Event End Date: March 21, 2025 - 08:00 AM
Cost: $1,200
Website: www.eventbrite.com
Location Map:
Location: Oakstop, 2323 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612
Date: March 20 – 21, 2025 8am – 4pm PDT
Leading for Equity in Complex Systems, Oakland, CA
A two-day in-person institute that applies a complexity perspective to equity leadership and change work.
Institute Schedule: Thursday, March 20 – Friday, March 21, 2025 | 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Pacific
Breakfast will be served at 8:00, and the content will begin punctually at 8:45 a.m.
Lunch will be served during the one-hour break.
Institute Description:
Why do so many well-intentioned equitable efforts fail—and even have unanticipated negative outcomes? Leaders frequently expect that increasing equitable awareness and commitment in their organizations will inevitably result in success. Though vital, equality awareness work alone will not result in the desired improvements because it fails to account for the critical reality of complexity. We work with complex systems (where change is constant and uncertainty is unavoidable) with complex problems that have many “solutions” yet are difficult to achieve.
Equity issues are especially complicated, with numerous interconnected factors at play (including the long-term repercussions of systematic oppression) and no single fundamental cause. Traditional approaches to change and leadership, such as defining outcomes and timetables, listing solutions, and then focusing on implementation, are insufficient. Rather, emergent paths ahead must be discovered through dynamic interactions in which various people learn more about the challenge and do a variety of tiny acts that inform how they go forward together.
At this institute, you will:
Learn about the definition of complexity and its consequences for equity work.
Reflect on your own leadership using a complexity lens; and
Learn concepts and ways to broaden your approach to leadership and change management.
Understanding complexity, like all work toward equity, necessitates both a “window” lens (how we perceive complexity in our systems and situations) and a “mirror” lens (how complexity may both challenge us emotionally and transform our own ways of functioning). As a result, leaders of complicated equity efforts must be adept at balancing technical and relational / cultural tasks. Understanding complexity and its consequences for leadership can open up entirely new ways of addressing equity-focused change efforts. This training is based on a large body of theory, research, and practice on complexity-informed systems change, as well as the National Equity Project’s 28+ years of experience coaching and managing complex systems.
Accessibility
We provide an advance draft of our PowerPoint deck 24 hours prior to the institute. Breakfast and lunch will be served during both in-person institute days.
We are very focused in humanizing our spaces. We emphasize interaction and connection by taking frequent body pauses and attending to learning, practice, and healing in the group.
In order to create inclusive environments, we ask that participants refrain from wearing scented products such as perfume/colognes, hair products, cosmetics, and scented lotions while attending our event, as these products can cause serious health problems for those with fragrance allergies and/or chemical sensitivities. Visit the Fragrance Free Toolkit for more information on how to be fragrance free.
Registration and Payment Institute Fee: $1,200 per individual.
Limited tickets for this event are available on a sliding scale / pay what you can basis. Visit bit.ly/NEPSlidingScale to learn more about NEP’s Sliding Scale Model and how to determine what to pay.
Prior to the meeting, participants will be sent pre-reading materials and resources via email. Please add events@nationalequityproject.org to your contact list to guarantee you get course communications.
Our recommended form of registration is with a credit card via Eventbrite. We are a little (but formidable) group, and processing and collecting check payments for our events requires a significant administrative effort.
Please see our website’s registration page for details on paying by check or purchase order, as well as our cancellation and registration transfer policies.
If you have any queries, please email events@nationalequityproject.org.
