Changemakers’ Handbook with Elena Bondareva

Elena Bondareva

Your front-row seat to PhD findings into change-making and no-holds-barred insight into my experience across 6 continents. Join me in fueling dialogue on the why, the how, the how not to, and the personal toll of creating regenerative transformation. changemakershandbook.substack.com

  1. 3d ago

    Why I Care

    Almost two years ago, I published a piece called Why I Care. Change-maker’s Handbook (the book) came out in late 2023. I was starting to mine my twenty years of changemaking experience for patterns and lessons that may benefit others, interviewing practitioners, and shaping my PhD research. Re-reading this piece now, I am struck by how many of the themes that would later emerge in my research were already present within it — not as theory or findings, but as lived experience. Most of you would have never seen this essay, so I thought I would share it again. After the original piece, I’d like to tell you what I now see differently. _ _ _ Why I Care (2024) The baby in the photo, I was born and raised in Moscow. Now Russia, then the traumatically imploding Soviet Union and the West’s sandbox for crude experimentation in forging a democracy and a market economy from scratch. Unlike many other countries — including those of the former Soviet Union — Russia had no history of either. This was like teaching a child to swim by throwing them into the deep end: there was no muscle memory to trigger. Raised by two university professors and a veteran of one of WWII’s all-female front-line battalions, I witnessed what it meant to strip a society of its value system without meaningfully replacing it. Once-respected professionals, my mom and dad were now paid in towel fabric, plates, and promises because anybody who relied on the government was, well, instantaneously overboard without a life raft. Surgeons, police officers, and scientists were bartering on street corners. In shame, nobody was making eye contact. I was not yet seven when I — clad in layers that kept us somewhat warm via sheer bulk, not smarts — first held my parents’ spot in lines for bread, sugar, or butter in the pitch black of winter mornings. Those were, indeed, separate lines with none of the efficiency of Western food banks. As it relegated people to shuffling huddles, I looked Need in the eye before I could recognize its power over everybody in my world. It would be years before I understood the meaning of eating pancakes for dinner every night of the week. By the age of eleven or twelve, I was responsible for growing (often to be canned) our annual supply of vegetables, fruit, and berries during the summer. I still can’t throw food away. At school, we routinely sat for hours on end without teachers, who were forced out into the fickle market economy to make ends meet. There were no extracurricular activities. Playgrounds got dismembered for parts. All the parents were so preoccupied with surviving that as children, we were raising ourselves. I remember acknowledging that change was non-negotiable. Still, I knew in my gut that it need not callously decimate people’s lives. Before even hitting my teens, I remember the Moscow intersection where I first committed to finding better ways to do it; ways that did not pull the rug from under people’s feet; ways that protected the environment as well as human dignity; ways that reinvigorated rather than decimated; that unlocked possibility rather than entrenched despair. My postgraduate research at Cornell University allowed me to delve into broad-spectrum change, and I have not stopped since. I was in my 20s when, on a flight, I first wrote down my purpose, “To mobilize people to imagine and create realities far better than they have experienced.” Curiously, this has not changed for me. I don’t know if this is atypical. I accept that one’s purpose may change with time, and I wish we knew more about this; one of my standing invitation for social sciences research. Even if it took me years to see it clearly, my purpose has been my compass for over three decades. May I suggest that you have a lot to gain and nothing to lose by giving a go at distilling yours. Section 1 of my book, Change-maker’s Handbook, focuses on purpose and can guide you. It may mean all the difference in the impact and contentment you experience as a changemaker, and I would love to hear from you whether it does! https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web _ _ _ When I wrote this piece, I was trying to explain myself and my commitment to better equip changemakers for their vital work. Today, I find myself asking a different question. Not why I care but why some people repeatedly find themselves caring in this particular way. The distinguishing feature is not compassion. Many people are compassionate. It is not intelligence. It is not idealism. It is not even a desire to help. What keeps catching my attention is something more specific: an inability to fully look away once certain forms of harm, contradiction, or unrealized possibility become visible. A tendency to keep asking: * Why is it like this? * Why do we accept this? * Could this work differently? * What would it take to change it? Those questions have followed me for most of my life. Increasingly, I wonder whether they have followed some of you as well. I’ve been working on something that explores that possibility. More soon. Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing chaangemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. Are you a changemaker? https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Most are not changemakers https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/most-people-are-not-changemakers?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web What are changemakers for? https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/what-are-changemakers-for?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Purpose as fuel for changemaking https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min

  2. May 31

    What are changemakers for?

    I have repeatedly spoken and written about purpose. Across earlier posts, I have argued that purpose is fuel for changemaking; explored the idea that each of us possesses gifts, experiences, and motivations that point toward particular forms of contribution; and written about superpowers, mandates, and the strange experience of feeling repeatedly drawn toward work that is neither convenient nor obviously rewarded. Those ideas remain central to my thinking. Yet the deeper I go into this work, the more they seem to point toward another question entirely: What are changemakers for? This may sound obvious, odd, or both. We tend to think of changemakers as individuals with causes, ideas, wounds, gifts, convictions, and projects. We ask what drives them, what problems they are solving, and how we can help. All useful questions. But if changemakers are real — more than a corporate buzzword or aspirational LinkedIn identity, but as people predisposed toward transformation — then another question becomes unavoidable. Why do changemakers exist? Across countries, sectors, professions, ideologies, and generations, some people seem persistently drawn to changemaking. They notice problems others normalize. They imagine alternatives others dismiss. They struggle to disengage from harms they did not create. They continue engaging long after exhaustion, cynicism, self-interest, or social pressure would have persuaded many others to stop. Not all changemakers agree. Not all succeed. Not all are even pursuing the same future. Still, they are everywhere. What if societies require transformation in the same way they require continuity? What if human communities need people who are unusually sensitive to unrealized possibility? People who repeatedly question inevitability. People who become uncomfortable when preventable harm is normalized. People willing to move toward uncertainty in pursuit of a future that does not yet exist. Goodness knows we need them now. Perhaps we always have — whether anybody, changemakers included — recognized the function clearly or not. Human beings are astonishingly capable of normalizing the unbearable. We adapt to institutions that degrade us, incentives that distort reason, technologies that outpace our ethics, economies that drain us, and narratives that shrink our hopes. This capacity to adapt can protect us. But at times, it can also trap us. Changemakers, at their best, disrupt that trap. They are not the whole answer. They are not saviors. They are not automatically wise, ethical, effective, or right. But they may perform a necessary function inside human systems: noticing where reality no longer fits the frame, where harm has been normalized, where possibility has been declared impossible too soon. Studying changemakers reminds me of immune systems Healthy immune systems do not dominate the body. They detect threats, respond to harm, support repair, and help living organisms survive what might otherwise overwhelm them. Without an immune system, the body becomes dangerously vulnerable. With an overactive or misdirected one, the body can self-sabotage. This feels increasingly useful to me as a metaphor for changemakers. A society without changemakers would likely struggle to adapt. A society composed entirely of changemakers would likely implode. The work, then, is not to romanticize changemakers. Nor is it to dilute, silence, or punish them for picking at what others would rather leave alone. The work is to understand what function they perform, what conditions allow that function to become regenerative rather than destructive, and what kinds of support, ethics, relationships, competencies, and institutions might help changemakers serve transformation well. This matters because changemakers are often treated as anomalies. Too disruptive. Too intense. Too idealistic. Too impatient. Too difficult. Too unwilling to accept “that’s just how things are.” Sometimes, all of that is fair. Yet perhaps some of what makes changemakers difficult is inseparable from what makes them useful. The person who cannot stop asking whether the system is solving the wrong problem may prevent pseudo-consensus. The person who balks at existing constraints may chip away until unrealized possibility comes into view. The person who feels responsible for harms they did not create may help an entire society take responsibility. Without changemakers, many necessary transformations may never happen. Purpose, in this sense, is not only personal. It is ecological. The question is not simply, What gives my life meaning? It may also be, What kind of contribution does the world seem to need of me? Changemakers’ contribution seems to be helping systems change before their failures become irreversible. What if that is their function? And if changemakers perform a function within transformation, the next question follows naturally: Do all changemakers play the same role? I no longer think they do. And that realization may prove just as important as discovering changemakers themselves. References: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/most-people-are-not-changemakers Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe

    10 min

  3. May 22

    Most people are not changemakers

    Modern “change” culture may create an impression that those oriented toward continuity, care, craft, mastery, preservation, relationship, beauty, stability, or stewardship are somehow less vital — or even less committed to humanity’s future — than those oriented toward disruption and reinvention. I do not believe this for a second. In fact, the more I practice changemaking, the more reverence I feel for people whose primary contribution to the world may not be transformation at all. My last post introduced the 6 attributes of changemakers. Now, I turn to the people whose contributions let changemakers do their thing. Theirs is not secondary work. It is civilization. I am increasingly aware that my changemaking has been made possible by countless people who are probably not changemakers themselves. The teachers who honed my potential. The people who ensured my scholarships were credited correctly to my university tuition accounts. Those who made sure I ate something wholesome. The friends who tethered me back to reality when I became a hot air balloon buoyed too far upward by causes and ideas. I owe everything I have accomplished — and likely much of what I still will — to people who built the roads I travel on, ensured fresh water and air, grew my food, tended to my health, and created art that kept weaving me back into humanity while I wrestled with how it might need to change. What studying changemakers has shown me * Changemaking is real. Not merely as a buzzword or aspirational personal brand, but as a recognizable practice of transformation. * Some individuals — I refer to them as changemakers — appear uniquely predisposed toward changemaking. They persistently ask: Why is it like this? Why do we accept this? Could this work differently? What would it take to change it? Goodness knows we need people willing to question inevitability, challenge harmful systems, imagine and build alternatives, and continue long after exhaustion, cynicism, self-interest, or social pressure would convince many others to stop. For more, see my last post: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs * Our future equally depends on the people whose contributions take entirely different forms. I have become equally convinced that changemakers depend on people oriented toward many other equally vital forms of human contribution. * Importantly, changemakers do not have exclusive dibs on creating change. Nor does it mean that changemakers cannot care deeply about continuity, ethics, beauty, relationship, or stewardship. The more I study changemakers, the more I think of them as something like a society’s immune system. At their best, changemakers help societies detect harm, aim higher, adapt, and regenerate. At their worst, they are destabilizing, reckless, and destructive. Weak immune systems are dangerous, but so are overactive ones. Left entirely to themselves, changemakers might redesign civilization incessantly. Some of those redesigns would be extraordinary. Some would be catastrophic. All would be exhausting. Human flourishing has probably always depended on many different forms of devotion existing alongside one another. Which may be one reason changemakers need not only to hone their own strengths, but to cherish the countless contributions that keep us alive, connected, nourished, honest, safe, or sane long enough to do our thing at all. A future worth building takes both Perhaps maturity — especially for changemakers — involves finally recognizing that people who do not share our particular fixation on transformation are not necessarily barriers to the future we want. They may be part of the reason we survive long enough to build it. Are you a changemaker? I have been building a survey (stay tuned) to help explore that question, based on six recurring attributes my research increasingly points toward, to better understand one particular orientation toward change — and how it exists alongside many other equally vital forms of human contribution. _ _ _ Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. Image credit: Eleanor Smith from Pixabay This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  4. May 14

    Are you a changemaker? Signs, habits, and habitat of the people who can’t seem to leave the world alone

    Have you ever wondered if something is wrong with you? If you feel responsible for problems you did not create, see possibilities others miss, and find it difficult to stay passive in the face of systemic harm, you may be a changemaker. Not in the influencer sense or as branding, but as your orientation toward transformation. And changemakers may be among society’s most important — and least supported — resources. Across more than 20 years of research and practice in transformation across six continents, I have observed that some people appear consistently drawn toward systemic change efforts regardless of sector, profession, ideology, or geography. While their personalities vary dramatically, they can be strikingly similar in how they relate to responsibility, uncertainty, systems, and action. Importantly, predispositions are not the same as competencies. Predispositions may explain why some people repeatedly engage in changemaking. Competencies determine how effective they are. My current research suggests that changemakers frequently exhibit six recurring predispositions: The signs 1. Responsibility beyond causation Changemakers often experience unresolved social, institutional, or environmental harm as psychologically difficult to ignore — even when they did not personally create the problem. Many describe that once they become aware of systemic harm, they “cannot look away.” Guilt for all that goes unresolved is the surest tell you’ve spotted a changemaker in the wild. 2. Possibility orientation Changemakers see possibilities others miss. They glimpse plausible futures where today’s impossibilities become ordinary reality. They imagine scenarios in which today’s harms, constraints, and institutional logic no longer hold — and often detect pathways others dismiss as unrealistic, premature, or impossible. 3. Expanded scope of concern Changemakers often struggle to “stay in their lane” when systemic problems affect communities, ecosystems, or future generations. Such problems feel like their responsibility regardless of institutional, professional, and social boundaries. This does not necessarily reflect rebellion. Rather, many instinctively recognize that complex problems cross such boundaries. 4. Agency orientation Passive observation rarely feels like an option. Even when risks are substantial and success uncertain, changemakers often feel compelled to intervene rather than remain spectators. 5. High tolerance for uncertainty Transformation is uncertain, nonlinear, and difficult to control. Changemakers often continue acting despite ambiguity, delayed feedback, contradiction, and incomplete information. Many also learn to navigate tensions that cannot be fully resolved: hope alongside realism, action alongside humility, strategy alongside adaptation. 6. Systems sensitivity Changemakers frequently perceive relationships that others experience as separate. They notice patterns, interdependencies, contradictions, incentives, and unintended consequences across social, technological, institutional, economic, and ecological systems. Long before formal systems thinking language enters the picture, many changemakers appear instinctively attentive to interconnectedness across problems, interventions, and outcomes. WARNING: If you — or someone you know — consistently exhibits these signs, you may be a changemaker. This makes you part of one of society’s most important — and structurally under-supported — populations. Ecological function Our work — remaking the world for the better — sure is cut out for us. For centuries, changemaking happened through improvision. Consequently, its impact has been haphazard. The unlikely upside of nearly assured self-destruction. An incidental byproduct rather than an outcome of intentional effort. Thankfully, changemakers are adaptable, creative, versatile, relentless, and many. Misunderstood, under-equipped, chronically unsupported, occasionally vilivied — and somehow still showing up. Imagine what becomes possible once we stop treating changemaking as accidental heroism and start treating it as a human capability worthy of cultivation. The dangers As changemakers, we navigate major fault lines. * Loneliness. Many changemakers — and I have asked hundreds worldwide — feel alone. When most people can’t understand why we care — why you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders — it can be isolating. * Shame. If guilt is brutal, shame is cruel. Unlike guilt, which at least picks on behavior, shame concludes that you — at your core — are no good. Dr. Brené Brown is a leading social researcher on this topic, and I would be honored to apply her findings to the change-maker community. * Burnout. How do we call it a day if the world is still on fire? How can we give ourselves permission to watch Netflix if [insert entrenched systemic problem] persists? For changemakers, overwhelm is commonplace. If unchecked, it is debilitating and leads to depletion. * Anxiety and depression. Anxiety may, at times, be the only rational response to awareness. Who can blame us for despair when our efforts to shift entrenched systems so often feel painfully inadequate? Feeling “othered” only compounds the experience. * Other sacrifices. We forego expected milestones in favor of work we cannot quite justify but seem incapable of abandoning. We don’t fully understand the value changemakers create for society — or the cost many quietly pay to do so. The perks Hands down, there are easier ways to make a living and to craft a respectable life. And yet. Yes, there are upsides to being a changemaker! * Meaning. Remember all those studies correlating meaning with wellbeing. Changemakers tend to outperform on those metrics. * Impact. Changemakers are usually several existential steps ahead of those who find exercises like, What would you like people to say at your funeral? confounding.   * Community. The biggest reason I recommit, every day, to this work is the people it puts in my life. On the harder days, it is the unbearable thought of losing fellowship with other changemakers that pushes me to keep figuring out how to live — and thrive — as one. Do I get a choice whether to be a changemaker? I honestly don’t know. I doubt you ever knelt before your god and asked them to show you all the horrid, shameful things about this world — and then make you feel personally vested in making them right. And yet you do. And so do I. Twice, I tried to ignore my wiring. To “pray away the changemaker” because I would, damn it, be content charting a path that prioritized “number one” (aka, me) and maybe donate or share when I had extra. According to sources close to the experiment, I was miserable to be around. And that’s with the true torment masked as best I could. It may well be in our nature to dare to change the world. A power less ours to possess than to direct. While we may not choose changemaker predispositions, we do choose how to navigate this world. How to direct our energy. How to cultivate our capabilities. How to make the difference that is ours to make. And whether we manage to do so with joy in our hearts. That is what this Substack is about. What changemakers need Expect detailed posts and leading science on topics like: * Self-awareness. If what I’ve shared resonates, we’re going deeper. * Community. You are not alone! This community (Changemakers’ Handbook) already reaches across 44 countries. Engage. And let me know if I can help directly. * Self care. We cannot build a better world by destroying ourselves in the process. * Tools. Chemists, geneticists, architects, florists, physiotherapists, and pet groomers all begin with shared tools, competencies, and professional language. Changemakers got… well, mostly vibes. Unacceptable. Because the more time I spend in this field, the more convinced I become that changemaking should not remain dependent on improvisation alone. As we attempt to navigate civilizational-scale transformation, we should probably stop expecting changemakers to improvise their way through it unsupported. Building infrastructure for changemakers If you’ve wondered why you — or someone you’ve spotted in the wild — are the way you are… Well. Now you know a little more. * I wrote Change-maker’s Handbook (2023) to distill my professional, personal, and research experience into a practical roadmap for impact. https://www.amazon.com/Change-makers-Handbook-Everything-meaningful-business/dp/B0CP8T4Z6F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27J3JJ7GUB8J5&keywords=elena%20bondareva&qid=1701565531&sprefix=elena%20bondareva%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-1 * My current PhD research is producing what I sometimes call the “periodic table” of changemaking: a framework that defines the predispositions, roles, competencies, tensions, dynamics, and building blocks of transformation. * My consulting and coaching practice, Vivit, helps changemakers and organizations launch, navigate, and scale transformational initiatives. www.Vivitworldwide.com. * I am increasingly exploring group-based support, learning, and developmental spaces. * And this publication exists to help changemakers feel recognized, less alone, better equipped, and more capable of sustaining meaningful contribution over time. https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/about Are you actually a changemaker? I’m currently building something else: a global survey designed to answer this important question. Not aspirationally. Not professionally. Structurally. In your wiring. If this post piqued your interest, keep an eye out! * * * Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. Image credit: Pat_Photographies This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus

    17 min

  5. May 9

    To all who choose to mother the world

    Mother’s Day (this Sunday in some countries) makes me think about one of the most powerful forces on earth: Care that is on tap without being requested. The willingness to notice before someone asks. To make space before another needs to expand beyond politeness. To ensure a soft landing before someone breaks. To create the conditions for another human being to process, heal, gather themselves, or become. A mother does this. A mother interrupts the ruthless passage of time. She cocoons, soothes, and mends. She is the magic that darns frayed threads, tends to false starts, and sees a beautiful pattern before you can. As long as we subscribe to a shared humanity, each of us can mother. This doesn’t diminish the profound labour, sacrifice, or love of biological mothers — especially those raising young ones. If anything, it reveals how extraordinary mothering truly is if we recognize and bow to it instantly. I am forever grateful to have been mothered by women, men, and non-binary people extraordinary enough to offer me unconditional care. By friends, mentors, intimate partners, colleagues, elders, and people who quietly extended such love with no guarantee of return. People who created a cocoon around possibility when the world demanded speed, performance, certainty, or resilience on command. Biological mothers deserve profound honour for the magnitude of what they carry and give. Hands down. No questions asked. Perhaps mothering is one of the few forces that consistently pushes against the brutalizing logic of the world — the insistence that worth must always be earned before one is loved. Maybe this is one of the great invisible infrastructures of human life: people choosing, over and over again, to hold open the conditions under which another person can be and become. The world survives not only because people build, compete, produce, or achieve — but because somewhere, someone keeps tending what is fragile so that it might thrive before it disappears. I am increasingly convinced that civilizations survive because somewhere, someone keeps choosing to mother the world. Happy Mothers’ Day, my darling community! Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe

    4 min
  6. Post-LIVE Reflection: When change requires us to face what we refuse to see

    May 4

    Post-LIVE Reflection: When change requires us to face what we refuse to see

    Andrew MacLeod described presenting evidence on child trafficking or systemic abuse in professional settings only to watch people’s eyes glaze over. Not in disagreement. Not in anger. But to escape the conversation. I recently spoke with Andrew — a former UN official, military officer, politician, and founder of Hear Their Cries — about changemaking on terrain that is not just difficult, but socially and psychologically unspeakable. You can listen on Substack, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. I recommend that you do. What follows is how I am holding the ideas. We are no longer in a world that lacks solutions. We are in a world that struggles to deploy them. This premise has sharpened across my work. This conversation revealed a harder limit. Some problems remain endemic not because we don’t see them — but because we do not want to. When awareness is not the bottleneck I have argued before that we overestimate the role of awareness in driving change (see my earlier post, What if I Told You That You Don’t Need To Change Minds To Create Powerful Change?) This conversation pushes that further. https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/what-if-i-told-you-that-you-dont?r=1i4aw7 Sometimes awareness already exists. Evidence is available. Solutions are proven. And still nothing changes — because people cannot stay with the reality long enough to act on it. Unspeakable problems are not just complex. They are resisted. Especially when their existence implicates us — or threatens our identity, our institutions, or our sense of morality. Unspeakable problems are like flames: staying in them feels so unsafe that our very instincts force us to flinch and recoil. Andrew’s glazed-over audiences are not a failure of communication. They reveal a limit of what people and systems can tolerate without turning away. What this means for changemaking If this is true, the work changes. It is no longer only about creating the conditions for transformation. It is also about creating the conditions for sustained engagement — and sometimes working within, or around, the limits of what people can face. One of the most confronting ideas in this conversation is that naming the problem directly can shut down progress. So, changemakers adapt: introducing evidence indirectly, building legitimacy through institutions, shifting what is sayable over time. Not because they are avoiding truth — but because truth in its raw form is sometimes not adoptable. This leads to something I cannot resolve: if naming the full reality of a problem causes people to shut down, are we obligated to find another way? At what point does protecting people from the full weight of a problem become a form of complicity? And at what point does insisting they face it fully become a barrier to the very change we need? Both paths carry a cost. Neither is clean. And I don’t think we should be comfortable with either. A second shift: from systems to people Andrew described a change in his own work — from exposing institutions and orchestrating systems change to enabling individuals closest to the problem. Not because systems no longer matter but because change often moves through people before it moves through systems. And because, at certain moments, enabling a single person to act may be the highest leverage available. For how powerful first followers can be, see my earlier post, Want a Sure Way To Change The World? Follow Another’s Lead. https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/want-a-sure-way-to-change-the-world) What this adds to the map Some of the hardest problems are not resisted by power alone. They are resisted by our limits — of attention, tolerance, and willingness to remain present. That means changemakers are not only working against systems. They are working within human psychology, social norms, and moral thresholds — including their own. I am sharing this not because it is comfortable or resolved, but because if we are serious about how change happens, we cannot only study the problems that are easy to talk about. When you listen to the conversation, notice where your attention starts to drift — or where you feel the impulse to tune out. If you feel that, what does that tell us about what we can realistically expect of others? What happens when the biggest barrier to change is not the system — but what we are willing to see? If this resonates — or feels incomplete in important ways — I would genuinely value your perspective. This is not settled ground. Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min
  7. Changemaking on unspeakable territory: Interview with Andrew MacLeod

    May 3

    Changemaking on unspeakable territory: Interview with Andrew MacLeod

    I recently went LIVE with Andrew MacLeod — a former UN official, military officer, politician, and the founder of Hear Their Cries — to explore changemaking in its most confronting terrain: problems that are not just difficult, but socially and psychologically “unspeakable.” This conversation carries a content warning: It addresses abuse, power, rape, and systemic failure in humanitarian contexts. As I metabolize this conversation, I will publish a reflection, please stay tuned. ▶️ Watch or listen 🎥 Substack (video + audio):https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/about 🎧 Spotify / Apple Podcasts:Search Changemakers’ Handbook The premise Across my recent work, I’ve been tracing a distinction: We do not lack solutions.We struggle to scale what works. This conversation complicates that further. Because some problems do not fail to spread due to lack of evidence or coordination. They fail because people do not want to see them. Why this matters for changemakers This conversation adds something I have not explicitly named before: Some of the hardest problems are not resisted by power alone —they are resisted by our own limits of attention, comfort, and moral tolerance. That changes the work. It means: * awareness is not enough * evidence is not enough * even alignment is not enough If you are working on change… This conversation is worth your time if you are grappling with: * why some issues never gain traction * how to work on topics others avoid * the limits of “raising awareness” * how to stay in difficult work over time * what it means to create change without recognition References & further exploration * Hear Their Cries: https://www.hearthercries.org * BBC World of Secrets (Season 12) Searching for Soldier Dad: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0nds5d9 * ABC Four Corners: Sex Tourism – My Father’s Secret: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-04/sex-tourism-my-father-s-secret/104056506 * UK Parliamentary Reports on aid sector abuse: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/3401/sexual-exploitation-and-abuse-in-the-aid-sector-inquiry/ The question I’m left with What happens when the barrier to change is not the system —but what we are willing to see? Thank you to everyone who joined LIVE —and to Andrew for staying in work that most would turn away from. Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe

    58 min

  8. Apr 22

    On making change stick: Interview with Dr. Whitney Austin Gray

    Recently, I went LIVE with Dr. Whitney Austin Gray, a public health leader and an executive at the International WELL Building Institute, to explore what it takes to move solutions from evidence into everyday reality. We discussed the healthy building movement, the gap between knowing and doing, and why change often fails not because the science is weak, but because systems do not absorb it. Watch or listen on Substack, or find the audio on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Whitney’s work sits at the intersection of science and practice—translating what we know about human health into the environments we spend 90% of our lives in. Not as aspiration. Not as awareness. But as something that gets designed, tested, and, at its best, adopted at scale. This conversation illustrates something I have been tracing across my recent work: We do not lack solutions.We struggle to make what works normal. Whitney brought that to life through the built environment. She described three ways public health tries to solve problems: educate them out, legislate them out, or design them out. Her own work sits squarely in that third category: creating conditions that support health by default, rather than relying on perfect awareness or individual behavior. That matters far beyond buildings. A second thread that stayed with me is that standards are not just technical documents. At their best, they are vehicles for coordination and adoption. They help translate emerging knowledge into shared expectations. But they also force a difficult question: is it better to be perfectly right, or sufficiently adoptable to move the field forward? Whitney was candid about that tension. And then there was a third idea that landed more quietly, but just as powerfully: environments do not merely surround us. They shape what becomes possible for us. We are often far quicker to blame people than to examine the conditions they are growing in. Whitney’s plant analogy is fitting. There’s also a more personal thread running through this conversation—about service. Not as obligation or identity, but as something more fundamental:the way changemaking often shows up as creating conditions for others to thrive, even when the work itself goes unseen. If recent Field Notes have named adoption, invisible work, and conditions as central to changemaking, Whitney offers a concrete case of what that looks like in practice—translated into a movement, a standard, and a living body of work. Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts. Across examples ranging from sanitation to air quality to clean water, she shows that change happens when conditions — not merely awareness — shift. When design, standards, and systems make new behaviors the default rather than the exception. If you are interested in: * how science becomes practice * how standards help change spread * why prevention remains harder than emergency response * or what it means to create conditions for people to thrive this conversation is worth your time. References / further exploration * International WELL Building Institute: www.WELLcertified.com * WELL Building Standard: https://v2.wellcertified.com/en/wellv2/overview/ * Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things (2023) by Adam Grant: https://adamgrant.net/book/hidden-potential/ * Amy Webb on global trends: https://ftsg.com/member/amy-webb/ * My analysis of the opportunities that global trends create for changemaking: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/playlist-megatrends * Frederick Law Olmsted / Central Park as historical public-health design: https://www.centralparknyc.org/articles/how-public-health-influenced-the-creation-purpose-and-design-of-central-park * Blue Zones research on longevity: www.bluezones.com — ▶️ Watch or listen on Substack: changemakershandbook.substack.com ▶️ Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If this resonates, share it — this is how more people find their way into this work. Thank you to Susan Kain and everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit changemakershandbook.substack.com/subscribe

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Your front-row seat to PhD findings into change-making and no-holds-barred insight into my experience across 6 continents. Join me in fueling dialogue on the why, the how, the how not to, and the personal toll of creating regenerative transformation. changemakershandbook.substack.com

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