My second conversation with writer, facilitator and consultant Adam Kahane (the first was episode e219) and with the audience at the Ottawa launch of Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems, the Catalytic Power of Radical Engagement at Perfect Books on July 2, 2025. This final regular episode of season 6 is part of my roundtable series, open-ended conversations about what a group of citizens are passionate about. And passionate they were!
I started by asking Adam why he wrote the book and why does he think it’s relevant today, in particular here in the nation’s capital at a time when there are great tensions with our neighbours to the south and when Canadians are talking to each other more than ever about our shared values, and the challenges that we face such as the ecological crisis and climate emergency, which sadly seems to have temporarily fallen off our collective radar.
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Story Preview
What if the key to changing the world lies not in grand gestures, but in the small, often overlooked habits of our daily lives? Adam Kahane shares his journey from facilitating transformative dialogues in South Africa to uncovering the power of radical engagement, inviting us to rethink how we contribute to a better future.
Chapter Summary
00:00 The Collective Task of Transformation
01:19 Introducing Adam Kahane
04:01 Setting the Stage for Discussion
09:40 The Motivation Behind the Book
15:42 Everyday Habits for Transformation
22:39 Exploring the Seven Habits
29:12 The Slippery Slope of Disagreement and The Challenge of Acting Responsibly
35:20 Power Dynamics in Collaboration
39:40 Trust and Collaboration
44:00 Balancing Urgency and Everyday Habits
54:25 Art, Culture, and Collaboration
56:13 Radical Engagement in Action
01:00:05 Navigating Power Dynamics and The Importance of Agency
01:12:51 Redefining Power and Responsibility
01:17:04 Risks and Realities of Engagement
01:23:13 The Complexity of Multiple Systems
Featured Quotes
Behind the Story
Adam Kahane’s latest book, ‘Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems,’ stems from a moment of confusion during an interview with South African leader Trevor Manuel. This experience led Kahane to explore what it means to contribute to systemic change, focusing on the everyday actions that shape our world. This episode explores themes of power, collaboration, and social responsibility and how the arts weave their way through all of this.
Credit: cover photo by Conyer Clayton
Transcription
Note: This is an automated transcription that is provided for those who prefer to read this conversation and for documentation. It has been verified but is not 100% accurate (some names might not be quite right). Please contact me if you would like to quote from this transcript: claude@conscient.ca.
[00:00:00 - 00:00:34] Adam Kahane
So the question the book asks is obviously transforming the system is not an individual task, it's a collective activity. But it still begs the question, if we're trying to contribute to that, what do we need to do? Not every four years when we vote, not every year when we go to a strategy workshop, but what do we do every day? And so the title is very straightforward. Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems. And that's, and that's the question the book is offering an answer to.
[00:00:34 - 00:03:59] Claude Schryer
It's episode 241. Hello conscient podcast listeners.
Claude Schryer here. This is the last episode of season six and as you might know, roundtable episodes are freely improvised in terms of my introduction. So I don't have a script. I'm just going to talk to you for a little bit, try to give some context on the episode and like a live radio program, just sort of wing it so that then you can listen to the episode which lasts an hour and a half because it was recorded live on 07-02-2025 at Perfect Books here in Ottawa, unceded Algonquin-Anishinaabe territory. And you'll hear the author of the book, Adam Kahane, who is a friend of mine and someone who has done a previous episode, 219 about the book, but also about art and culture. And you'll hear some references to art and culture in this episode. But more broadly, Adam goes into the background of the book, how it was written, why it was written, and then you'll hear many good questions from the audience of about 30 people all around in a close circle.
So we had a few really good conversations about power, for example, and how the book can be applied because Adam's intention is for this to be a very practical book. I certainly have benefited from my, from it myself. In fact, as you'll hear in my introduction, I mentioned that I was one of many collaborators on the book in a process of consultation that Adam did when he was writing the book. So we were able to give him feedback. And I think it's an ongoing process. If you're, if you have any, I encourage you of course to read the book. It's a short and good read.
And then if you have feedback, you can just write to Adam and give him some of your thoughts and see, tell him and tell us how the book is, is useful to you as a system transformer but also in day to day life. You know, what habits are, the ones that we want to reinforce and some of the, the ones that we can improve upon. And I like the fact that near the end, I won't divulge the artist that Adam quotes, but he does quote a prominent artist. And I love the way that the whole episode sort of wraps up around that moment of poetry. So without further ado, I explain pretty well everything in the introduction when I introduced Adam. You'll hear that whole exchange and I hope you have a good time listening to it. And this will conclude season six on the theme of arts and culture in times of collapse, crisis and renewal.
And I will take a fairly long break to think about what comes next, what is most useful for listeners. But I'm very happy that the last episode on conscient podcast is this rather uplifting conversation, interview or conversation with Adam, but also with a wide range of audience members who are all themselves actively trying to change the world for the better. So enjoy and see you next time.
[00:04:01 - 00:04:03]
Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems.
[00:04:11 - 00:09:37] Claude Schryer
Well, welcome everyone. We're going to start. Thanks for coming on time and for being here in large numbers. My name is Claude Schryer, and this is a microphone recording this event for my podcast called conscient. And welcome to Adam Kahane, who's come from Montreal today to talk about his book, talk about his life, answer questions, have some fun. So I'll just say a few things and then I'll have a question for Adam. And I really want it to be interactive.
So you're welcome to ask questions, comment. If you haven't read the book, then you can speculate on what it might be. If you've read it, then go for it, ask specific questions. And. Yeah, and if you don't want to be on the podcast, it's fine. Just let me know. And I can not have you, but I'd love to have you all have those voices be part of. Yeah. So the book's called Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems, the Catalytic Power of Radical Engagement.
And there are copies there if you want to buy them. I want to thank Conyer, who's our event coordinator tonight, and Perfect Books. I come here quite a bit to buy my books because it's a great local, independent Canadian bookstore. So a plug for Perfect Books for Ottawa and people and others and all bookstores. And, you know, when I come in here, I always look at all the photos of the great writers, Canadian, Indigenous and many others who are around us. So there's like we're standing on the shoulders of giants kind of thing. So I feel good here.
So I've talked to you about the recording. This is part of a series called Roundtables. So in My podcast, I usually interview people for 15 minutes and I did one with Adam recently that you can listen to. But this is a roundtable, even though it's not quite a roundtable. But the idea is for open ended conversations about things that we care about. Adam clearly cares about system transformation. He wrote a book about it.
So where are you at in that kind of work? Around systems and change. So that's what I'm looking for. But also my podcast is about art and ecology, so I'm always looking at the arts and cultural sector angle and Adam talked about it in that previous interview and I'm sure he'll talk about it again tonight. How can artists help further in this transformation? This recording will come out at the end of July and is part of the sixth season that I'm just ending. It's actually going to be the last episode of the season with Adam and you.
And the theme has been arts and culture in times of crisis, collapse and renewal. And that's a lot of what Adam talks about. But essentially he's proposing solutions and methods and how to change, how to change from our personal habits into systems. So there won't be amplification. If you can't hear me, let me know. If you can't hear Adam or I. When you do speak, speak loud enough so that we can hear each other without amplification.
So we're going to speak for about 20 minutes and then I'll open the floor. What else am I talking about here? I want to acknowledge that Ottawa is located on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin-Anishinaabeg Nation. I think most people know that this acknowledges the Algonquin people as the original inhabitants and caretakers of the land and waters where the city of Ottawa is situated. It also recognizes the Algonquin's long history and enduring relationship with the land and waters of the region. So for this land acknowledgement to be alive and meaningful, I think we should talk about reconciliation, indigenous rights and social justice this evening as it comes up.
So that's something. And I know that Adam has a lot of experience in all of those areas. So Adam's a friend. Thank you for coming. There's a lot of buzz about the book. Just this morning I was reading a review in Corporate Knights and they liked it. So that's a good sign because they're pretty picky.
And this is the final stop of this part of an international book tour. So that's kind of fun that you've. You've had some previous experience with questions and comments, and I think it's a very timely book. And that's my first question.
Why did you write the book? That's a very broad question. But why do you think it's relevant today, in particular here in Ottawa, the nation's capital, where I'm sure there are bureaucrats working on a trade deal and other major changes in Canada? So you wrote a book about change, about how to change, about talking to each other, about understanding difference, all of these things. So one of my concerns is that the ecological crisis and the climate emergency that five years ago was our number one issue has fallen off the radar, unfortunately. And so I'm interested in how your book can help research, revive any given issue, but in particular those two that are, I think, merit more attention. So that's a lot.
But why don't you just start with why you wrote the book and some background on it for her.
[00:09:40 - 00:16:31] Adam Kahane
So thank you, Claude. Yeah, okay. Thank you. So thanks for organizing this.
I appreciate it. And I've done a lot of talks and book events, but I think I've never done one in a bookstore. And that's fun. I also love bookstores, but it's also a little overwhelming. You know, In English, there's 10,000 new books published every day, so. And so. And many of the books I'm looking at are by authors I admire.
So this is fun for me for that reason and to be with a small group and to have my cousins Ruth and Harvey from Ottawa here. So that's fun also. So why did I write the book and how is it applicable now? I'm originally from Montreal, and I got started working on and thinking about the things the book talks about 34 years ago when I was invited to facilitate a workshop in South Africa in September 1991. Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, and the first democratic elections were in 1994. So it was right in the middle of that. And you might not remember or know what that period meant, but the main thing was it was not at all clear.
There were lots of issues, lots of people trying to change things, and it wasn't at all clear how things would work out or would they would work out, or would they work out peacefully. And so for me, stepping into that situation and working with a group of people, politicians, business people, community activists, left and right, black and white, opposition and establishment, was a big experience and I ended up never coming home. So that was in it in every respect, the hinge event in my life. My wife, we lived part of the year in South Africa, part of the year in Montreal. So that was my first experience with what I'm now calling system transformation. The system that was producing certain results in South Africa for certain people got transformed fundamentally, incompletely, imperfectly. But it was an important, historically important example of what I'm calling system transformation.
Fast forward to 2021, 30 years later. I published my previous book, which is called Facilitating Breakthrough. And I conducted an interview on a 30 minute online interview with one of the people I'd met. That first experience in South Africa, a guy named Trevor Manuel, who at the time was an important African National Congress activist. He ended up going to the first Mandela government. He was Minister of Finance, which is an important position in South Africa for the same reason it is in Canada for 13 years, first Black minister of finance. So this is somebody who knows a lot about transformation on the ground, in government, as an activist on the run from the police, all different aspects of what does it take to transform a system.
And so when I interviewed him online in September 1991 to ask him how he understood it, it was a terrible interview in the sense that I was expecting him to say one thing. And his answer bore no resemblance to what I was expecting. And I'm not an experienced interviewer, I wasn't then. And I kept interrupting him and trying to get him to agree with me. As soon as the half hour interview was over, I got messages from my wife, Dorothy, my colleague, saying, you're a terrible interviewer.
Don't quit your day job. So it was an embarrassing experience, but also really confusing. What is it that was so obvious to him, that wasn't obvious to me? And the story I'm just telling you is how this book got started and is recounted in the introduction to the book, which is what is it that's obvious about how to contribute to transforming a system? Obvious to somebody in the middle of it on the ground. That wasn't obvious to me as a consultant and facilitator and foreigner. And so that was the impetus for writing the book.
And unlike my other books, this book is not really about my own experience. It's about what I not, it's not about what I know, it's about what I didn't know. And I wrote it through talking with lots of people who I thought understood this better than I did. And their stories are the text of those interviews makes up the bulk of the book, and, as you know, also several hundred other people, including you, with whom we chewed on this material and tried to make sense of it. So the question the book asks is, obviously, transforming the system is not an individual task.
It's a collective activity. But it still begs the question, if we're trying to contribute to that, what do we need to do? Not every four years when we vote, not every year when we go to a strategy workshop, but what do we do every day? And so the title is very straightforward.
Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems. And that's. And that's the question the book is offering an answer to. The book was finished last August 24th. You have to finish a book many months before it comes out. And it came out on April 8th, and I've been talking about it first in South Africa and then in Europe and now the last few weeks in Canada. So there's a text which was finished August 24, but I'm talking about it in this current context, which is different.
So this question. And I had a bit of a panic about this activity because of Tim Broadhead, who is sitting right there, because on the day the book came out, I had a webinar, a launch webinar, and Tim said, I don't think this book's relevant anymore.
[00:16:33 - 00:16:33] Claude Schryer
Just like that.
[00:16:33 - 00:21:31] Adam Kahane
He really did. He really did. And I have a lot of respect for Tim. I really do. And so I had a bit of a pang.
What if he's right? Because the undertone of the book is that the transformation of systems is something that's slow and takes a long time and is like making your way. The analogy I use at a certain point in the book is making your way up a rock face and working with the cracks in the rock face. The most interesting metaphor in the book is the metaphor of cracks. But Tim said, what's this about a rock face?
Apparently stable rock face. We're dealing with an avalanche. So really, Tim, I really have had that question in my mind. April, May, June. And I think you're wrong about that. But I've thought about it a lot. I think the situation's different, and what you need to do may be different, but I think the way you discover what to do is the same.
And the book doesn't say what you need to do. It says you have to pay attention to the specifics of the situation you're in. And it offers seven everyday habits and an underlying habit. And I think that how you discover what you can do in the situation you're in, whether it's an apparently solid situation or a situation which is collapsing. I think the. The how you discover it is more or less the same. So what's it like to present that text in the current context?
It reminds me of that first meeting in South Africa in the sense that the 28 people who came to that meeting at the Montfleur conference center in September 1991 weren't there because they were certain that being there would enable them to make things better. But they did have the sense that things were moving and they had an opportunity to do something, and they shouldn't miss it. So that is the feeling I have. I gave. The first talk I gave was in Johannesburg a few days after the launch. And I haven't given public talks in a while because the previous book came out in the middle of COVID and I gave no public talks at all. And it's a different experience to give a speech on zoom than in person.
And I was looking at the group in Johannesburg. It was an auditorium. And I realized halfway through it, I don't need to convince people to do something. Everybody's here because they're trying to do something about the situation they're in as they understand it, and they're looking for guidance. So this was the main feeling I had, or the main impression I had from all these talks is that the context maybe isn't motivating everybody. But certainly most people who come to these talks are because they're concerned about the context, they want to do something about it, and they're wondering how to figure out what to do. And so in that sense, the book has come at a good time.
The other thing. I'll just say one more thing about this that I've always wanted to try to explain simply, what is a system? And how do systems get transformed? And I did do it in the book. It's only a page, but I'm happy with the description. I'm happy with the explanation. But the fact that I thought it wasn't obvious is a symptom of a previous time. The gift of the time we're in now is it's obvious things can change, and not just change superficially, but fundamentally.
And that's good. Even if the way they're changing may, in many people's view, be not good or terrifying or horrific. We don't have to ask. The question, which is the one Tim was pointing to, is, I wonder if things can ever change. Things can change. The question is, how can we contribute to changing them so that they work better for more people rather than Worse for more people.
[00:21:34 - 00:24:55] Claude Schryer
That's a pretty good start. Thank you. You talked about the co creation process and I am happy to have participated. I don't know if you've ever done that, but Adam's very generous. He sent us drafts of chapters and he did Zoom meetings. And we were able to speak our mind and say, you know, you're full of shit, or this isn't going where I thought it should go, or here's a better idea. And he was very open to that.
And it went on for weeks and weeks of shared learning. Eventually you authored the book and you took some advice, but it was really interesting to be part of that because I felt like, okay, well, the book is already working. The sense of collaboration and for the listeners, you know, at home, so to speak. And for you, I just want to read the 7 Habits because you might not have read the book and you might not know what we're talking about. So let's just make it clear that these are the seven habits that he came to. But we helped him by fine tuning and collaborating somewhat creatively. So the first is acting responsibility responsibly.
Engage to clarify your own role and responsibility. That's number one and that's a big one. And we could talk about all these for a long time. But number two, relating in three dimensions. Engage with emphasis on the dimensions that you've been neglecting. Number three, looking for what's unseen. And I remember suggesting what's unheard, but that didn't make it in the final cut.
But I think unseen. Dansens la chose. Okay, so looking for what's unseen. Engage to enrich your understanding of what's happening. Number four, working with cracks, which he's already referred to. Engage to move forward into and through openings that are arising.
That's quite poetic. Number five, experiencing a way forward. Engage to systematically try out new possibilities, which I assume involves making mistakes and correcting them and that kind of thing. This is the hardest one for me. Collaborating with unlike others. Engage to advance better together. Finally, I also like this one.
Persevering and resting. Engage to participate fully and joyfully for the long haul. So those are the seven Habits. Just so that you know what it is. My other question. What was my other question? I have a lot of questions you asked us.
After the book was launched, you brought together and we had a party online, Zoom, and you were in South Africa and people were all around the world and it was so interesting to hear people share their, you know, pleasure at seeing the final product. And you asked us, you Know what were the most difficult of the seven habits? And I've just shared mine. Collaborating with people who are unlike myself and I thought I was good at it and I tested it out and I'm not because I don't like them, don't like their ideas, and I'm like, and yet it's true that we have to work with others. And anyway, I would like you to expand on that one in particular. I don't know which one's most difficult for you, but that's a particularly tricky one.
[00:24:56 - 00:25:29] Adam Kahane
Yeah. So let me just go back to the book writing process and then I'll talk about that habit and maybe number one also. So people always say what you said, which is, that's so generous and so open. I really didn't experience it like that at all. I couldn't have written it or it wouldn't be as good. It wouldn't be nearly as good if I'd written it by myself. So the fact there were 300 people around the world who were enthusiastic about contributing for me was a great gift.
[00:25:30 - 00:25:32] Claude Schryer
You're hoping for a share of the revenue?
[00:25:32 - 00:30:31] Adam Kahane
Yes. No, that was very explicitly not promised. 5 cents each. The task that we set ourselves is not straightforward at all. How do you make a short list of things which is fresh, not obvious, which is true, and which is useful? So, in fact, we went over this list probably 10 times and we probably spent more time on the articulation of these seven and why these seven? And what about another one?
And should it be listening rather than seeing? And I'm very happy with the result. I think it's really good. I think it is fresh and true and useful. People sometimes ask me, well, what's the one you left off? Like, dude, just work on these seven. That's really.
I was like, why? Do you remember what the ones we left off? It's no interest at all. Anyway, so that was a fun process. And I think this. So in many of my talks, I've asked people, which do you find most comfortable and familiar? And which do you find most difficult and challenging?
And there's a lot of differences in the first question. And different groups have a different answer to which they find most difficult. But many people, I remember doing this a few weeks ago in Toronto when I asked the second question, which do you find more difficult or challenging? And put up the number of fingers. As far as I could tell, everybody put up six, the same as you. So this collaborating with, unlike others, and I'm not sure the terminology is right, I wrote another book called Collaborating with the Enemy. And I was trying to not use the same phrase, but unlike others, for me, is a little misleading.
Probably the better thing to say would be collaborating across difference. And the reason this is fresh in my mind is since August 24, up till today, I've been working on a different book, which is the second edition of Collaborating with the Enemy. So it's very fresh in my mind, and it is a double click on habit 6. And I think it's the one that's most. Maybe not most important, but most pressing. And when you said at the end of your introduction, this thing that I really think is the most important thing of all has fallen off the radar. And how can I get it fallen off the agenda?
How can I get it back on the agenda? This, the, the tone of that, as I hear it, is why can't people just agree with me?
This is so obviously correct. And, and I. And so I happen to agree with you about that particular point about the importance of global warming, but this idea that that thing, if everybody would just agree with me, we'd be fine. This is, in my opinion, a very unhelpful orientation. And so this is fresh in my mind because I was correcting the proofs this morning of collaborating with the Enemy. And this tendency, which I think we see more and more that those other people, it's not just a difference of opinion. They're wrong.
They're not just wrong, they're bad. They're not just bad, they're evil. And what can you do with evil people? I mean, you have to destroy them. They're enemies. So I. So I'm.
I'm very interested in that, that slippery slope from we disagree to you need to be crushed or eliminate, I need to defeat you or destroy you. So this is all just to say that the one you find difficult, I also find difficult. And it's been the focus of my work over these 30 years. Of the seven, that's the one that I've thought the most about and written the most about and worked on the most, by contrast. So some of these I had thought about and worked on and written about before. Number six, collaborating with unlike others or collaborating across difference.
[00:30:32 - 00:30:32] Speaker 4
Number.
[00:30:34 - 00:35:14] Adam Kahane
Three, looking for what's unseen, or more correctly, looking for what I'm not seeing or listening for what I'm not hearing or thinking what I'm not thinking. So these are ones that were familiar to me, but others of them in the book really arose from the writing process. And some of them are very new and challenging for me, for Example, this whole idea of cracks, this metaphor of cracks, which I'm from Montreal, I have to say it. Leonard Cohen used, I would say more about that later. And biocomolefe writes a lot about cracks. So it's a very, it turns out, I think, to be a very potent metaphor and I'd like to come back to that. But the.
So that was fresh to me. I'd never thought. Thought about that image. But the other one that was, that was really fresh to me and that I, I think about a lot is, number one, acting responsibly. And when you read the book, you'll see that that first chapter was inspired by a conversation with a. A Winnipeg first nations medical doctor named Marcia Anderson. And I asked her why she did what she does.
She's responsible for decolonization and anti racism work at the medical school at the University of Manitoba. A pretty tough job, I think. And she told a very beautiful story about something that happened to her father, which you can read about in the book. But in the course of the conversation she said, that's an all my relations thing. And I'd heard that phrase before because I've worked. I know Marcia, because we worked together on a project in Manitoba with Manitoba first nations. And in those meetings, particularly in the ceremonial parts of those meetings, you'll sometimes hear people use this phrase in English, all my relations.
So I said, oh, well, what's that? I mean, I've heard that phrase, Marcia, but what do you mean? And she said, well, it's about acting not just for the good of my immediate family or, or my community, or even of all humans, but of all living beings. So I was with Marcia a few weeks ago. We had a family event in Winnipeg and I organized a book activity at the Tania Museum of Human Rights, where I was in dialogue with Marcia, which was wonderful. And I said to her, you know, this whole my relations thing, this acting responsibly, you know, it's a very short chapter because. Seems kind of difficult.
How do you know? I mean, what's responsible? How do you figure out what's responsible? I'm answering the question which I found most difficult. So I mean, what does that mean? Is it. In what role?
From what perspective is it my. Is it responsible as a husband, as a. As a father, as an owner of a business, as an author, as a Canadian, as a Jew? I mean, these are not. Don't give a simple answer. And the book says it's not a recipe, it's a riddle. And so I asked her, I said, marcia, I quoted you about all my relations.
I mean, how do you figure this out? And she said something very straightforward but really helpful. She said, adif, it's trade offs. It's not like all my relations tells you what to do. No, it just says, you know, as you're trying to think what is acting responsibly, take a bigger view. But obviously it's not straightforward. So this is a long and confused way of answering the question, which of these seven is fresh and challenging to me.
And I find this question about acting responsibly. Some people think about it all the time. I haven't. And now that I am thinking about it, it's not straightforward or I find it challenging. Let me say.
[00:35:20 - 00:35:45] Claude Schryer
I think we all do because I think I act responsibly and I make mistakes every day and I correct myself and I'm constantly in the process of questioning what's right and wrong and true and all that. I'm going to open it up to the room now. Tim, you were sort of words were put into your mouth and out again. Do you want to, do you have anything to add to what Adam said or do you want to.
[00:35:46 - 00:35:48] Adam Kahane
Yes, slightly different.
[00:35:50 - 00:37:42] Tim Broadhead
Slightly different angle, which is that I think I'm right in saying in the book, we never, we never actually hear the word. We never use the word. Adam never uses the word power. And yet his earlier work has been precisely about power and the exercise of power. And it seems to me when you're talking about collaborating to change something, you're talking about the fact that, as you do say in the book, the systems serve a purpose. And usually the purpose is to benefit the people who have the most power. So one of the difficult relationships that has to be negotiated is between people who want to change that, who are generally people who feel disadvantaged, and people who want to keep it because it benefits them.
And it's hard to reach across that. When you say talking about working with unlike others, well, there are lots of ways in which we're unlike. But when we have a direct stake, our well being, or at least as we see our well being, depends upon holding power and exercising it to benefit oneself. And of course, we see this right now nakedly in the United States, where there's no pretense that power is being used for any other purpose than to benefit a small group. So that I guess when I look at the issue of change and social change, we all kind of steer clear of actually engaging with the difficult issue of who has power, how are they using it? Who are the Beneficiaries of it? And what do we do about that when we are actually asking people, or maybe trying to force people to give up some of the benefits and advantages they have?
[00:37:46 - 00:41:22] Adam Kahane
Do you want to refine? Adam so you're right that I've written about power. I wrote a book called Power and Love, and I've been trying over and over actually to expand that to be about power, love and justice, which is the, which is the trilogy of ideas that Martin Luther King spoke about and that I later realized he was basing it in part on Paul Tillich's work, including a book that has that title. I do refer to it in this book, but I was experimenting with a different language in chapter two about climate change, actually, and talking about relating with others as parts of larger whole, which is love holes in themselves, their own power, and the relationship among wholes, which is justice. I've come back to it in the explicit language of power, love, justice. I think finally, finally more successfully in in in the new edition of Collaborating with the Enemy. And it was I was so happy to have the chance to rewrite the book and it's 80% new because it I, it is really the core of my interest.
And I, I, I thought this book of written 10 years ago, it just, it hadn't quite got it and one of so I, I re I learned some very or obvious things, but it's helpful to be able to say obvious things. And one of them is for example, very often we collaborate with some in order to force others. So this thing you said is so this idea about should we collaborate? It's a meaningless, it's too general a question. It's literally impossible to collaborate with everybody on everything. So with whom to collaborate? Why, when, how?
And often it's can we get together across our differences so that we can force our opponents and this obvious thing. So in that sense, I think the phrase collaborating is way too vague. So I don't think either of the books ignores this question. But it asks the difficult part of the question is what do you do if if just working with people who think like you isn't adequate, just working with your friends and allies, do you just sit at home with your arms crossed and say, you know, when are those people going to wake up and realize that I was right? Or do you do you need to do the genuinely difficult, small p political work of working across difference to get enough power to accomplish the change you're trying to make? So I don't ignore it at all. And I agree with you.
It's a central issue. But the short circuit of saying they're wrong, they're the enemy, I can't deal with them, that really makes everything, it makes a difficult situation impossible. That's what I concluded.
[00:41:26 - 00:41:31] Claude Schryer
Questions? Comments? You can identify yourself or not?
[00:41:33 - 00:41:33] Adam Kahane
Okay.
[00:41:33 - 00:41:34] Ruth Kahane
I'm Ruth Kahane.
[00:41:35 - 00:41:47] Adam Kahane
I have to say I'm related to Adam, the first cousin. But in your book, another factor that you talked about was trust. I'm wondering if you could expand on.
[00:41:47 - 00:41:56] Ruth Kahane
Some experiences you had where you had to gain trust in order to proceed with mediating a situation.
[00:42:04 - 00:47:01] Adam Kahane
So in the book, I tell the story about the first time I worked with Marcia Anderson and this group of first nations leaders in Manitoba, where shortly after the meeting started, a chief named George Muswagon said he didn't trust me, that he didn't trust me. And this was frightening to me and caused a bit of a crisis. And in that particular case, I got what he was saying and that he wasn't viewing me as just a helpful outsider, but rather as a representative of exactly the people the meeting was intended to figure out a way to deal with. So that's the. That's so. And we became, we talked about it and became friends. And he was the one who did the introduction, a very beautiful ceremonial introduction at the event a few weeks ago.
So that's how it comes up in the book. But I think the more general issue is the subtitle of Collaborating with Amy, how to work with people you don't agree with or like or trust. And just so in a way, maybe the most important thing I have to say is that we raise the bar impossibly high when we imagine that we can only work with people who we agree with and like and trust. And this is a common belief, I think, a widely held belief, that if we don't agree with and like and trust people, maybe not the like, but if we don't agree with, if we don't share a diagnosis of the problem, agreement on the solution, the plan, and trust each other, we can't do anything and it's completely wrong. So I think maybe my most important contribution from my experience and my writing about my experience is to lower the bar and say it actually is possible to work with people, at least at the outset, that we don't agree with or like or trust. And this was brought home to me last September. I got a fellowship in Paris, a one month writing fellowship, which I used to prepare or to start preparing the new edition of Collaborating with the Enemy.
And this particular fellowship, you have to Present your. It was an academic institution, which I'm not particularly used to, and there were people, all social scientists around the world, all different fields, from archaeology to. Sorry, from anthropology to history to bioethics. Really fun. And in this particular fellowship, you have to present your project the first week so that people know what you're working on and they can help you. And the best help I got was on the very first day I did that presentation. And a Romanian urban historian said, work with people you don't agree with or like or trust.
You make it sound like that's so extraordinary. That's actually the definition of a city. And it's so. Right. How did we get. His point is that's what happens in a city. You do all kinds of things with people you don't know, you probably don't agree with, you may or may not like, don't necessarily trust them beyond, you know, the.
I'm going to give you €3 and you're going to give me a. Whatever. So how did we get from that being actually normal life in a city to this impossible thing that you have to have as the subtitle, a really edgy subtitle of a book?
That was his point. So in giving these talks, what I have come to realize is we have somehow raise the bar so high that what is any way difficult working across difference becomes impossible because we say we have to have the same values, we have to trust each other, we have to agree on the problem, the solution, the plan. Well, I mean, that would be nice. All that would be nice. But what if you don't have it? That mean you can't do anything. That mean you can't do anything other than wipe them out.
So that's, that's. I think the most important thing was that's. Well, and, you know, there's a lot of that going around, so I think it's the most useful thing I have to say. I don't know why I need six books to say that one paragraph. But anyway, it took me a while.
[00:47:04 - 00:47:15] Claude Schryer
It's 7:45 and we have another 45 minutes and so I would like to have any other thoughts, questions, and everybody will have a chance to speak. I think we have enough time, if you so wish.
[00:47:17 - 00:47:18] Adam Kahane
Thank you. Thank you.
[00:47:18 - 00:47:55] Rhonda
Hi, my name is Rhonda. So, Adam, I was one of the 300. Really happy to be part of that. I love what you just said. I grew up in rural Newfoundland and so I think you're absolutely right. The cast of characters, whether they liked each other or not, Always got along. And so I really think that's a key part.
But what I wanted to ask you, and I think you've touched on this a little bit, but you know, by nature, the everyday habits are not necessarily small, but it's slow and it takes the steps. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on kind of reconciling or balancing that against the urgency of the times we're in and the need for that large scale change to happen, at least in some of our minds quickly. But would love to hear your thoughts on that.
[00:48:01 - 00:53:44] Adam Kahane
It's a great question. And I quote Cristiano Figueres, who, who was one of the first three interviewees and who was the. Is the Costa Rican diplomat who led the negotiation of the Paris Accord. And she says I have to be. I'm both. She said I'm both impatient and patient.
So it's a. So it's a difficult one.
I don't think. First of all, I think that some of the things that happened very quickly actually took a long time to get there. Somebody pointed out to me that the African National Congress in South Africa was founded in 1912. You might think Mandela got out of prison and everything was okay. It's a very long story, and I don't know that much about recent American history, but I think what we're seeing happening now has been built up intentionally over some decades. It didn't just happen last November 4th. Then it was all, you know, everything was.
So also, the everyday habits don't have to be slow. I mean, if I just take this key one about working with cracks, which I really find to be a very interesting metaphor, but the habit is to be alert for what's changing and what's moving, what's breaking through or breaking down and how you can work with it. But it may be that it can be that there's a crack and you could do something big right now if you're paying attention. The main thing is to pay attention. You probably remember this very strange book.
What is it? The Sayings of Don Juan. This Carlos Castaneda book has sort of a strange history about what it's really about, but it has this wonderful phrase in it that Don Juan told the author, you have to wait for that cubic centimeter of chance. So, so, so I don't think working every day, which is what everyday habits means, necessarily means taking small steps. On the other hand, this.
I find this a conf. Not a straightforward thing. If you want to change things right away, you can just try to impose them and lots of people do that. In fact, it's very much in fashion. Imposing, bullying, bombing. I mean, there are fast ways to change things. This book isn't about that.
I'm not saying it's never a good idea, but. And it has some well known unfortunate consequences, the most obvious being that you bully somebody and they'll just wait to get back at you and do it the other way. But yes, there is the tension, which Christiana is aware of as much as anybody, because it's particularly clear in the area of climate that which. To do things peacefully requires bringing a lot of people along and that takes time. And there's a clock ticking. Hence this, hence this feature of our current world of people saying, well, we've been talking long enough, I'm just going to do it. And that doesn't have to be violent, it doesn't have to be illegal.
I was very curious to see whether our new government would do as much by July 1st as they said they would. Not exactly, but. And I'm noticing the tension in that particular decoration. We're going to get this done quickly.
And then people. I've heard it most clearly from indigenous people saying, wait a second here. So this is a central tension and it doesn't have a straightforward resolution except. And this is where I come back to why I think the Seven Habits are still applicable. Whatever you're trying to do, pay attention to the specifics of your situation. That's what the Seven Habits are. Or to put it another way, this is clearer to me in presenting the book than in writing the book.
Actually, the big message of the book is not the Seven Habits, it's the underlying idea of radical engagement, which is only a few pages in the book itself. So what's radical engagement? Radical engagement is the opposite of standing back with your arms crossed saying, take it or leave it. And it's saying it's leaning forward, paying attention. What's happening here? What can we do? Where's the opening?
What do you think? How does it look like? From what if we tried this?
I think that's. But there is always the. I know what to do and if you don't like it, I'm just going to force you to do it. I'm going to bully you or bomb you. And as I say, there's a lot of that going around. Yeah.
[00:53:49 - 00:55:20] Claude Schryer
I'll just add a little comment and then I'll pass it to sir. Just to bring arts and culture into this a bit. I was looking at the Seven Habits and I said, well, artists do A lot of that, because they're comfortable with complexity and murkiness. On the other hand, I'm sure they're as stuck as the rest of us with these dilemmas of how do you collaborate, how do you do this? But art does have a way, whether it's writing or singing or plays or whatever, to cut through complexities and not necessarily come up with solutions, but at least emotionally bring us into another space. So I just wanted to put that out there. We won't get into the old arts so much tonight because we talked quite a bit about it in our last conversation, but people have thoughts about it, of course.
But I just want to put it out there that for me, reading the book as an artist and the cultural worker, I thought, oh, yeah, this is familiar. Oh, this is new. Oh, this is hard. How do you translate that into art? And even these days, I'm not even sure that art exists. I mean, this whole theory that only life exists and art is really just an artifice that we've created as a vehicle to understand life. But really, if we take away the isolation of art as a separate thing, it actually makes more sense because then it stops being a thing and it just folds into life the way it always has before we created art.
Blah, blah, blah. I'm not art historian, but I allow myself to say these things. Okay, sir.
[00:55:24 - 00:56:25] Chris Henderson
Hi, Adam. I'm Chris Henderson. I want to go deeper on radical engagement with you about context. I have a book, my first book that I'm going to give to you later, called Aboriginal Power, which I rode midstream in the last 25 years, where 25 years ago, indigenous communities did not own one ounce of any clean energy in Canada. Today, they are owners or co owners of 21% of Canada's clean energy assets. They're the largest asset owners of clean energy in the country of parks and utilities. That was a process of radical engagement among hundreds of people, thousands of people, taking on the power context that Tim talked about, about how you change the power dynamics so that Indigenous rights are solemn to your exercise to get to a different future.
My question to you is, could you give us an example or two of an experience of radical engagement you were involved with or you know of that really inspired?
[00:56:33 - 01:03:33] Adam Kahane
Well, I'll give a general example and a specific example because I've spent the last 34 years as a facilitator, and the general format has been diverse, diverse groups of leaders together for several days at a time. I have hundreds of stories of times that people connected with each other and Enabled something to change. And I'll say, I'll give an example of that in a minute. But what I realized is I didn't, I didn't come back to the Trevor. I didn't complete the Trevor manual story because when I now, I spent a long time reading through the transcript of that disastrous interview. It was so bad that even two days of video editing couldn't produce a video to put on the Rio's website that didn't make me look like an idiot. So you'll see there's nothing on the Rio's website.
But anyhow, when I read through the transcript, there's a paragraph where Trevor is describing what he did in the period before the election, which is the perfect example of what I now call radical engagement. But I couldn't see at a time, well, I couldn't see during the interview. And he said, well, you know, we would, I'm paraphrasing, most days we would, you know, we'd have a meeting in the morning with business leaders, then we would talk to radical students on a campus. Then in the afternoon we would, we'd be with a poor township community and then in the evening we'd have our party meeting and hash things out. So the point he was making, which is what I didn't understand in the meeting, in the interview, was that what was the everyday work in the period leading up to 90, the elections, or it was talking with people. It really is that simple. Talking with people where they are and trying to find, trying to learn, cajole, ally, discover a way forward.
Interestingly enough, he later in the interview talks about his experience as Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance in South Africa is, I think, a similar position to in Canada. And the big event for a Minister of Finance. I don't know whether it's as big in Canada is the budget speech that they. It's the biggest annual thing. And he said, you know, it would take me months. We would be talking to traders and business people and communities.
I always had in mind, my mother, a pensioner, what she would think. And so it had the same flavor that I. The flavor of both these things is we're trying to figure out what to do. And we figure out what to do by talking with lots of people and trying to. And whenever I say this, I always make this motion with my hand because it's not. I know what to do and I just do this. It's always.
I'm trying to understand how this affects different people, different power holders, different stakeholders, whatever you want to call them, and we're trying to find a way forward. So the interview that motivated the book actually contains the answer. I just didn't grasp how fundamental it was. Now I'll just give you one more example. In the workshops my colleagues and I run, it's always fascinated me that the simplest activity is the one that people like best. And the simplest activity is, okay, we've been at it for a few days. We're going to lunch in an hour.
Why don't you look around the room, find the person most different from you, and go for a walk with them before lunch? And it's said in that kind of playful way that gives people the excuse to say, you and me, you know, people go, oh, look, they're going to walk. What's going to happen? So you get some very extraordinary pairings. And people always say, man, that was the best part of the workshop. Let's do that again tomorrow. These flip charts and post it.
Notes and dialogue, you know, it's a little much, but the walk, the walk's useful. And so I always thought, now what is it about the walk? Why do people like it so much? And there's two explanations. One is a mechanical explanation, which is when you're walking with somebody, you're facing the world together, you're making your way, there's a fork in the road, you decide to go this way or that way. You're not on your phone, you're not with your paper, you're not reading a position statement, you're talking about whatever you're talking about. But I asked this question to somebody who experienced the exercise in Mexico, a woman named Lucila Cerviche, who's a theologian, Catholic theologian, said Adam.
That's not actually the reason. The real reason that it's so powerful is the sequence. The sequence is, first, you're encountering somebody as a fellow human being, and then maybe you will change your thinking or your acting or your relationship. She said, it's the opposite of the Catholic confessional, where first, you have to admit you're wrong, and second, you're readmitted to the communion. So I do think that's the essence of radical engagement. And this comes back to the all my relations is, yes, we're part of a larger system. Yes, you have interests, I have interests.
But thirdly, we are fellow human beings. Those are the three dimensions in habit, too. And that third dimension where we are fellow beings. I may disagree with you. I might not trust you, but there is something we have in common and that's revealed in the walk or to some extent can be revealed in the walk, which is why when people look around the room and find the person they never thought they'd walk with, it's so powerful as yeah, we went for a walk, we survived. We still don't agree but I get now a little bit where they're coming from. So I think that's what radical engagement, it's the opposite.
So the best, the clearest way I have to say it is the physical stance is leaning back with your arms crossed, pointing your finger versus leaning forward and saying tell me why is this important to you? Explain it again, I still don't get it. That's the shift and I'm guessing that if you, if you or I, I'm curious how does that relate to all the activities that produce the 25% clean energy ownership And I'll see what the human journey.
[01:03:37 - 01:04:22] Chris Henderson
It absolutely the process of change absolutely was a human journey where you are saying to companies and utilities who had control, had power that they had to relinquish or share part of it. And then you're saying to governments you have to change the way policies and rules work.
And that's a part of it. And it's thousands, maybe tens of thousands of synapses and connections of humanity that led to that change. Even now when you talk about Winnipeg and Manitoba, where I'll be on Friday because we're helping the Manitoba government move to have 600 megawatts of wind co owned by indigenous communities, which has never happened before. And those are all based on human discussions that are there. So I think the humanity of is there. Sometimes you really have to pry open the ability to have that human conversation.
[01:04:24 - 01:05:08] Speaker 4
Hi, I'm Barbara. I absolutely agree with you about the power of conversation and talking and appreciate the comments you've made along those lines. I also am thinking about it though in the context I inhabit, which tends to be climate related and working with small groups all of whom actually think in the same way. And it's a completely different question of how I find the people who think unlike me because they're just not in my circles. But the question I have is that does work. But we're now in this moment goes back to the urgency question. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how with global carbon emissions continuing to rise despite everything we know.
[01:05:10 - 01:05:11] Claude Schryer
Do.
[01:05:11 - 01:06:03] Speaker 4
You think we're going to get somewhere where we can actually recover the world enough to be able to have these conversations? I mean we don't. There's not. I actually, I don't want to make this a negative question, which I already have. Obviously the power question really spoke to me and the fact that it's hard to speak back to power when it comes to money, especially in people having things that they don't want to give up. And do you think that there's a possibility in this moment for the world to come together to address this issue in a way that will get carbon emissions to reduce enough to have a livable future? I'm just wondering your thoughts on that.
[01:06:04 - 01:13:08] Adam Kahane
I was, I was talking to the boss of this institute in Paris about the state of the world, and he started off by saying, look, I'm not an optimistic person. I just bought a retirement home on the Azores, which is some island in the middle of the Atlantic. So that was his way of saying, like, I'm not expecting things to go well. And yet he then gave a more explained why he didn't think things were going to go as badly as most people believe. So I'm taking a similar stance. I'm not an optimistic person in general. I don't have a house on the Azores, but I think it's very difficult.
But I do have one challenging contribution and this is a little hard to explain. It's the Habit 2, which everybody says, this is the one chapter, it's impossible to understand. So I'm going to give you how I think because it presents a very specific challenge. And the habit 2, or the chapter 2 is the one based on the Congress, is about climate change and is based on the conversation with Christiana. And it gives us an example or uses climate as an example, that when we're working with others or when we're trying to change things, there's three ways we can approach other people and they're all necessary, but most of us choose only one. The first is the one you emphasized, and it's the most common one in climate conversations, which is we're all part of this larger whole. The larger whole is producing increasing temperatures, worsening weather, more fire, uninhabitable climate.
Why can't we just. It's the sort of the. Why can't we just think about the hole? And of course that's makes perfect sense. I understand it completely, but it's really not enough. And the second, so sorry, this is a little complicated, but I think it's useful saying that. So the first way of.
The first way of dealing with others is as actors in a larger system and what you just said and what Claude said took that first approach. We're all parts of A larger whole. Why can't we see what we need to do? There's a second. Sorry, I'm going to say a different way. There's a third part which is what we were just talking about, which is we're all fellow human beings here. We're kin.
It's all my relations. Can't we understand that we're. It's. That's not the same as saying we're parts of a larger whole. It's saying we're relatives. But the part that's usually over mit overlooked is the second part. So I'm trying to be.
I want to say this in a way that shows the second part when we talk about a cop. What does COP stand for?
Conference of the Parties. It's not just a general meeting of people who care about climate change. That's where all the photographs are. I've been to 2Cops. That's where the sort of giant climate trade show NGO business thing. That's not the real event. The real event is a negotiation among parties to a convention.
That's what Christiana, her great accomplishment was not that she managed to get all the non party actors to do things, she made some progress there. But her great accomplishment is she got the 172 parties to agree to make an agreement. And so, and I find these days that second perspective, dealing with others as parties who have interests, power, money. It's a terrible thing to overlook. If you overlook it, you will understand nothing in the newspaper. You will understand no stories in today's newspaper. It's a very serious omission.
So when we just say yes, but that's just your self interest or that's just your money, or that's just your power, why don't you put that aside? It's an unreasonable and usually manipulative request. Most of the time people are saying that are looking after their own interests. When I'm a facilitator, I say just leave your agendas at the door. We're working on this thing together. I realized there's only one person in the room for whom the success of the group is identical to their own self interest. And that's the facilitator and maybe the boss for everybody else.
It's not reasonable to say leave your agenda at the door. You have a family, you have a department, you have staff, you have a budget. So my point is, you can see that I feel strongly about this. The overlooking of people as parties. We won't get anywhere. We won't get anywhere. And that's the same as overlooking power.
But power is not a unfortunate thing that we just have to. Why do people. It's Martin Luther King said, based on Tillich, power, properly understood, is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. And people are trying to do different things. And most people are, amongst other things, try and look after themselves and their family right now. So I use the same James Hillman quote in every one of my book because it's so good. He says, the problem with the helping professions, and I include facilitators in that, is they talk about power as though it's a problem.
He says the great thing about the helpful thing about business and politics is they understand nothing happens without power, so learn to work with it. So dealing with people as actors, dealing with people as kin, dealing with people as parties. That's what I mean by this unreadable chapter, acting in three dimensions. And I feel strongly that the dissing. King said, power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. And the climate movement generalizing runs the risk of being sentimental and anemic. So I want to take power seriously, but as an ordinary thing, not as a problem thing.
[01:13:12 - 01:14:48] Claude Schryer
Well, that's a big can of worms, isn't it? It's funny, I'm sitting here in the bookstore looking at all these titles of books as you're speaking, all these brilliant writers and biographies and politics. And thanks for the question, because I do think about that as well. I wrote a posting on my substack recently about how I was very zealous in my earlier years, three, four years ago with this podcast and as an activist and all this in trying to convince people about the urgency of climate change, which it is. And right now I'm thinking it's not that I was wrong, but I didn't listen. I talk about listening, but I didn't listen the way I could have. And your book helps and other things.
And so it's good to step back a little bit and to not, you know, take yourself apart. But just look at the journey so far, and with the time left, who knows how much time we have left? What can we do differently?
What seeds can we plant? You know, how can we call that? I love. I think there must be another word other than power.
Power is like a community word. Like it. It can go a lot of different places. Are we talking about energy? Are we talking about things that people care about? I mean, I just wonder, in terms of words, what is the actual word we're searching for?
I'm searching, maybe. Yeah. Anyway, There we go.
Anyway, 15 minutes left. Who wants to speak? Are we done? No. Yes, let's have you. And then Tim again.
[01:14:48 - 01:14:48] Adam Kahane
Sure.
[01:14:50 - 01:17:18] Ruth Kahane
So I actually was want to pick up on this question of power because. Yeah, like, I just. I also think part of it is too, that when we actually don't own our power is some of the biggest, riskiest things that we go in and we create the biggest harm in the engagements that we do by not acknowledging the power that is at play, the power that is in the room and. Or we give away our power, which, you know, again, I think when I come back to Radical Engagement and you know, some of the. I work in a community health center and so some of the community development stuff, but when we give away our power is also when we surrender to not having this conversation and allow the power of others to take charge of that. And so I think, you know, there's. And we've been taught that it's a bad word, as you were saying, like, so that there's this piece where I think if we're going to have any of the change, we need to neutralize it and to be able to acknowledge it and work with it and make it more transparent.
Which, you know, I think is part of the piece of even acknowledging in a relationship around Radical engagement. If I have someone who I might perceive even who has more power than me, I actually don't really know the whole of their story. They also don't know the whole of my story and where my power might come from. That is not obvious and that is not actually based in a societal construct, but remains none nonetheless. Some of the most powerful orators as an example are they have the power of that persuasion that may not actually have anything to do except that they have that voice that draws you in. And so like I'm really. So I'm really curious about this piece of.
Of owning our own power, paying attention. I think, you know, Adam, you were saying like that there's also this piece of needing to pay attention to power, I think, and how it's playing out in all of the situations. And so I'm a little bit curious about that, about where's the attention playing. Sorry, you got me. I had to talk it out before I could get to it is where's that attention to the showing up or the working with or the awareness of in Radical Engagement?
[01:17:22 - 01:18:22] Adam Kahane
Yeah, so it's such an interesting area. And one of the difficulties talking about power, love and justice is there are words that are used with many different definitions. So I'm Using very specific definitions. I got them from that quote from Martin Luther King and realizing that he was quoting his teacher Paul Tillich. And Tillich divines power as the drive of everything living to realize itself with increasing intensity and extensity. So it's very closely related to agency. So agency power.
That's what I mean. And long time ago I was involved in a project on sustainable food which had NGO and academic and corporate people. And somebody pointed out to me that as a generalization, the corporate people in the group had more money and more authority.
[01:18:22 - 01:18:22] Claude Schryer
But.
[01:18:24 - 01:19:58] Adam Kahane
It was the NGO people in the group who. Who everybody actually listened to. Just a different kind of power. So I think there's more than one way of expressing power. When I used to give talks on the book Power and Love, I once had a talk where somebody said, I'm a Anglican clergyman and I've worked a lot on the question of clergy sex abuse. And I thought he was going to say this was an abuse of power. But he went on to say something different.
He said, my experience is these are people that don't understand their own power. Sorry, it's not an exact quote, but basically that they didn't. It was the ignorance of power that caused the perversion. That's not a direct quote. But yes, I think this thing about, and what I realize, real message of this book, Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems, is there is something every one of us can do where we are to make a difference. And one of the things about writing a book like this is you're not allowed to quote song lyrics. It's absolutely forbidden.
Really, the copyright on song lyrics is so ferocious. Don't even try. So I had the Leonard Cohen song about cracks, but I had to take it out the last minute. Just forget it.
[01:19:58 - 01:19:59] Claude Schryer
Sing it now.
[01:19:59 - 01:21:04] Adam Kahane
Well, I am going to sing it now. So the part of it that I had in and that I had to take out was, there is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. But I actually think the two sentences in the refrain before that I realized are even more important, dealing with this question of agency, which is, ring the bells you still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything that's how the light gets in. And this idea that all of us have bells that still can ring.
They may be different, they may not be easy to find, but we all have them. But one of the requirements is to forget this idea that it has to be perfect. That we have to be perfect or our colleagues have to be perfect or our idea has to Be perfect or our plan has to be perfect or our alignment has to be perfect. Forget that. And that's what I mean about don't make the bar so high that you can't do anything. So this forget your perfect offering, I think is maybe the clue here.
[01:21:06 - 01:21:08] Claude Schryer
I was saying in my head as you spoke.
[01:21:08 - 01:21:09] Adam Kahane
Good.
[01:21:10 - 01:21:11] Rhonda
And it cost you nothing.
[01:21:12 - 01:21:16] Claude Schryer
Well, who knows what it's going to cost me? You want to see?
[01:21:16 - 01:21:22] Tim Broadhead
Well, actually, the last comment, the last comment said better than I could what.
[01:21:22 - 01:21:26] Adam Kahane
I was going to say, so I don't think I need to repeat it.
[01:21:28 - 01:23:11] Speaker 9
I kind of think that maybe we're underestimating how dangerous things are and what the risks are. I know that we have over 6,500,000 people in Canada do not have food security. What I'm looking at is for us to collaborate, for us to be willing to engage in conversations and also realize that democracy is at risk and we are living in dangerous times. And what that means personally, when you decide that radical engagement is your only option, to be able to look, as you said, to look the situation as it is and know that there are risks. I mean, I know that I can still. I have food on the table. I've been able to, you know, miraculously, because I'm not very smart with money.
I'm doing okay. But there are millions of people of our neighbors who are already facing dire circumstances. And I don't think our current government is addressing those needs. And so these conversations, it seems, are part of looking at what is. Is to be willing to take some risks. And I'm wondering about that in, in your view of the world about risk taking, how to do it and how to protect one another as we do it.
[01:23:13 - 01:24:06] Adam Kahane
So I understand at least to some degree, the dangers that we and our neighbors and our not neighbors are facing. So I'm cons. I'm as worried as anybody.
And I'm not. It's. It's not in my thinking or in my disposition to tell people what they ought to do, but I am offering a way to figure, for each person to figure out what they can do, given how they understand the risks, the dangers, the seriousness of the situation, how do they find, how they can contribute? That's all I'm offering. But that is ultimately a bet on agency and on the more people who.
[01:24:06 - 01:24:10] Speaker 9
Become engaged, the greater the likelihood of.
[01:24:12 - 01:24:36] Adam Kahane
I'm not, yeah, I'm not, I'm not fully confident that the more people involved, the better things will be. But, but I am making a bet on people trying to do something Rather than just going seems impossible. So that's. Yeah, yeah, that's the bet. That's what I'm trying to contribute to.
[01:24:40 - 01:26:07] Aileen
Hi, my name is Aileen, I'm a Turkish Canadian. So while I was listening to you constantly, I was thinking of what is going on right now in the Middle east, in Turkey. Now my question is what if there are multiple groups involved trying to transform systems? That means what happens if there are multiple systems? And what if there is no agreement in the final equilibrium? As an economist I would like to see an equilibrium, but there are multiple equilibria in this world. One explanation again, as an economist, I think it's the deterioration of the income distribution.
So the capital is in the hands of few rich people. This has never been that concentrated throughout the human history. I think what you suggest is wonderful, but have you ever put this assumption as a given assumption, this heavy concentration of capital in very few number of people overall. I'm not talking about in a particular place overall, thank you very much.
[01:26:09 - 01:28:31] Adam Kahane
I wanted to leave the mic drock at Leonard Cohen, but now the seems the host is not okay. Yeah, I'm a lapsed economist, so I've lost my faith. I once tried. Yeah, no, I think the. My. So speaking as a. Speaking in abstract terms, my.
I think the reason this is difficult is not simply that there's multiple equilibrium. There's many holes, there's many systems. They don't all line up perfectly. That's why Marcia Anderson's comment to me in Winnipeg a few weeks ago was so clarifying. She said, yes, all my relations, but recognize that you're making trade offs all the time. It's not like that gives you the answer. So yes, there's the.
It's not a phrase I use very often, but the reality is that there are multiple holes. There's not just one and they're not going in the same direction. And so it's always. When I first wrote Collaborating with the Enemy, the publisher said people don't. They don't like books with the word collaborating. It sounds like compromise, but it is compromise. It is compromise between things that don't quite fit.
There isn't a general equilibrium. The phrase win, win, win is not helpful. It makes too narrow the possibility space. I'm not a political philosopher, but I really am attracted to Isaiah Berlin's idea that the idea that there would be one perfect solution is very dangerous. And he used to quote Immanuel Kant out of the crooked timber of humanity.
No straight thing was ever made. So we have to give up this idea that there is an equilibrium that's going to work perfectly for everybody. It's always going to be about compromise, about this, about. And, yeah, that's how I look at things.
[01:28:34 - 01:28:55] Claude Schryer
And celebrating achievements. So if you were able to move the thing forward without too much conflict, that's a big victory, right? Anyway, I want to thank you all for being here tonight. This episode will come out in a few weeks. Listen to it again if you so wish. Share it if you so wish.
Thank you, Adam. We will talk again.