This is a beta version and more material will be added soon.

Change is, of course, a key idea in creating a sustainable future. It is also a concept that has been discussed and researched a lot. There is no end to the books, articles, theories, models, etc on change, managing change, leading change, resisting change, and all sorts of related topics. The dominating ideas on what change is and how it can be created have varied over time.

We will approach this from the insight that the world (we need to change) is highly complex and that:

"Some problems are interconnected; they cross-organizational and jurisdictional boundaries and they are inter-organizational. No single agency, organization, jurisdiction, or sector has enough authority, influence, or resources to dictate visionary solutions."

This statement is taken from a book by Jeffery S Luke (1998) called Catalytic Leadership - Strategies for an Interconnected World. Luke's ideas on change are very much linked to the ideas on complexity and open systems that you have already read about earlier in this course. (This is a "must-read" book. You can find a brief overview here.)

One fundamental part of Catalytic Leadership is the - of course - Catalytic. I found a short video that explains the catalytic part of Catalytic Leadership.

The idea of Catalytic processes for change has been explored by other researchers as well. Jim Collins elaborates on his ideas in a famous article in Harvard Business Review. The article is named Turning Goals into Results - The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms (1999).

An introductory lecture on Catalytic Leadership.

Introduction to Catalytic Leadership

The slides are available here (in pdf).

****