Skip Video
The Rate of Change is Accelerating
The pace of change in every sector and in every individual’s life is accelerating. In order to navigate and command this new landscape, everyone must be a skilled and practiced changemaker.
See the differences between the old and new paradigms below and why new skills are so urgently needed:
| Old Paradigm | New Paradigm |
| Defined by efficiency in repetition | Defined by change and innovation |
| One leader at a time | Everyone recognized as a leader and powerful contributor |
| Team based on repetitive skills executed harmoniously in a vertical system |
Team of teams fluidly evolving across old boundaries to address complex challenges in a hybrid landscape |
| Defined by efficiency in repetition | Defined by change and innovation |
| Be practiced at a skill | Be practiced at the core skills of empathy, teamwork, new leadership, and changemaking |
| Transaction | Interaction |
| Premium on expertise and authority based on specific knowledge | Premium on ethical fiber — personal credibility and authenticity based on changemaking for the good |
| Communication through authoritative voice | Communication through storytelling and experiences |
| Limited distribution of information based on “need to know” to perform a job or function | Open, transparent communication flow based on everyone having information on which to form a team of teams and act |
‘Why Empathy is as Important as Reading & Math”by Henry de Sio
Youth Changemaker Journeys
(video 4:16 min)
Safe Space
Co-creating a space where people feel that they can speak out in spite of their fears is a vital step in the process of learning how to become a changemaker. Empathy researcher Brene Brown explains that being empathetic requires that we be present and wholly engaged without our ‘protective armour’. People wear armour to try to become invisible or fit in with others to hide what they consider to be defects or embarrassing qualities for fear of being judged, labeled, or bullied. It is difficult to feel empathy for others when you are cut off from yourself.
For this reason, we’re starting the change closest to home. Everyone in the changemaking process needs to feel valued, seen, and heard. Because of the culture we inherited and the way our brains work, all of us carry biases. This isn’t wrong or bad, it’s what we do with them that matters. Being humbled can lead to personal transformation.
The exercises below will help you to:
Once the principles of the safe space have been defined and agreed upon by all, they can be used, reinforced, and referred back to as needed throughout the time you share together.
Design Thinking & the Deskless Classroom(Exercise, Time will vary)
Create a Classroom Contract(30-45 minutes)
Learn how to listen: Are you a good listener? (video 5 min + opportunities for deeper thinking)
Empathy & Equity: From the Stanford D.school, this exercise gives designers to an opportunity to pause and notice their biases(15 min daily over the course of week).
Cross the Line: (30-60 min.) We live in a diverse world. In this exercise we will explore the diversity among us by thinking about our values, our backgrounds, our teachers, and our experiences.
CCDI: Explore Power and Privilege (Toolkit with various exercises)
