In a world crying out for change, Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems is your guidebook for action. Adam Kahane, the best-selling author of Collaborating with the Enemy and a global authority on solving tough problems, delivers game-changing advice for anyone ready to make a difference.

This is a manifesto for world-changers. Drawing on decades of work with leaders from national and organizational presidents to front-line managers and grass-roots activists, Kahane distills seven potent habits that enable ordinary citizens to become extraordinary agents of transformation.

Imagine:

• Cracking open entrenched systems with simple actions
• Collaborating across deep divides to achieve the impossible
• Uncovering hidden leverage points others miss
• Persevering through setbacks with renewed purpose and energy

Through riveting real-world examples, Kahane shows how these habits have sparked revolutions, brokered peace, and reimagined societies. Now he's handing you the keys to that transformative power.

Whether you're battling climate change, reinventing healthcare, or simply trying to make your community better, this book is your essential guide. It's time to stop feeling powerless and start creating the change you want to see.

Don't just survive in a changing world—step in to transform it.

Tough problems usually don't get solved peacefully. They either don't get solved at all-they get stuck-or they get solved by force. These frustrating and frightening outcomes occur all the time. Families replay the same argument over and over, or a parent lays down the law. Organizations keep returning to a familiar crisis, or a boss decrees a new strategy. Communities split over a controversial issue, or a politician dictates the answer. Countries negotiate to a stalemate, or they go to war. Either the people involved in a problem can't agree on what the solution is, or the people with power-authority, money, guns-impose their solution on everyone else.....The way we talk and listen expresses our relationship with the world. When we fall into the trap of telling and of not listening, we close ourselves off from being changed by the world and we limit ourselves to being able to change the world only by force. But when we talk and listen with an open mind and an open heart and an open spirit, we bring forth our better selves and a better world. ---- From the Introduction

People who are trying to solve tough economic, social, or environmental problems often find themselves frustratingly stuck. They cannot solve their problems in their current context; the larger system within which they are operating is too unstable or unfair or unsustainable. They cannot transform this system on their own, or by working only with their friends or colleagues; the system is too complex to be grasped or shifted by any one person or organization or sector. And other actors whose cooperation would be necessary to transform the system don't understand or agree with or trust one another enough to work together.
This book describes a powerful new methodology for dealing with these challenges. Transformative scenario planning is a powerful way for actors from across a whole system to work together to transform that system. It is a way for them to get unstuck and to move forward on solving their tough problems.
Transformative scenario planning goes far beyond conventional, adaptive scenario planning, Often people find themselves in systems that are complex, conflictual, not working, and stuck. In such systems, people need a methodology not simply for adapting to the system but also for creating new, better futures. Transformative scenario planning is a way that people can work together with others to transform themselves and their relationships with one another, and thereby to transform their systems. In this simple and practical book, Adam Kahane explains this methodology and how to use it.

Using revealing stories from complex situations he has been involved in all over the world - the Middle East, South Africa, Europe, India, Guatemala, the Philippines, Australia, Canada and the United States - Kahane reveals how to dynamically balance power and love.

Adam Kahane spent years working in the world's hotspots, and came away with a new understanding of how to resolve conflict in a way that seems reasonable - and doable - to all parties. The result is Solving Tough Problems. Written in a relaxed, persuasive style, this is not a ""how-to"" book with glib answers, but rather, a very personal story of the author's progress from a young ""expert"" convinced of the need to provide cold, ""correct"" answers to an effective facilitator of positive change - by learning how to create environments that enable new ideas and creative solutions to emerge. The book explores the connection between individual learning and institutional change, and how leaders can move beyond politeness and formal statements, beyond routine debate and defensiveness, toward deeper and more productive dialogue. Both tough and inspiring, the book explores models, technologies, and examples that foster and facilitate ""dialogues of the heart.""