For all of us trying to support change across boundaries and silos:
Book launch tomorrow: ‘Systems Convening – a crucial form of leadership for the 21st century’, co-authored by Etienne Wenger

Join ‘Communities of Practice’ pioneers Etienne and Beverley Wenger-Trayner for the launch of their new book ‘Systems Convening – a crucial form of leadership for the 21st century’, which features the work of a number of Q community convenors.

More info and link to book: https://q.health.org.uk/event/systems-convening-book-launch-webinar/

The Wenger-Trayners interviewed 40 systems convenors – including a number of Q Community members – who are using this approach around the world, working on diverse issues ranging from improving government transparency to enhancing cancer care.

Systems Convenors work to enable sustainable change, across challenging silos, in complex social landscapes, amid changing circumstances. Convenors see a landscape with all its separate and related practices through a wide-angle lens: they spot opportunities for creating new learning spaces and partnerships that will bring different and often unlikely people together to engage in learning across boundaries.

From the book’s introduction: “You may not have heard about them; what they do is rarely in their job description. You may not even be aware of what they do; they tend to act as enablers rather than taking credit or seeking the spotlight”.

The role of Systems Convenors is increasingly necessary in UK healthcare too, with the emergence of the NHS Integrated Care System (ICS) structure making cross-boundary work ever more important. (Surrey recently recruited three ‘Systems Convenors’ to help stimulate radical changes in healthcare, using the book as a guide).

Helen Bevan (Chief Transformation Officer, NHS Horizons) writes in her foreword comment: “We’re moving to a world where enabling change is less about planning a change process, programme management and governance systems and more about connecting, convening and building bridges with and between many people. So yes, systems convening is a crucial form of leadership for the 21st century and I welcome the contribution that Bev and Etienne are making through this book. Let’s answer their convening call.”
(NB Systems Convenors sit above and across individual Communities of Practice, with more of a landscape-wide view than some CoPs members will have).

Follow Systems Convening on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SysConvening