Move to the Edge, Declare it Center

Introduction

Once in a generation, there is an event that fractures our experience. The summer of 2020 offered three: protests against racial injustice, massive forest fires in the western United States, and a worldwide pandemic. We can't unsee the knee on George Floyd's neck, supernatural orange‐smoke skies, or the faces of intubated elders dying of COVID alone.

Many of us had to respond to these unprecedented events and make decisions without guidelines or playbooks. Should we ask people to keep working while they're at risk of exposure to COVID? How do we support our teammates during the workday, while they are simultaneously acting as elementary school teachers to their children? Let's be honest – how many of us froze when we didn't know the answer to those questions? I know I did.

We're all susceptible to these responses. Some are rooted in neurochemistry – the well‐known flight‐or‐fight response. But others are rooted in our inherited leadership and management models, based on nineteenth‐century factories, where systems were well understood and problems had a singular “right answer.” We've been rewarded since kindergarten for raising our hand first with the right answer, preparing us to be “decisive” adult leaders.

But twenty‐first‐century problems like racial injustice, climate change, and pandemics are complex. The key property of complex systems is that they are not ...