What Kind of Change Are We Nurturing?

Over the past year, I’ve been sitting with a question that keeps surfacing in different forms: What kind of change are we nurturing? Not just the outcomes, but the texture of the work. The relationships, the ways of seeing, the defaults we slip into when complexity knocks.

In my previous piece for the India Development Review (IDR), I examined the tension between connection and abstraction. That framing opened up a rich set of conversations about frameworks and fungi, language and leadership, the risks of simplifying what’s meant to stay complex.

This new piece is a continuation of that thread. But it’s also a deepening. It’s about how connection and abstraction are not opposites, but interdependent. About how trust shows up not just in people, but in patterns. About what it means to lead through us rather than by us. And about what changes when we stop reaching for control and start leaning into the relationship.

Would love for you to read and share your reflections:

Featuring Rajesh Kasturirangan, Socratus Collective Wisdom Corporation, Socratus Foundation for Collective Wisdom and learned wisdom from Bamboo Being, Sue Adams, Jim Dethmer and Karen Kimsey-House

Originally written for LinkedIn on 16 May 2025. View original →