Change making

Reflections from the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation National Changemaker Gathering, June 2025.

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By Kim Deans

I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to be part of a gathering of 47 changemakers who travelled to gather in Cairns from all parts of this vast country[1]. The energy in the room was one of excited anticipation. The feeling you get when people are excited to be there, amongst likeminded rural people who want to make a difference in their world. I heard someone say as we arrived how much it meant to them to be in a room where people say “yes and” instead of “yes but”.

Rural Australia is a small place despite its vast size, and it was fascinating to discover surprising connections with the others in the room. Geographical connections, human connections and many conversations with people passionate about regenerative agriculture.

As expected, bringing passionate rural changemakers and some excellent facilitators together for three days created fertile conditions for learning, networking and skill building. These three days of experiential, transformational learning deepened and extended on the concepts we covered in the regional Changemaker workshops. I didn’t come home with a head full of theory and information. I came home with a head full of possibilities, a heart full of hope and hands ready to take some new actions in my work and life. 

Experiential learning takes time to integrate and can be hard to put it into words.  These reflections are the insights I experienced rather than a summary of information learned. We don’t need more information to make change happen; we are so overwhelmed with information!  

Introduction to Country

We experienced an outstanding Welcome to Country from indigenous cultural group Minjil, shared in the spirit of an educational introduction to Gimuy (Cairns) the homelands of the Yidinydji people. This was a beautiful way to set the scene for what was to come.

Listening

We practiced deep listening for transformation and experienced processes where the listener shifts out of meeting their own needs and focuses on being fully present to hear what is being shared in a spirit of discovery.  This reminded me of how it felt being coached by teachers and students when I was completing coaching training.  

When I experience being listened to with presence and curiosity, my capacity to shift out of listening to respond becomes greater. I can see why this is an essential coaching skill and this was great timing in anticipation of beginning a series of ICF mentor coaching sessions to continue the practice of listening for transformation.

This has reinforced for me how we deepen our listening skills by practicing listening. It is a practice that we learn by doing. Just like learning to drive. We can’t learn to drive by watching someone drive or being driven around. We can only learn to drive by driving the car. Listening is the foundation of our coaching skills so I have also been contemplated how we can’t learn to coach by reading about coaching, watching coaching or being coached. The only way to learn to coach is by coaching. 

The adaptive cycle

We explored the adaptive cycle, where systems move through phases of growth, maturity, collapse and renewal.  I love how the adaptive cycle applies equally in ecosystems and human systems; we are nature after all.  Spatially and physically walking through the adaptive cycle laid out on the floor highlighted to me so much more than just looking at an image of the cycle.

I felt how it can be difficult to see the phase we are in as being temporary. We often relate to the phase we are in as being permanent rather than cyclical.  When we are in a growth phase this can prevent us from noticing stagnation or collapse approaching.  When we are in collapse we don’t see the potential for renewal and new growth approaching, the opportunities within the challenges can remain hidden.

I also felt how when we are in a collapse phase, we tend to want to skip past the collapse phases as quickly as we can to avoid discomfort. We aren’t good at allowing ourselves time for the creativity that can harness the gifts inherent in the collapse phase and use these to make a better future. When we skip ahead, we are more likely to rinse and repeat more of the same.

Silence is generative

I was reminded that “silence is generative” and of the power of the pause to allow the magic that emerges when you can sit with discomfort and allow the process to unfold.

There is no one right way

I shared a tool called “Neil’s wheel” with a small group in one of the sessions.  This tool helps explore where we are and who we want to be going forwards and helps to open us up to moving beyond ourselves. Neil’s wheel is designed to be used by anyone; we can work with it ourselves or with a partner or a coach. The main emphasis when using this wheel is that there is no one right way, it is an invitation to engage with the wheel however feels right at the time.

Sharing Neil’s Wheel created the challenge of discomfort and confusion for the group when I invited them to engage with it in any way they wished and didn’t give a formula for what to do or a clear promise of what would be gained from the process.  Another opportunity for me to practice the power of the pause and be reminded of the magic that emerges when I resist the urge to rescue participants from their discomfort and allow the process to unfold.

On reflection sharing this tool has shown me how there are times to pause, listen, gather information, and learn from others. As changemakers there are also times when no one can tell us what to do or how to do it, when we need to figure things out as we go along, do what feels right and forge new paths where no one we know has been before.

Creating the future

We were introduced to futures literacy activities designed to increase optimism, create more choices and give people a sense of agency. We used tools for creating the future, including the 3 Horizons framework and the cone of plausibility where we contemplated possible, plausible, probable and preferred futures, along with a wildly possible future. 

These concepts were challenging. Through considering possibilities and preferred futures these tools revealed what we value and helped us to see different perspectives. It was great to experience these tools to highlight what we can influence now to bring to light the future we want to see. To contemplate how “the future we want exists” and how we are creating futures all the time. To experience tools that help us to make futures work more conscious and give us a language for talking about the future.

Story

Story telling was another thread that was woven through the workshop. Humans are hard wired for story. Stories are the way we think and remember and can bridge the gap between knowing and doing more effectively than facts and information. 

This passage I read in a book since I returned home sums up story telling well:

“We’ve learned that neither fear nor threat can change people’s minds or behaviour. It’s having a more enticing story – a narrative that speaks to our hearts, that describes a future we would all wish to live in, one that we all want to be invited into. Oh, I want to live in that story. Yes, I want to contribute to that future, that vision that someone just beautifully evoked in their poetry or song. That’s the world I’m motivated to give my time, resource and love to co-creating.” – Nina Simons[2]

Polarities

I valued the opportunity to expand my toolkit for working with polarities. Polarities are two opposite points of view, that we can experience as though they conflict with each other.  Many of the challenges we face in agriculture involve managing trade-offs between these types of complex, interconnected challenges. For example, monoculture and diversity, short and long term timeframes, production and ecosystem health, risk avoidance and risk taking.

When we approach polarities in terms of a problem to be fixed as though there is one right answer to choose over another, we can unintentionally create new problems.  Polarity mapping helps us to explore how we manage both opposing aspects successfully with a both/and mindset rather than either/or.

Prior to the changemaker workshop I had experienced how using polarity mapping for myself and with clients could create breakthroughs.  Exploring the benefits and the downsides of each opposing point of view and clarifying actions that maintain the positive benefits of each and identify early warnings to alert us of the downsides can help us to shift our thinking from A or B to A and B.

It was great to explore at the changemaker workshop how to use a polarity map to help communicate more effectively when working with the resistance that polarities can create in change making contexts. This is a useful skill in bringing people along on a changemaking journey, by acknowledging the benefits and risks involved in each point of view.

Sharing my insights and some information about these tools is only the beginning.  Tools for change can’t work their magic when we only read about them and leave them on the shelf for later. Tools for change are understood through using and experiencing them. We must move the tools to make a change. I am excited to see the ripple effect of these tools as I integrate them in my work.

Contact me to arrange a time for a chat about opportunities to collaborate and create a ripple effect of change making through coaching conversations, group facilitation and curated learning experiences.

[1] The National Changemaker Gathering was facilitated by the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation with support from the Australian Government Future Drought Fund.

[2] Nina Simons. “Nature, Culture & The Sacred. A Woman listens for leadership.” 2019.