Do you know systems conveners? Are you one?

The new book from Bev and Etienne Wenger-Trayner starts:

“You may not have heard about them; what they do is rarely in their job description. You may not even be aware of what they do; they tend to act as enablers rather than taking credit or seeking the spotlight. But they are here— working on sustainable change, across challenging silos, in complex social landscapes, amid changing circumstances. We call them systems conveners.”

Let me be clear: such people have been around forever. But it takes a special kind of expertise to identify the thing and, as they say, shine a light on it.

As the person who named communities of practice, and associated concepts like legitimate peripheral participant, Etienne Wenger-Trayner is uniquely good at this; many of the interviewees have been in tears of gratitude at being recognised.

Systems conveners are deeply…