Newsletter - Catalytic Thinking Deep-Dive

15 Oct

REFRACT

Reflections on the art of social change

What would your work look like if you and your team were genuinely focused on the future you could imagine, and planning was done backwards from that?

In this issue, we deep-dive into practice of Catalytic Thinking a powerful technique that supports you to do just that.

And (most excitingly) share with you a unique opportunity to be trained by Hildy Gottlieb, the creator of this practice, teaching in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia for the first time!

(Go here for all those details now, if you just can’t wait)

Below you’ll find:

May’s experiences learning and applying Catalytic Thinking in her work and family life.
Articles by Hildy, exploring using this technique on a gnarly problem to change the possible outcomes.
A podcast which shares the power of curiousity to drive change.
And, of course, all the details for how you can join us for the trainings.

We can’t wait to be with you all for this!

May and Jo

Learning to think differently

For May, Catalytic Thinking has become a tool to reach for in all areas of her life.

She says the top three reasons for this are it:

Unlocks creativity – there are so many planning or strategy processes that start with the “problem” in a way that limit our thinking and creativity. Once you break free from this you can see pathways and important conditions that are directly related to the future you want, not to the confines of how the current system operates.
Anchored in people – there are so many strategic or planning processes that abstract completely the people involved. In Catalytic Thinking you start with radical listening and inclusion, which helps define who needs to be in the room to make decisions, who needs to act, who will be affected. Plans are not then absent from the people impacted.
It’s simple – once you get the questions into your head you find yourself reaching for them again and again, and you can apply it at so many levels – quickly for yourself or your team, or with a group going deeper.

“The opposite of “reactive” is not proactive. Proactive is simply attempting to stave off current problems, preventing today’s problems from continuing into tomorrow.

The opposite of reactive is instead creative (note that those 2 words are anagrams!). Rather than reacting to what is wrong, creative approaches create what is possible.

…Our power to create powerful results lies in our power to create favorable conditions towards our dreams”

- Hildy Gottlieb

Change the frame, change the outcome

Catalytic Thinking changes the frame for our thinking, which has impacts both subtle and significant on the range of outcomes then available.

In this Stanford Social Innovation Review article, you can learn some of the foundational concepts of Catalytic Thinking, including what happens when we focus on everyone affected by a decision, and what is “collective enoughness”.

Read it here…

In this Not For Profit Quarterly article, Hildy applies Catalytic Thinking to challenges faced by many NFPs in an increasingly uncertain world, and shows how available outcomes change when we change the questions we are asking.

Read it here…

Podcast: Creating change via curiousity

In this podcast, May and Hildy discuss practices that help stoke the creativity we need to both see and challenge unspoken assumptions that keep us stuck.

Listen here…