Holding Change The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation

Holding Change is part of the Emergent Strategy Series.

In our complex world, facilitation and mediation skills are as important for individuals as they are for organizations. How do we practice them in ways that align with nature, with pleasure, with our best imagining of our future? How do we attend to generating the ease necessary to help us move through the inevitable struggles of life? How do we practice the art of holding others without losing ourselves? Black feminists have answers to those questions that can serve anyone working to create changes in our world, changes great and small; individually, interpersonally, and within our organizations.

Holding Change is about attending to coordination, to conflict, to being humans in right relationship with each other, not as a constant ongoing state, but rather as a magnificent, mysterious, ever-evolving dynamic in which we must involve ourselves, shape ourselves and each other. The majority of the book is sourced from brown’s twenty-plus years of facilitation and mediation work with movement groups.

Includes contributions by Autumn Brown, Sage Crump, Malkia Devich-Cyril, Ejeris Dixon, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Prentis Hemphill, Micky ScottBey Jones, N’Tanya Lee, and Makani Themba

Praise for Holding Change

“adrienne maree brown is powerful both as a healer and as a thought leader. Her revelatory work, Holding Change, arrives at the intersection of activism and whole-wellness, at a time when the world needs it most. Holding Change is about improved communication, achieving conflict resolution, and making space for others while still holding one’s self in high regard. A necessary and mighty tool.”
—Patrisse Khan Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter and NYT bestselling author of When they Call You a Terrorist

“adrienne maree brown is not an outsider looking into movement work but a weaver who has committed her life to our collective liberation ... She helped us advance our structure, systems, and vision in ways that allowed us to stay grounded in our north star. She is a master adapter and a gift to the movement.”
—Karissa Lewis, Rising Majority

“Adrienne is the most powerful, insightful facilitator I have ever had the privilege to witness, let alone work with ... Her technique is a powerful demonstration of how strong, innovative facilitation has the ability to help leaders build visionary movements.”
—Thenjiwe McHarris, Blackbird and Movement for Black Lives

"Holding Change is the kind of wise resource book I wish so very badly that I had when I was free and organizing.... brown is both pragmatic and compassionate in her advice, recognizing that a broken system breaks people and that we can only do the work that is needed as the people we are. That maybe we can both get to our destination of a better world together and learn to be better to each other as part of the same process."
—Marius Mason, political prisoner

adrienne maree brown is a writer rooted in Detroit who now lives in Durham, NC. She is a student of the works of Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin. Some of her books include Octavia’s Brood, Pleasure Activism, and We Will Not Cancel Us. Her visionary fiction has appeared in The Funambulist, Harvard Design Review, Dark Mountain, and YES! Magazine.