pretend there aren’t tensions, moments of conflict or frustration, and we cannot whitewash past wrongs. What we can do is continue to work hard as a community to maintain respect, inclusion and care, even when we disagree. We can hold people as more than their opinions or their worst moments. We can refuse to reduce each other to labels, even when we feel aggrieved. We can stay human, even when it’s hard.

As we move into 2026, there is new social scaffolding work emerging in Ballarat, catalysed by the Ballarat Foundation. The question at its heart is: How do we hold on to care, connection and respect when powerful forces are trying to pull us apart?

It’s work that belongs to all of us, because the future of Ballarat will be shaped less by what we argue about, and more by how we choose to treat one another when it matters most.

Onwards and upwards,

I’ll be sharing more about this work over the coming months. It’s exciting, emergent, collective and challenging!

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It’s been a while since I’ve written. Life has had other plans, but I wanted to share some thoughts on an issue that’s very pertinent to our household right now. It might be pertinent to yours too.

This week Australia’s new social media restrictions for under-16s came into effect. The impact on the teens seems minimal. The commentary from adults has been loud, predictable, and often contradictory.

“Kids shouldn’t be on social media at all.”
“Parents need to boot teens off devices and outdoors.”
“Just hold firm. Be the adult.”

What struck me isn’t the debate itself- it’s been around for a while - but the fact that these messages were being delivered on… social media. By adults. Filmed on or distributed via the very devices they say children shouldn’t use. Consumed by thousands of grown-ups scrolling in bed, on the couch, or between meetings.

There’s something odd, to me, about a society that tells children to unplug while we adults rack up hours a day on the same platforms. I reckon it reveals something deeper about how we think about children, adults, and what it means to be human.

We like to imagine kids and grown-ups as separate species.
Different rules. Different needs. Different levels of responsibility.

But psychologically speaking? We’re all humans, just in different seasons.

Why we split the world into “kids” and “adults”

We don’t do this because it’s accurate. We do it because it’s comforting.

If we say our children are uniquely vulnerable to social media, we don’t have to acknowledge the ways these platforms pull at our attention, our anxieties, our sense of self-worth. If we suggest only kids lack the self-control to step away from endless scrolling, we avoid facing how often our own devices win the battle for our focus.

It’s easier to imagine that children have “a problem,” and adults simply have “a phone.”

The divide helps us dodge an awkward reality: adults aren’t the paragons of regulation and restraint we pretend to be. In a digital world designed to tug at our emotions and impulses, we’re often as reactive as the teenagers we judge.

Developmental differences, not different needs

In psychology we’re clear on one thing: children and adults share the same fundamental needs.

Connection.
Competence.
Autonomy.
Belonging.
Novelty.
Meaning.

These needs don’t suddenly switch over at age 16.

What shifts are our capacities to navigate the world, including the digital world. Kids are learning skills adults have (somewhat) mastered. They’re building the internal scaffolding that allows them to regulate emotions, resist temptations, and interpret social cues. But the needs beneath all this learning are identical.

Yet public debate continues to muddle “developing capacity” with “entirely different category of human.” When we do that, we drift into moralising. Or panic. Or both.

Why adults cling to the double standard

Three reasons stand out.

1. It absolves us of responsibility.

If social media harms are framed as a youth problem, adults don’t have to change their own habits. We can keep doomscrolling indefinitely while insisting our kids go device-free for their wellbeing.

2. It keeps power simple.

It’s easier to regulate children than to regulate the digital environment. Harder still is regulating adult behaviour. But if the system itself creates the harm - fast-moving feeds, persuasive technology, design built around attention capture - then banning kids is not a systemic solution; it’s a convenient one.

3. It preserves the illusion of “adult competence.”

We prefer not to notice that adults behave online much like teens do: seeking validation, forming echo chambers, reacting impulsively, chasing the dopamine hit of the next notification.

Kids aren’t the only ones struggling. They’re simply more visible and maybe vulnerable in their struggle.

The social media ban highlights the contradiction

Australia’s new restrictions aim to protect young people, and the intention makes sense. But look at how the rollout is playing out socially: adults on Instagram debating whether teenagers should have Instagram; adults on TikTok musing about the harms of TikTok; adults telling kids to reduce screen time while consuming more of it themselves.

It’s not malicious hypocrisy. It’s very human avoidance of our own vulnerability to the same forces.

It will be interesting to watch how the ban plays out in practice. Teens are resourceful. Workarounds are flourishing. Some platforms will comply; others will drag their feet or resist. But the deeper point remains: the digital environment affects all of us, not just the people under 16.

What could a more honest, human-centred approach look like?

For starters, we’d drop the fiction that children and adults are fundamentally different. We’d recognise that the design of platforms shapes behaviour far more than individual willpower, regardless of age. And rather than imposing rules on kids, we’d involve kids in shaping the solutions.

We might shift from:

“Ban their access” to “How might we design digital spaces that support wellbeing for every age?”

From: “Kids can’t handle social media” to “Humans struggle in environments built for constant stimulation.”

From: “Parents must control access” to “Communities, schools, designers, and families can co-create healthier digital conditions.”

This would move us away from fear-based control and toward shared responsibility. A move from policing to designing. From division to common humanity.

We’re All Learning to Live Here

When we stop pretending that teenagers are uniquely flawed or fragile, we can see what’s really going on: we’re all navigating unprecedented digital conditions with nervous systems that evolved for a very different world. Kids are not a special problem. They are simply at an earlier point on our shared journey across a new landscape.

If anything, this moment offers us a useful reminder: the more we insist on strict separations between “kids” and “adults,” the more blind we become to the needs we all share.

And maybe - just maybe - the question we should be asking isn’t how to protect children from becoming like adults online. It’s how adults might start modelling the online behaviour we hope children will grow into.

Onwards and upwards,

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Aside from my musings here, and my role with the Ballarat Foundation, I’ve been working on a project behind the scenes for the Foundation and grappling with my role as project leader. It’s a complex initiative and I feel a constant push and pull between wanting to direct activity and knowing I can’t.

The work I’m doing involves multiple stakeholders, shifting dynamics, and no single right answer. Some days I want to create clarity; other days, I know clarity has to emerge in its own time.

That tension - the space between guiding and letting go - is tricky and uncomfortable but key to leadership in complex environments, where the goal is less about instruction and more about sense-making. It’s not “Here’s what we’ll do,” but “What’s happening here, and what’s it asking of us?” That’s a big mindset shift.

When Leading Feels Like Listening

Here’s a little of what I’m learning…

This project, like many initiatives in workplaces and communities these days doesn’t sit neatly in one organisation’s structure or logic. It’s woven through relationships, timing, and trust. There’s momentum, but it’s not linear. It shifts and stalls, diverts in different directions and requires patience and an open mind. Some days, it feels more like gardening than management - tending the soil, creating conditions, waiting for things to take root.

It’s teaching me to listen differently. To look for signals rather than solutions. To sense when the system is ready to move, and when it needs stillness.

That’s the heart of what’s called sense-making: paying attention to what’s emerging instead of forcing an outcome.

It’s teaching me patience!

What Is Sense-Making?

Sense-making is how we create meaning in uncertainty. Organisational theorist Karl Weick described it as “the ongoing retrospective development of plausible stories that make sense of what people are doing.” I love that word plausible - it implies humility. You don’t have the whole picture, but you keep learning, keep adjusting, keep refining the approach and your story about the work you’re doing.

In community work, that looks like holding space for many voices and noticing patterns between them. It’s less about declaring a vision and more about discovering one together.

But here’s what sense-making isn’t.
It’s not control disguised as clarity. It’s not rushing to fill every gap with a plan, meeting, activity or policy. It’s not mistaking motion for progress.

We fight the system when we push harder instead of pausing to understand it.

• When a new process doesn’t work and we respond by adding another layer of rules.

• When meetings multiply instead of meaning deepening.

• When we measure what’s easy instead of what matters.

• When we cling to the comfort of being “on track” rather than asking if we’re heading in the right direction.

Those reactions make sense - they’re human responses to uncertainty. But they narrow our field of vision just when we need to widen it most. Sense-making does the opposite. It slows us down long enough to notice what the system is trying to tell us.

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But sense-making is hard precisely because it asks us to resist that deep, human urge to do something.

In public life, in workplaces, in government, we’re constantly shown examples of “fixing”: a new law, a new rule, a new meeting, a new policy. These actions often come from good intentions and anxious hearts. We want to help. We want to show we care. We want to be seen to be acting.

But complexity doesn’t always respond to quick fixes. Sometimes, “doing something” too soon means we stop noticing what’s really going on; we choose the wrong path or have to unwind the work when we receive new information. That’s the discomfort of sense-making: learning to tolerate uncertainty long enough to let insight form before rushing to intervention.

It’s a difficult discipline, especially for people who care deeply. But if we can stay with the not-knowing just a little longer, the next step usually reveals itself.

An Example: Listening Before Mandating

Over the past year, we’ve seen a wave of organisations tightening hybrid-work rules - fixed office days, attendance tracking, “culture-building” mandates. It makes sense in a way; leaders are trying to bring people back together after the disruption of the pandemic. But sometimes the impulse to fix hardens what actually needs softening. Instead of restoring trust, mandates and rules can signal: we don’t quite trust you.

A sense-making approach starts somewhere gentler. It asks: what’s really going on here? Which roles depend on in-person time, and which don’t? Where are people thriving, and where are they struggling? When leaders pause to listen, through check-ins, reflection sessions, or simply paying attention to patterns, they might find it’s not the policy that’s broken but the connections. Mentoring has lost its rhythm, or meetings have ballooned. The next step isn’t more control, but small, adaptive changes: rethinking rituals, restoring trust, rebuilding belonging.

That’s sense-making in action - learning your way forward together.

Creating the Conditions for Sense-Making

As you can see, sense-making isn’t something we do alone. It’s a collective practice - a way of tuning into the system together. Whether it’s a workplace, a neighbourhood, or a community project, the question becomes: how do we create the right conditions for sense-making to happen?

I’m learning that it starts with three things: time, trust, and texture.

Time – Space to pause, reflect, and notice patterns. In fast-moving environments, reflection can feel like a luxury, but it’s actually the foundation for adaptive leadership. Sense-making needs breathing room.

Trust – A culture where people can speak honestly without fear of blame or backlash. Sense-making dies in defensive environments. It thrives in spaces where uncertainty is safe to share.

Texture – Diversity of perspective. Sense-making isn’t a solo voice. It’s the texture of many viewpoints rubbing up against each other, revealing new insights in the friction.

In my work leading this small but complex community project, I’m learning that these conditions can’t be mandated or rushed. You create them by invitation: small gatherings, open questions, shared reflections. The moment people feel ownership of the learning, sense-making starts to take root.

Why It Matters for Leadership

When we’re leading complicated systems, plans and structure give us confidence. A complicated system is like a jet engine - it has many parts, but if you follow the manual, you can take it apart, fix it, and put it back together the same way. Think of project scheduling with Gantt charts, milestones, and dependencies. Complicated, but manageable if everyone follows the steps.

A complex system is different. It’s more like a garden - you can’t control or predict exactly how it will grow, but you can nurture the conditions that help it thrive. Culture and organisational change are complex systems. In these systems, the goal of leadership is to look for patterns to give us direction. Sense-making is how we learn to see those patterns together.

It doesn’t mean abandoning strategy or structure. It means treating them as living things, open to feedback, surprise, and adjustment. It’s a shift from control to curiosity, from ‘being right’ to being open to learning.

When leaders listen to learn they don’t lose authority. They gain alignment. People move because they’ve been part of the meaning-making, not because they’ve been told to. That’s how resilience grows, not through perfect plans, but through connected understanding (and that’s why change initiatives fail - too often we treat them as a process to follow instead of an organic experience that needs our tending, guidance and curiosity).

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A Final Reflection

I started this project thinking my job was to lead - to plan, direct, and deliver. But the more I lean into the work, the more I realise that my real task is to listen: to the people, to the patterns, to the pauses. Sense-making isn’t just a leadership tool; it’s becoming a practice for how I move through uncertainty - patiently, curiously, and in conversation with others.

And perhaps that’s what leadership is, at its best - simply learning out loud.

So the next time you feel the urge to fill a silence with answers, or to push for certainty when the path isn’t clear, try asking instead:

👉 “What might this moment be trying to show me? What am I meant to learn right now?”

Onwards and upwards,

The Fun Stuff

This week I am:

• Consolidating my learning from the AICD Governance Foundations for the Not-For-Profit Director course I did last week. That might not sound like fun but it was excellent, with plenty of collective learning with a great cohort. Highly recommended.

• Heading back to Melbourne for the Transforming Systems Forum hosted by Collaboration for Impact and the Menzies Leadership Foundation.

• Listening to my music The Life of a Showgirl on repeat, on Tidal. I’ve been a Spotify user for years but the audio quality and creator payment rates are better on Tidal so I’ve made the move.

Spring is in the air here - the scents and signs of a new season heralding renewal, change and opportunity 🌸🌱☀️ To appreciate it I’ve taken some time out to enjoy my garden and Uber my kids around during their school holidays. This has given me plenty of reflection time, during which a curious realisation struck me.

As you know if you’ve been reading along, I’ve been immersed in the world of systems thinking and how we create change in the systems in which we live and operate. I’ve also been drawing parallels between psychology - its models, language and practices - and systems change. My goal has been to use this translation process to generate a deeper understanding of what we mean by systems change and to explore how it works.

This week I had an ‘a ha’ moment.

I realised that when many people talk about systems change, they often mean changing structures - laws, policies, funding flows, and organisations that are involved in how a system, like a community, functions at an institutional level.

This is important but as a psychologist, I instinctively mean something different. When I think about systems change I’m thinking about complex adaptive systems - the living, evolving networks of people, relationships, and feedback loops that shape what happens every day and how we as humans experience it.

Both views matter. But if we want to strengthen communities, especially regional ones bound together over time, history and personal connection, complex adaptive systems thinking is essential.

Why structures aren’t enough

Regional places are sometimes described as “tight-knit” or “interconnected,” but those words can hide a lot of nuance. Families, sporting clubs, local businesses, and informal neighbourhood networks often carry more influence than official plans or programs. A policy can allocate funds or redraw boundaries, but it can’t on its own shift the trust, habits, and shared meaning that make a town thrive.

For me, complex systems thinking starts with seeing these relationships as infrastructure. To understand how a community works we have to look for the hidden feedback loops - how a small success in one corner of town might spark confidence and new ideas elsewhere, or how a long-standing tension can quietly block progress.

To help a community thrive we need to understand the culture and conditions that enable individuals to quietly step up to create change - a young person who launches a local arts event, or a small group that experiments with a new way to welcome newcomers. These acts of leadership often emerge without formal roles or funding, yet they spark wider participation and unexpected alliances.

In complex adaptive systems language, this is called emergence: new patterns and possibilities that arise from everyday interactions.

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Communities as ecosystems

I like to picture a regional community as an ecosystem. Agriculturalists know you can’t “fix” an ecosystem by replacing a single species or adding fertiliser. You watch the interdependencies. You experiment. You create conditions for health and resilience to emerge.

In people-terms, we can:

• Support micro-experiments like small, low-risk initiatives that teach as they go.

• Build learning loops so communities adapt together, not in silos.

• Value diversity and distributed leadership, because resilience grows when many voices and pathways can flourish.

These actions help to nudge complex systems towards change, working through relationships and feedback, not top-down rules or plans.

New pressures on old bonds

Right now the living connections in communities are being tested by a cascade of big systemic shifts. Regional Australia sits at the intersection of:

• Climate impacts and the energy transition – changing rainfall, fire risk, and land use; rapid growth of wind, solar and hydrogen projects.

• Population change – a “regional renaissance” of newcomers alongside ageing populations and youth out-migration, reshaping housing, health, and services.

• Economic and technological upheaval – automation in farming and manufacturing, AI-enabled service delivery, and fluctuating global markets for food, resources, and tourism.

• Cultural diversification – new migrant and refugee settlement and the continuing work of reconciliation with First Nations peoples.

• Health and social cohesion challenges – from pandemic after-effects to rising loneliness and political polarisation.

Each of these forces interacts with the others, creating ripple effects that no single policy or program can fully predict or control. Complex adaptive systems thinking provides a map for this terrain. It helps leaders see connections, spot feedback loops, and design responses that can flex and evolve as conditions shift.

Added to this, these forces land in communities with deep histories, where the past shapes how new patterns emerge.

Honouring history while making space for renewal

For me, generational memory and the relational infrastructure of regional communities is a gift and a challenge. It anchors identity and belonging, but can also keep old conflicts or exclusions alive. A complex systems approach invites reflective conversations that surface these patterns without blame, creating space for fresh connections and new narratives.

None of this means ignoring structures. Policies, funding and formal governance still matter. But they are nested inside the living system, not the other way around. When we see that clearly, we design interventions differently: funding flexible pilots instead of rigid projects, measuring learning and trust alongside outputs, and investing in the “connective tissue” that allows ideas to spread.

An invitation

I’m sharing this reflection because I think regional communities have a head start. Their deep relationships and shared histories already carry many of the qualities that complex adaptive systems theory highlights. The opportunity—and the challenge—is to make those qualities visible and intentional, so that they become a source of resilience rather than an accidental advantage.

To spark the conversation, here are some questions we can sit with:

• What would change if we stopped treating communities as machines to be fixed and started tending them as living systems to be nurtured?

• What new opportunities - economic, ecological, cultural - might emerge if we looked for unexpected connections rather than linear plans?

• Where could fresh partnerships or experiments reveal possibilities that traditional programs overlook?

• What kinds of long-term investment - financial, social, and cultural - does your community need to build the ‘connective tissue’ required for adaptability and lasting resilience?

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Complex challenges invite complex, creative responses. By looking at our communities as living systems, we open the door to more hopeful and durable ways of thriving together. It’s an ongoing conversation I look forward to continuing with you.

Thanks for reading and reflecting with me. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and local stories in the comments.

Onwards and upwards,

Find more of my work at Potential Psychology

It’s the #nocontext link list edition.

I wasn’t going to write this week. There have been some big things going on and my brain is spent. Kids are on school holidays. Our routine is shot. Self-compassion is the order of the day

So instead of a long read, here are a few ideas and articles that caught my attention and might spark yours…

1. Agreeable Disagreement: A Call for Cooling in an Overheated World

2. Race, Racism and the False Horizon of Identity

3. The Dangerous Ones: Pause your doomscrolling for two minutes and watch this + The Follow Up

There’s a theme that relates to my current work. More about that coming soon.

Let me know what you think.

Onwards and upwards,

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The world feels a little tender at the moment, don’t you think? This past week, even more so than usual, the news has been sharp, the language heated, and it feels like the world is pulling apart. Many of us are feeling angry, weary, unsure and overwhelmed.

Last week on Wayfinders I started linking psychological ideas I use with clients to systems thinking, because both help us to see how we can create positive change.

Last week we explored feedback loops and “holding things lightly.” This week, it feels right to stay close to something we may all need: compassion, connection, and mutual respect.

Self-compassion: steady ground when the world feels brittle

In my coaching and psychology work, self-compassion is one of the most powerful ways I know to interrupt negative spirals and make space for clarity and care.

It has three key elements:

• Mindful awareness – noticing pain or stress without exaggerating or minimising it.

• Kindness over criticism – responding to difficulty the way you’d treat a good friend.

• Common humanity – remembering that struggle is part of being human, not a personal flaw.

When the world is humming with outrage, self-compassion is more than self-care. It’s a way of refusing to get caught in the spiral of hate and reactivity. Anger feels energising in the moment, but it quietly drains us. It narrows our thinking, tightens our bodies, and can leave us more hopeless than before.

Self-compassion interrupts that cycle, giving us the spaciousness to respond, not just react. It lets us pause, steady, and stay whole, and when we steady ourselves, we’re less likely to pass pain along.

We pause before reposting that angry link. We choose a calmer tone in a heated comment thread. We notice our own limits and take a break instead of lashing out.

Personal steadiness ripples outward.

Remembering common humanity - that everyone suffers, everyone fears, everyone loves someone - softens the sharp edges between “us” and “them” too. It doesn’t mean we excuse harm. It means we don’t forget that even those we disagree with are human.

Here’s a little experiment in self-compassion you might like to try: When you catch yourself in an internal rant about “those people,” pause and silently add, just like me, they want to feel safe and heard. Notice what shifts in your body and mind.

In systems language, this is about changing the feedback loop. A moment of self-compassion changes our inner system first, which changes how we participate in the wider social system. Calmer individuals create calmer interactions; calmer interactions create more room for collective problem-solving - and that’s what the world needs right now.

Connection and respect: widening the circle

Self-compassion isn’t the end of the story. Calming our inner loops changes more than our mood; it reshapes how we enter conversations and communities. Self-compassion creates the inner stability that lets us stay open and curious when differences appear between us.

This is the heart of civility as I see it: treating one another with respect, even when we disagree. It’s not about politeness for its own sake. It’s about creating conditions where trust can grow and difference can be held without contempt and rage.

Small, steady gestures matter:

• Starting a meeting with a real check-in, not just the agenda.

• Phoning a neighbour or friend you don’t always agree with, simply to listen.

• Choosing not to comment when all you have is heat, not light.

• Sharing a simple meal with someone whose views differ and focusing on listening, not persuading.

• Pausing before forwarding that angry article and asking, “Will this inform or inflame?”

• Offering a quiet kindness without posting or broadcasting it.

• Beginning a work call by acknowledging shared tension (“It’s been a heavy week for many of us”) to open space for understanding.

These aren’t grand gestures. But in systems language they’re bridging links - small ties that, over time, connect us and carry understanding across divides.

Those links don’t stay small.

A single kind comment can soften the tone of a heated online thread.
A handful of people modelling respectful dialogue can shift the culture of a local Facebook group or neighbourhood WhatsApp chat.
Over time, those steady choices build a space where real exchange - sharing resources, solving problems, even disagreeing well - feels possible.

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From Psychology to Systems

Systems thinkers use different words for these same forces we see in human relationships:

• Generative relationships – when honesty and care allow new ideas to surface. Think of a neighbourly chat that sparks a new community project, or a team check-in that leads to a creative breakthrough.

• Positive feedback loops of trust – where one act of kindness makes the next one easier. A single thoughtful message can start a chain of mutual support across an organisation.

• Collective capacity to adapt – built not by perfect plans but by resilient relationships. It’s why networks of friends, volunteers, or local businesses can pivot quickly in a crisis.

What starts as a personal choice - pausing before reacting, reaching out instead of retreating - becomes a pattern others can feel and follow. Those patterns, repeated and shared, are the system changing itself.

Why it matters in a polarised week

The headlines of the past week have shown how quickly anger and division can amplify. When we zoom out, it’s clear that adding more outrage - posting or consuming or just internalising it - rarely helps. It may give a brief hit of righteousness, but it doesn’t build the future we want to live in and share.

Self-compassion and civility work together here. They remind us that everyone is human and fallible. They create feedback loops of calm and care instead of fear and fight. And they help us ask the bigger question:

What kind of world do we want to help build—with our words, our clicks, our conversations?

Each time we pause, extend care inward, and reach out with respect, we help the system shift toward the world we want to inhabit. It may feel small, but in complex systems like our communities and networks, those steady choices are how change begins.

Onwards and upwards,

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The Fun Stuff:

This week I’m sharing resources that have been popular with clients…

💛Self Compassion - “Research indicates that self-compassion is one of the most powerful sources of coping and resilience we have available, radically improving our mental and physical wellbeing. It motivates us to make changes and reach our goals not because we’re inadequate, but because we care and want to be happy.”

💛The ACT Workbook for the Anxious Procrastinator: How to Accept Yourself, Get Things Done and Do More of What Matters by Patricia E. Zurita, Psy D (new book by past podcast guest)

Last week I wrote about what psychologists bring to systems change: the reminder that systems are lived, felt, and human. That seemed to resonate (thank you for the lovely feedback and follows), so this week I thought I’d take it a step further and explore some of the key psychological concepts I use with clients to help understand the systems in their lives. We’ll then translate that into the language of systems thinking.

Ready?

Let’s go…

Example 1: Feedback or Failure?

In psychology, we often talk about something called the cognitive triangle. It’s a simple but powerful idea: our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are interconnected. A change in one corner of the triangle ripples through the others.

For example:

• You have the thought, “I can’t do this presentation.”

• That thought sparks anxiety (your feeling).

• Anxiety leads you to avoid preparing (behaviour), which only reinforces the thought that you’re not ready.

• Next thing you know, you’re an overwhelmed, anxious, procrastinating puddle.

But the reverse is also true. Small, intentional shifts - reframing the thought (“This presentation will be a challenge, but I can do it”), practising calm (Steady breaths and positive self-talk), and taking preparation and delivery one step at a time (“I’ll just open the document and write the first line”) - can start the spiral in a positive direction.

The cognitive triangle shows us how our inner system of thoughts, feelings and behaviour works.

Systems thinking uses a different language, but the principle is the same: feedback loops. The same reinforcing patterns apply, just at a bigger scale.

Reinforcing Loops in Action

Take exercise. You go for a run (behaviour). You feel healthier (feeling). That motivates you to think, “This is working!” (thought). And the cycle reinforces itself. In systems language, that’s a reinforcing loop - a series of signals that tell us how things are tracking.

But here’s the kicker: in many workplaces, we mislabel feedback as failure instead of seeing it as a signal or information. A new initiative doesn’t take off straight away, so we scrap it. A team tries something new, it wobbles, and leaders rush back to the old way. From a systems lens, that wobble isn’t failure. It’s data — feedback about what the system can and can’t yet support.

A Workplace Example

Take this common example: a company introduces a new collaboration tool. Within weeks, half the staff have abandoned it and gone back to email. Leaders declare, “That was a flop.”

But look closer. Staff grumble, “It takes longer to log in than to send an email.” Others say, “I don’t know when I’m supposed to use this versus email.” The problem isn’t the tool, it’s the conditions around it. Workloads were too high for people to learn it. Teams hadn’t agreed on norms. IT policies made logging in clunky.

What looked like failure was really information: the system wasn’t yet ready for the change.

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Psychology Meets Systems

Here’s where the two perspectives come together.

At first glance, leaders see staff dropping the tool and think: failure (thought). That sparks feelings of frustration or disappointment, which in turn drive behaviour - scrapping the tool and reverting to email.

That’s the cognitive triangle in action: thoughts → feelings → behaviours.

But if we reframe the thought from “failure” to “feedback,” the whole triangle shifts. Frustration might give way to curiosity (feeling). Curiosity sparks different behaviour: asking why the tool didn’t stick, what conditions need adjusting, and how to try again with better support.

The insight leads to next steps: free up time to get the conditions right, align expectations and smooth the process instead of throwing the idea out altogether.

That’s where the psychology and the systems lens line up beautifully. A single shift in perception changes the emotional response and the action, and at the systems level, it changes which possibilities stay alive.

Example 2: Holding Things Lightly

In psychology, especially in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we talk about the practice of holding things lightly.

It’s the opposite of rigidity. Instead of gripping tightly to an outcome, rule, or story (often out of fear, perfectionism, or control), we loosen our hold. We make room for flexibility, curiosity, and adjustment.

Take this scenario:

• A manager launches a new project with a vision of how it “must” unfold.

• But as soon as things wobble — a delay, a disagreement, or a missed milestone — stress spikes. The rigid thought is, “This isn’t how it was supposed to go!”

• That thought triggers frustration (feeling), which drives behaviour: doubling down on control, micromanaging, or labelling the project a failure.

Now imagine the same manager with a lighter grip. The thought shifts to: “This isn’t going exactly to plan, but what can we learn here?”

• That brings a feeling of curiosity or openness.

• Which sparks behaviours like listening more closely, adapting timelines, or inviting new ideas.

Holding things lightly doesn’t mean giving up on standards or goals. It means making space for reality to surprise you, without collapsing under the discomfort.

The Systems Lens

Systems thinkers describe this as working with emergence.

In complex systems, things don’t follow straight lines. New patterns emerge from the interactions - often unexpected, sometimes messy. If we grip too tightly to a predetermined plan, we strangle those possibilities. If we hold things lightly, we can notice the weak signals, adapt, and allow something better to take shape.

A Workplace Example

Imagine a team rolling out a new customer engagement process. The original plan maps every step: greeting, script, timing, follow-up.

But on the ground, staff notice something: the customers don’t respond to the script. Conversations flow more naturally when staff adjust tone and timing.

If leaders insist on rigidly sticking to the script, the process falters. Staff disengage, customers feel alienated, and the “change” fails.

But if leaders hold it lightly, they can say: “The goal is consistent, high-quality customer engagement. If the script doesn’t serve that, let’s adapt.”

The outcome is richer than the original plan: a shared framework for quality interactions, with enough flexibility for staff to bring their own style. The system has adapted, not collapsed.

Psychology Meets Systems

Rigid grip = fear, control and brittleness.
Light hold = curiosity, learning, and resilience.

In psychology, we frame this as acceptance and psychological flexibility in the face of discomfort.
In systems, it’s the practice of creating conditions where new patterns can emerge - not by controlling harder, but by letting go just enough.

Why It Matters

When we line up psychology and systems side by side, we see the same ideas at different scales:

👉 People grow in context.
👉 Feedback is information, not failure.
👉 Curiosity unlocks change more effectively than control does.

Whether you’re working on your own goals, leading a team, or shaping community change, these principles hold.

This Week’s Reflection

These parallels remind us that both psychology and systems are about how we respond in the moment. Which is why I’m going to leave you with questions to reflect on…

^❔ Where in your work or life are you holding things too tightly?
^❔ What shifts if you treat the wobble as feedback instead of failure?
^❔ How might holding things lightly open up new possibilities?

Because in the end, systems, like people, rarely change under pressure. They shift when we create the conditions for new possibilities to emerge.

Onwards and upwards,

The Fun Stuff

This week I am…

👀Watching From Rock Star to Killer: The Cantat Case on Netflix because my Mum recommended it and it gives me a chance to practice my French comprehension (I will still need all the subtitles)

Listening to indie - Saint Motel, The Wombats, Royel Otis

Enjoying the first signs of Spring in our part of the world 🌱

Today I want to delve into something that has been bugging me - and may have been confusing you - as I’ve muddled through learning and writing about systems change.

You probably know me as a psychologist. Maybe that’s why you joined the Potential Psychology community - to learn more about humans and behaviour. For years I have written and podcasted about motivation, procrastination, wellbeing, resilience and the trials, troubles and opportunities of being human. So why the shift to systems?

It’s a fair question. Psychology, after all, is usually associated with individuals - our thoughts, feelings, behaviours. Systems thinking sounds like something entirely different.

But it’s not.

Psychology has always been about systems - just at a different scale. Every thought, feeling, or behaviour at the individual level happens in a context: in a family, a workplace, a culture, a set of expectations. That’s what a system is - a set of interconnected parts, people, and patterns that influence one another, shaping what’s possible.

Context Shapes Change

Teaching someone mindfulness might help in the moment, but if the workload is unrelenting or others never role-model or support balance, burnout will keep spreading. I’ve seen this play out countless times in coaching, consulting and families: the individual is trying hard, but the system keeps pushing back.

A coaching request to “help this leader step up” might sound like a need to work on skills, mindset, or confidence, but often the real leverage lies in helping them to see the system they're operating within - the reward structures, levels of trust, or whether there’s space for reflection instead of constant firefighting. Coaching then becomes less about fixing an individual and more about helping them see and shape the dynamics they’re leading in, so the whole system can shift.

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Community Leadership: A Turning Point
Looking back, I can see that I’ve been working with systems for most of my career - as a coach, in leadership development, and in change and culture consulting. I just didn’t call it that, because psychology uses a different language.

This realisation became even sharper when I stepped into community leadership development. A colleague in positive psychology said to me excitedly at the time: “You’ll be able to create change at a systems level!” I don’t think I fully grasped it then, but I do now.

As I delved into community leadership development, I noticed that the shift wasn’t about teaching people leadership skills or concepts. We weren’t creating leaders. It was about building conditions - opportunities for connection, curiosity, exploration, and agency - that allowed leadership to emerge amongst program participants in their community.

Looking back, I see this as the bridge: psychology had given me the tools to see people as relational, whole beings. Community leadership showed me what happens when those principles scale up. That’s when I really began learning the language and practice of systems.

Zooming Out in Psychology

Psychology itself has been on a similar journey. Many early schools of thought leaned toward the reductionist: behaviourism focused on stimulus and response; psychodynamics zoomed in on the inner world of drives and conflicts. Both offered insights, but they often treated the individual as separate from their wider context.

Over time, the field began to zoom out. Personally I’ve leaned towards humanistic psychology, which reframes people as whole, meaning-making, relational beings. In the 1950s Carl Rogers wrote about the conditions for growth - empathy, congruence, unconditional positive regard. Flourishing, he showed, doesn’t come from pushing harder at the person. It arises when the environment is safe, supportive, and aligned.

Later, in my own work with positive psychology, I leaned into the same idea: what happens when we focus less on repairing deficits and more on creating the conditions for thriving? Positive psychology asks how people build resilience, meaning, hope, and connection. Systems thinking asks the same questions, but at the level of communities, organisations, and societies.

Same principle. Different scale.

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Where Psychology Meets Systems

So when I talk about systems change now - about noticing patterns, surfacing assumptions, and shaping conditions - I don’t feel like I’ve jumped to a new discipline. It feels like I’ve found a language that captures what psychology, for me, has been pointing to all along.

👉 People grow in context.
👉 Relationships matter more than rules.
👉 Conditions shape behaviour more than willpower does.

That’s as true for individuals as it is for workplaces, communities, or entire societies.

For me, the shift has simply been scale: from coaching individuals, to working with teams, to shaping leadership systems in organisations, to now exploring community-level change.

What This Means For Me (and Maybe for You)

Here’s the takeaway for me: psychologists bring something vital to systems change - a deep understanding of human behaviour, motivation, and meaning-making. Without that lens, systems work risks becoming abstract, technical, or mechanistic. With it, we’re reminded that systems are lived, felt, and human.

What bugged me at first was a sense of contradiction. Now I see it was an invitation to integrate what I’ve always known as a psychologist with what I’m learning as a systems thinker. The work isn’t either/or. It’s both/and.

I hope you’ll keep learning with me.

Onwards and upwards,

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Something I’m pondering this week is how to let go of control, to allow transformation to emerge.

One of the hardest, yet also exciting, things about systems change is that it rarely goes to plan. You can map out the strategy, allocate the resources, and set the timeline, but when real people, real contexts, and real relationships get involved, things take a turn.

That’s not failure. That’s what’s called emergence.

What is Emergence?

Emergence is when new patterns, behaviours, or outcomes arise from the interactions within a system - outcomes you can’t predict just by looking at the parts. Consider how a flock of birds turns mid-air. No single bird is in charge, yet the group moves in sync. Or how a new idea suddenly takes hold across a workplace or community, even though no one person “rolled it out.” (Anyone else got a teen obsessed with ‘six, seven’?)

Emergence is how complexity expresses itself. It’s not chaos, but an unexpected order that we can’t necessarily anticipate. In other words: the future doesn’t fit neatly into our plans.

Everyday Examples of Emergence

Emergence appears in everyday moments:

• Street traffic patterns: No single driver plans the morning rush, but together, behaviours and reactions create predictable flows (and sometimes gridlock). Change one condition - add a roundabout, adjust the timing of traffic lights - and the whole pattern shifts.

• School playgrounds: Teachers don’t tell kids which games to invent. Yet given time, space, and some balls or skipping ropes, entirely new games emerge - rules and all.

• Online communities: A forum might start as a Q&A hub but gradually its culture, norms, and even slang evolve it into something different. Nobody designed it or decided on change; it grew through interaction.

Why It Matters for Systems Change

If we expect change to roll out neatly, step by step, we’ll be disappointed. Or if it does, it’s likely simple, transactional change. Real transformation happens through interaction: experiments, relationships, and small shifts that spark bigger ones.

Working with emergence is less about predicting the future and more about preparing ourselves to notice it, nurture it, and adapt around it. It rarely looks like control. It doesn’t fit a neat timeline, logic model, or a quarterly KPI. And that makes it deeply uncomfortable for those of us taught to plan, predict, and measure.

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The Leadership Move

The instinct, when things get messy, is to tighten our grip - to push harder, set stricter milestones, or force alignment. But in complex systems, control often backfires. We strangle the very possibilities we need to let unfold.

It’s messy, yes, but it’s also where the real possibility lies.

If you’re dealing with a tricky scenario, instead of asking “How do we control the outcome?” it’s better to ask:

• What conditions could help the right things emerge?

• How do we notice and nurture small signals of change and keep rolling with these?

• How do we adapt when the system surprises us?

Emergence teaches us that complexity isn’t something to fear. It’s where creativity, resilience, and transformation, well, emerge.

More tips for working with emergence (instead of against it)

1. Hold goals lightly, and principles firmly
   Anchor in purpose and values, not fixed plans. Know your direction, but let the path adjust.

2. Name the uncertainty
   You’re allowed to say it: “We don’t know yet.” When we normalise uncertainty, we free up energy for exploration rather than defensiveness.

3. Listen for weak signals
   Emergence shows up as whispers. A new connection. A recurring idea. Unusual enthusiasm. A shift in language. Tune in to these subtle cues.

4. Experiment small, adapt fast
   Run safe-to-fail experiments that prioritise learning. Instead of “What will succeed?” ask “What will this teach us?”

5. Create conditions for trust
   People are more willing to explore the unknown if they feel supported. Build spaces where curiosity, honesty and uncertainty are rewarded, not punished.

6. Practice letting go
   Not everything is meant to take hold. Letting go of what’s not working can be just as powerful as doubling down on what is.

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The beauty of emergence is that it doesn’t rely on perfection. It relies on presence - noticing the sparks, tending to them, and letting the system surprise us.

Today’s question: What’s an example you’ve seen where something surprising and positive emerged, not from a plan, but from people interacting in new ways?

Onwards and upwards,

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P.S. Events at the Bendigo Writers Festival rcently are a good example of emergence. An attempt to control uncertainty backfired in unexpected ways that could have long-term ramifications for the city.

Fun stuff this week

🎧 I’m Listening to: The Relational Podcast, in particular, this episode with Jane Wei-Skillern about networked leadership. I met Jane last year at a Community Foundations Australia conference and love her style and insights about leaders who cultivate decentralised networks to drive change.

🥐 I’m Practising: My French. Conversation classes every Monday night and 674 days of Duolingo.

👱‍♀️ I’m Looking Forward To: Hosting the Ballarat Women’s Fund Evening on 3 September, with guest speaker ABC News Breakfast Co-Host, Bridget Brennan. Come along and say hi!

Today I’m a little flummoxed.

I’m working on a project that’s still in its early phases. It’s the kind of project that doesn’t fit neatly into a box. It isn’t a program with a start and end date. It doesn’t sit within clear boundaries or answer to a single goal.

It’s the kind of work that asks me to notice patterns, not just problems. To build relationships before we know what they’ll make possible. To explore questions that don’t yet have answers.

It’s messy, uncertain, and sometimes uncomfortable, because it’s not about fixing one issue but shifting the conditions that shape many issues at once.

This is work that involves holding several threads - conversations with schools, community leaders, local organisations, and everyday citizens. Together these threads will, I hope, weave something stronger: shared language, tentative experiments, small shifts in practice that might grow into larger change. My role is not about directing this. It’s about noticing, connecting, and keeping the weave from unravelling before it has a chance to take form.

This change work is often exhilarating; full of sparks, energy, and possibility. But at times it‘s lonely, uncertain, and overwhelming. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t show quick wins. The “to do” list keeps growing, and holding the vision feels like carrying a weight no one else can quite see.

By the end of this past week, it felt heavy.

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Like most of us, that’s when urgency and discomfort whispers to me: do more, push harder, move faster, hold tighter. But I’ve learned (and frequently relearn) that in systems change, urgency is not the answer. It’s an unhelpful response to the uncertainty, and it gets in the way of transformation.

Why urgency doesn’t help

Urgency dominates so much of our world. Deadlines, quarterly targets, political cycles, funding rounds - everything pushes us to move faster. But complex systems don’t bend to deadlines. They move at the pace of relationships, trust, and burgeoning conditions. They shift in fits and starts, in rhythms and seasons, at a pace we don’t control.

When urgency drives our action, we often get reaction instead of transformation. We push harder, but the system resists. We demand outcomes, but skip over the conditions that make the right outcomes possible.

True change, especially the kind that reshapes relationships, cultures, or communities, rarely happens on schedule. It asks for patience, persistence, and the courage to keep showing up even when results are invisible. It takes rhythm, not speed. A mix of pacing, pause, and patience. Knowing when to step forward, when to hold, and when to wait for the ground to be ready before planting seeds.

Pacing, Pause, Rhythm - and Loneliness

I’ve also been learning through this experience that pacing and patience are not just personal disciplines; they’re leadership practices.

• Pacing means sensing when to press forward and when to let things breathe.

• Pause creates space for reflection, meaning-making, and renewal.

• Rhythm reminds us that systems move like ecosystems, not machines — growth, rest, decay, and renewal are all part of the cycle.

But here’s the challenge: sometimes the natural rhythm of change doesn’t align with the speed of the prevailing culture. Systems are designed to protect what already exists. They reward conformity, efficiency, and predictability. By contrast, change work often requires divergence, experimentation, and slowing down. That puts those of us doing the work on the margins, out of sync with the rhythms of the mainstream.

This isn’t, I remind myself, because we’re doing it “wrong,” but because we’re working from another frame of reference. Charting a parallel course. We’re holding possibilities others can’t yet see. We’re pacing ourselves according to cycles of emergence, when the surrounding culture demands speed and output.

It’s this mismatch that creates isolation. There are fewer mirrors, fewer signposts, fewer affirmations than you get in linear work. That isolation drains energy and narrows perspective, making it harder to stay strategic, curious, and connected - a place diametric to where I need to be.

So how do we hold both rhythm and loneliness? How do I stay the course when feeling flummoxed?

These are my reminders:

• Find my fellow travellers - even if they’re outside my project or sector. A short conversation with someone who understands the terrain can be energising.

• Keep my “why” visible - a note, an image, a phrase that reminds me of what I’m holding and why it matters.

• Make space for pause - loneliness often tempts us to fill the gap with more activity, but the most powerful move in systems change is to slow down and listen for what’s emerging.

My question for you

Where in your work or life are you feeling the pressure of urgency?

What would happen if you slowed down, listened for rhythm, or treated the loneliness not as failure but as a signal that you’re doing complex work right?

Where might the “pause” be more powerful than the “push” in what you’re working on right now?

Who are the fellow travellers you could reach out to, even briefly, so you don’t carry the load alone?

What small act of patience today could shift the conditions for bigger change tomorrow?

Here’s to a week with a little more pause, and a little less flummox,

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Onwards and upwards,

The Fun Stuff:

I am listening to FINNEAS 🎧

I am watching my garden for signs of Spring 🌿

I am writing to make things make sense 👆

I don’t know about you, but as I work across multiple ‘jobs’ (paid projects, volunteer Board role, other pro bono work, media, parenting, household management, pet mum, etc) I’m always looking for ways to keep track of the mental load of my many disparate tasks.

Don’t forget to book the dogs’ vaccination appointments.
Do we have enough eggs to get through the week? (#teenboys)
When’s my next Board meeting and what do I need to do to prep?
Remember to send those emails, book those meetings, draft this week’s Substack post, prep those invoices, pay those bills, water the indoor plants…

Oh, school pick up time again. I’m sure there is a phone call I’m supposed to return.
What topic should I talk about on radio this week?
How do I conceptualise civility as a function of relational practice and explain it in straightforward terms to a novice audience on Wednesday?
Would a slide deck help? Are the kids happy? Why is there so much dog hair in my house?

Today I asked ChatGPT to help. I typed in every task that needs to get done this week, in no particular order. With a little bit of ‘to and fro’ prompting (work tasks on weekdays, lawn mowed before my parents visit on Thursday) it spat out a well-organised, very helpful day-by-day task plan for the week.

More than just a ‘to do’ list, it grouped relevant items together, like errands that require travel, suggested blocks of time to get important work tasks done, and sequenced things logically - e.g. message fellow committee members on Tuesday to remind them of what needs to be done before our meeting on Thursday.

As I think of more tasks (you always think of more, don’t you?) I add them and ChatGPT updates the plan for me. Now it’s printed and sitting on my desk ready for the week.

This doesn’t solve the problem of the dog hair, but right now my robovac is traversing the house doing a ‘light tidy’ while I draft this post, and my kids empty the bins and compost, hang the washing, and take the dogs for a walk.

Ticking. Things. Off. The. List. ✅

Thank you ChatGPT for clearing some cognitive space for me 🙏

Now, as I sit here looking at my neatly organised plan, it strikes me that nothing about my actual week has changed.

The tasks are the same.

What’s changed is how I see them.

Instead of a messy worry-cloud in my head, I have a clear picture: where things fit, what matters most, and what can wait.

In systems work, perception works the same way.
The “map” we use - the way we notice, label, and connect what’s happening - can make chaos feel navigable, or make it feel impossible.

Because how we see a system shapes how we respond to it.

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The world doesn’t come with labels

Human brains are brilliant pattern-makers. We make sense of complexity by naming things, sorting them, simplifying what we see. It’s what allows us to function, to act, to choose.

But sometimes the labels we’ve inherited - “at-risk youth,” “resistant team,” “hard-to-reach communities,” “bad behaviour,” “poor engagement” - say more about our mental models than about the actual system dynamics.

What if we pause and look again?

That “unreliable neighbour” who never comes to the street working bee… you learn they work weekends and look after an elderly parent.

The “team member who never speaks up” in meetings… you discover they’ve been burned for doing so in the past.

The “shop in decline” on the high street… you hear the owner’s been navigating a family illness and hasn’t had the capacity to try new ideas.

And at a bigger scale:
The “failing community program” on the annual report… when you map the wider system you realise it’s been operating without access to key resources, or in a policy environment that actively undermines its goals.

Seeing as an act of leadership

When we shift how we see, we open the door to different kinds of action.

Instead of seeing a “problem person,” we see a poor fit between role and environment.

Instead of a “failing program,” we see a system giving us useful feedback.

Instead of a “someone who’ll never change,” we see someone surviving a set of conditions most wouldn’t withstand.

This shift isn’t just about empathy (though that matters). It’s about strategy.
If we want different outcomes, we need to look at the system differently as that opens up different courses of action.

Here are some real-life examples

👀 A hospital ward where a nurse is labelled “negative,” but when someone stops to listen, they discover she’s been raising the same safety issue for months and being ignored.

Seeing her as a safety advocate rather than a troublemaker shifts the response from managing her attitude to fixing the safety risk, improving outcomes for both staff and patients.

👀 A regional town that’s described as “floundering,” until someone maps the local initiatives and discovers more than 30 community groups, none of which had ever been connected or supported to collaborate.

Now, the work becomes about weaving those groups into a network, sharing resources, and amplifying each other’s efforts, turning isolated activity into collective impact - and sharing a positive story.

👀 A struggling school where educators are seen as burned out, until we realise they’re working within a rigid, top-down structure that leaves no room for professional agency.

Reframing this as a structural issue, not a personal failing, opens the door to co-designing teaching approaches, adjusting workloads, and giving educators more say in decisions, improving morale and student outcomes.

In each of these, what changed first wasn’t the system, it was our perception of the situation, which in turn opened up a whole new range of possibilities.

So, how do we learn to see differently?

Here are some questions I’ve found helpful:

• What’s not being talked about?

• What assumptions am I making about what’s “normal” or “realistic”?

• What happens if I flip the story? (e.g. from “resistant” to “exhausted,” from “apathetic” to “disconnected”?)

• Who sees this differently, and what do they know that I don’t?

• What might be happening here that I can’t see from my position?

• If I assumed good intent, how would I interpret this behaviour?

• What would I notice if I spent a day in their shoes?

Shifting perspective is a systems skill

Seeing differently isn’t soft. It’s strategic. It changes the questions we ask, the options we see, and the choices we make.

When we hold our original view too tightly, we risk treating symptoms instead of causes, or doubling down on an approach that was never going to work in the first place. But when we pause, get curious and deliberately shift our lens, new possibilities often emerge - ones that were invisible from our first vantage point.

This isn’t about endless analysis or avoiding action. It’s about acting from a place of sharper, more deliberate insight. It’s what helps leaders unlock creativity, build alliances, and move complex situations forward with care instead of force.

In systems change, insight almost always precedes impact, and the quality of our action depends on the questions we ask and the clarity of our seeing.

This week’s reflection:
👉 Where are you working on a challenge that feels stuck?

What happens if you step back and ask: What else might be going on here?

Sometimes, a small shift in perception can reveal a whole new path forward.

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Next week, we’ll explore one of the most underestimated ingredients of systems change: time — why urgency can get in the way of transformation, and how pacing, pause, and rhythm shape what’s possible.

Until then, here’s to seeing with fresh eyes - and tidy to-do lists.

Onwards and upwards,

The Fun Stuff

This week I am…

🎭Watching short, sharp comedy for downtime. Hannah Gadsby, Michelle Wolf, Taylor Tomlinson and Josh Johnson on high rotation.

🎧Listening to Spotify’s DJ on demand. My lazy musical go-to.

📚 Reading a spate of systems articles that treat “adding a human behaviour lens” as groundbreaking. Social psychologists have been at this for decades, but it’s a good sign that more of the systems world is finally catching up to the fact that human systems are made up of, well, humans.

I have a couple of updates for you this week. The first I’ll share now. The second you’ll find at the end of this post.

First up, you might have noticed I have changed the name of this newsletter. It’s now Wayfinders (just like you).

When I began writing on Substack I called my musing The Messy Middle, because that’s exactly where I was: in the thick of uncertainty, between old ways and new ideas, questioning the path but still walking it. I was curious and hopeful, but a little bit lost.

That name reflected a year or so of sitting with complexity, of resisting the urge to rush to answers, of learning to see the patterns beneath the problems.

But nothing in life and learning remains the same. Something has shifted. The mess hasn’t disappeared, but through exploration, a direction has emerged.

This year, I feel more focused. More intentional. More grounded in the work of systems change, community leadership, and collective wellbeing.

So The Messy Middle has become Wayfinders.

Wayfinding is ancient. It’s how people crossed oceans, tracked stars, read landscapes, and found meaning in what surrounded them. It’s an act of movement, of trust, of paying attention.

This newsletter remains a space for questions, reflections, and (hopefully) insight, but now it’s embedded in the idea that we’re not just stuck in the middle. We’re finding our way forward. Together.

So… on to this week’s topic: How the situation matters more than the solution when it comes to change or ‘‘Doing is only one part of the story.’

We’re now eight weeks into this series exploring the invisible threads that shape how people and communities change - from systems and patterns to power, relationships and learning.

This week, we’re zooming out again, because sometimes it’s not about what you’re doing when you’re trying to change something - it’s about what you’re doing it within.

Let me explain.

We often treat change like a personal project.
Try harder. Be more resilient. Do more with less - whether that’s you as an individual or an initiative, project or organisation you’re leading.

But systems thinkers ask a different question:
What conditions are going to make this change the likely outcome?

You can plant the healthiest seed in the world, but if the soil is depleted, the sun is too harsh, or there’s no water, it won’t thrive.
It’s not the seed’s fault.

It’s the same in human systems.
People’s choices, behaviours and wellbeing are shaped by the environments they live in, the relationships they’re part of, and the assumptions baked into the structures around them.

Psychologist Kurt Lewin described this in the 1930s via his ‘equation’ (a heuristic really):

It states that behavior (B) is a function of the interaction between the person (P) and their environment (E). This equation emphasises that to understand behaviour we must consider the individual's characteristics and the context in which they are acting. One without the other is not the full story.

The shift from individual resilience to collective wellbeing

When it comes to change and challenge we’re used to hearing that we need to be more adaptable, more positive, more proactive - and yes, agency matters. But we can’t meditate or mindset our way out of a system that makes it hard to flourish.

What if, instead of asking “How can we help people cope or adapt better?” we asked:
What would need to change in the environment so that more people could thrive with less struggle?

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Instead of asking why a student is disengaged, we ask what’s happening in their life, their classroom, or their relationships that’s affecting their capacity to learn.

• Instead of coaching a burnt-out employee to “manage their energy,” we ask why the workload, culture, or expectations are draining in the first place.

• Instead of launching another campaign to “raise awareness,” we ask what supports or structures are missing that stop existing awareness from turning into action.

In each case, we stop zooming in only on the individual and start looking at the conditions around them.

Because the outcomes we see in workplaces, schools, services, or communities are shaped not just by what people do, but by what they’re responding to.

Creating the right conditions means:

• Cultivating relationships where people feel safe enough to speak up.

• Building systems that can learn and adapt, not just deliver and defend.

• Paying attention to feedback — not as failure, but as guidance.

• Making it easier, not harder, for people to access what they need.

• Designing with, not just for, those who are most affected

This shift - from fixing people to shaping conditions - is at the heart of systems work.

It’s what turns one-off success stories into sustained impact.

It’s what moves us from short-term fixes to long-term change.

And it’s what makes collective wellbeing possible - not just for those who are already doing okay, but for those who’ve been stuck in the margins for too long.

So this week I have a question for you:

👉 What’s one condition you can help shift, in your team, your community, or your own life, to make flourishing and success more likely for more people?

Maybe it’s a meeting that starts with a real check-in, not just an agenda.
Or a policy tweak that gives people more say in how things get done.
Or a small act of trust - letting someone try, fail, and learn - that signals a bigger shift in culture.

Next week, we’ll look at how systems change isn’t just about what we do, but how we see - and how shifting our perspective can reveal what’s been hiding in plain sight.

Until then, here’s to changing the environment, not just the effort.

Onwards and upwards,

P.S. The other news I promised? Just a little update to my website and services. As my learning, thinking and ideas have evolved over the past twelve months, so has the work that I deliver for clients. It was time my website reflected that, so this is Potential Psychology in 2025 and beyond😊

The Fun Stuff this week:

I’m listening to: Triple J’s Hottest 100 Australian Songs Official Playlist (isn’t everyone?)

I’m a 🌟Spark🌟judge for Community Bank Buninyong’s SparkTank Event 2025. We’ll be awarding $50,000 in grants to community organisations pitching their bold, innovative project ideas in front of a live audience.