How can we help systems change well? Just ask the bramble, a shrub that grows in marginal and disrupted environments and holds space for the next ecosystem to emerge.

Bramble might strike you as an unlikely hero. But an acorn that roots in the protection of its thorns may survive to become an oak tree. In this way, bramble acts as both pioneer and steward, facilitating the transformation from cleared land to thriving forest. 

As leaders, we are often taught that we should be like the landowner who favors order over wilderness. But what if we were more like the bramble?

What would it look like for our teams and organisations to live in healthy reciprocity with the complex places and communities in which we are rooted? How might we accelerate change we need by liberating the innate innovative capacities in the systems around us? And if the seeds of the future we want are already with us today, how can we help them emerge? 

These are the questions that guide our work with leaders, teams and organisations. Like our namesake plant, we are a work in – and a work of – progress.