March 21, 2021 • Kyle Witzigman

Emergent Strategy: Towards a Green (R)evolution

In emergent strategy: shaping change, changing worlds, brown writes that ‘emergent strategies’ are ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions. To brown, how we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale.

brown reflects on how the planet, society, and self can use a reframe to collaborate and grow in a healthy way.

To call this a ‘book’ would miss some of the author’s intentions. This Book But Not a Book moves beyond the structural limitations of a traditional narrative. It eschews a linear progression. Does this make for an easy read? Not really. But that’s not its point.

Its choice of format and writing reflects the larger message about taking away structural boundaries. Reimagining and repurposing how we interact and engage. On paper, how we interact with her text. Off paper, how we interact with others and the planet.

Continuing off paper, brown starts with the strength of an individual connection. Deep listening. Listening to strangers. Listening to criticisms. Listening to our bodies and when we’ve pushed ourselves over the edge.

brown declares this book can be circular. You can start and stop. You can read in a random order. Her writing brought me back multiple times to different sections, frameworks, exercises, and self-reflections. She provides frameworks, exercises, and structures to facilitate collaboration and reflection. She asks us to feel, map, assess, and learn from ever-changing dynamics around us.

This Book but Not a Book resists the mindset that completing the final page is completing the task.

Just as what happens off paper requires seeing bettering our society as a continual work in progress.