Integrated Catchment Management

Practical tools and approaches

Our practical focus has been on developing and mastering new “social technologies” - practical tools and approaches that allow people working across boundaries in complex settings to find ways of working and learning together that grow their capacity to be stewards of the future.

On this site, we map out some of these practical approaches – providing links to useful on-line resources or useful books and articles. There are no cookie-cutter solutions, and there is no quick fix to challenges that are both deeply systemic and deeply human. It is native to us to learn together.

We noticed in our research and practice, that the first fundamental shift took place in our listening, and in the way people listened to one another. The next shift was in people’s respect for one another’s perspectives, knowledge and points of view. The third was in a deepening of awareness of the way things fitted together. And the fourth showed up in a shift in the way people gave voice to their commitment. Our key learning was around how to sequence the stages of learning – and we found as Peter Senge writes in “The Fifth Discipline” – “You can have your cake and eat it too -- but not all at once.”

Our intention is to support the process by which all of us develop new capacities at a local level. This will be a collaborative journey, and the material on this site is intended to engage your partnership.
This site posts four short practice notes that will get you started thinking about where to start and some things to focus on in an easy sequence. As you read these, and perhaps reflect on the underlying theory, you will get a sense of how to choose a core group, who to involve in your process, how to start to design a process and some of the things to watch out for on the way.

Practice note 1: Learning Local - Starting an Institutional Learning initiative

The practice note suggests the key first step is to establish a core group to design and steward the process with at lest one member from each key work group. The way this work is done (“beginnings are everything”, Scharmer, 2007) will shape the outcome. The exercise will bring a “group of groups” together to become observers of themselves in action. They key shift expected through this exercise (and the preparatory and follow up work by a core group) is a shift in the listening of the group for one another. This is subtle but powerful. The group will leave with a sense of what work there still is to do – it is the work of he core group to be listening for and getting agreement from management and the wole group, after the exercise, how to move to a subsequent stage.

Practice note 2: Negotiating the divide between science and action

We found that in some settings, groups that we might have expected to be working together effectively were “at loggerheads”. When we worked into the relationships between them from a systems perspective, we began to uncover what was going on under

Practice note 3: Negotiating the divide between science and action

Practice note 4: Negotiating the divide between science and action

We think we’re starting to learn some interesting ways of working with cross-sectoral working groups. We’re interested in what has been emerging from these groups, and what might emerge around New Zealand (even around the world) as we begin to join some of these groups together. We provide you links below to how some groups have been approaching this at a local level overseas.