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Changemakers’ Handbook with Elena Bondareva: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Elena Bondareva
Your front-row seat to PhD findings into change-making and no-holds-barred insight into my experience across 6 continents. Join me in fueling dialogue on the why, the how, the how not to, and the personal toll of creating regenerative transformation. changemakershandbook.substack.com
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- 1 weeks ago15 min
Can changemaking be taught?
Approximately 70% of transformational efforts fail. We often blame strategy, leadership, culture, funding, politics, or bad luck. Increasingly, my research suggests another explanation: we have never treated changemaking as a profession.Architects, teachers, engineers, surgeons, firefighters, pilots, and musicians all develop explicit competencies. We expect them to practise, improve, receive feedback, and continue learning throughout their careers. Changemakers, by contrast, are largely expected to figure it out as they go.That has left generations of extraordinary people underprepared, unsupported, and far more dependent on talent and perseverance than any serious profession should tolerate.One of the central questions driving my PhD is deceptively simple: if changemaking is a profession, what are its competencies? This post offers an early answer.If you listened to my Q2 Field Notes (LINK: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/field-notes-on-changemaking-q2-2026?r=1i4aw7), you'll recognize this as one of the biggest shifts in my thinking. Increasingly, I suspect that successful transformation depends not only on good methods but on the abilities of changemakers. If that's true, understanding the competencies they can develop becomes just as important as understanding the tools they use.While my recent writing has focused on the predispositions that may draw someone toward changemaking, today's post turns to a different question: once someone is drawn to this work, what can they deliberately learn to become most effective?Changemakers have largely learned through improvisation. We apprentice ourselves to problems, borrow techniques from adjacent professions, accumulate scars, and hope that experience eventually resembles expertise. No mature profession would deem that sufficient.If we can articulate the competencies of changemaking, we can begin to do what every mature profession eventually learns to do:* recruit people whose natural predispositions fit the work,* develop them intentionally rather than accidentally,* coach them through increasingly complex challenges,* recognize excellence,* and sustain meaningful impact over an entire career.My research suggests 9 core and 6 situational competencies.While most of the competencies below emerge from my own research and practice, they are also informed by the work of others who have shaped my thinking. In particular, futurist Bob Johansen's work on future leadership skills has influenced several of the situational competencies, including dilemma flipping, bio-engaging, human calming, and what he calls "smart-mob swarming." His work has been an important companion as I develop a competency framework specifically for changemakers.LINK TO BIO: www.iftf.org/people/bob-johansen/LINK TO BOOK: https://www.iftf.org/insights/navigating-the-age-of-chaos-a-sense-making-guide-to-a-bani-world-that-doesnt-make-sense/The 9 Core Competencies of ChangemakersThese are the competencies all effective changemakers demonstrate. Some emerge naturally. Others require years of deliberate practice. Together, they form the professional foundation of changemaking.* Curiosity — Embracing uncertainty; actively seeking and enjoying new perspectives and experiences.* Systems Thinking — Building on the predisposition of systems sensitivity, this competency involves analysing interdependence, feedback loops, leverage points, and unintended consequences in order to design more effective interventions. Detailed in my earlier post: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/want-to-change-the-world-master-systems?r=1i4aw7* Empathy — Understanding and responding to the lived experience of others when designing and leading change.* Strategy — Stripped of rigidity, effectively coordinating action across all spheres of influence. Related to Bob Johansen's concept of "clarity."* Facilitation & Collaboration — With humility and vulnerability, guiding groups toward possibility that is unlocked through cooperation.* Intentionality — Tr
- 3 weeks ago22 min
Field Notes on Changemaking (Q2 2026)
In this second installment of Field Notes on Changemaking, I again step back after a quarter of essays and conversations to reflect, synthesize, and help build shared memory for an emerging profession.These field notes serve two purposes. First, they provide an overview of the content generated during the quarter, helping you decide what source material is most worth your time.Second, they offer my reflection across that material to identify emerging patterns, refine working hypotheses, pose the next set of questions, and invite you to shape the coming quarter of inquiry.One unexpected gift of writing these notes is that they force me to examine not only what I published, but how my own thinking has changed.What has changed in how I understand changemaking?LINK to Notes from Q1: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/field-notes-on-changemaking-q1-2026?r=1i4aw7Q1 ended with eight questions that I believed would shape the next phase of my work. They remain the living research agenda behind The Changemaker’s Handbook, my doctoral research, and the conversations within this growing global community.* What builds legitimacy at scale?* Can we create transformation without social movements?* How does power actually move?* How do we design for impact—not merely moral correctness or agreement?* Why do changemakers continue to serve, against all odds?* What would it mean to professionalize changemaking without flattening it?* How do we build the infrastructure this emerging profession lacks?* And how do we reduce the unequal cost of change?Q2 certainly advanced some of those questions. More surprisingly, it reorganized them.Regardless of whether I was speaking with Dr. Laura Mae Lindo about public service, Dr. Whitney Austin Gray about public health, Andrew MacLeod about trafficking and institutional courage, Dr. Dominique Hes about regenerative design and story, or reflecting on gender, mothering, fathering, and invisible work, I found myself pulled further upstream.Questions about legitimacy became questions about trust, standards, and story. Questions about social movements became questions about adoption. Questions about power became questions about relationships, institutions, and narrative. Even my longstanding interest in transformation infrastructure began to feel incomplete. Infrastructure, I realized, is itself dependent on something more fundamental: the conditions under which it can emerge, be maintained, and ultimately become ordinary.Rather than asking how we create change, these conversations probed what makes change possible. If we better understand the conditions that allow transformation to spark, spread, and endure, perhaps legitimacy, adoption, professionalization, and even power become more intelligible as consequences rather than starting points.That, I now believe, was the central discovery of the quarter. Q1 questions were pointing toward a more fundamental one.The quarter in reviewThe quarter opened with a milestone in my doctoral research into changemaking: three essays that captured some of my findings. What are changemakers for? Are all people changemakers? and How can we recognize one — or know that we’re “it”? introduce the function changemakers serve in society, the six attributes they appear to share, and why the world benefits from a diversity of contribution — not merely a diversity of people.LINK: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs?r=1i4aw7LINK: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/most-people-are-not-changemakers?r=1i4aw7LINK: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/what-are-changemakers-for?r=1i4aw7I also revisited the origin story of my own work. Rather than recounting a biography, Why I Care explores why I have spent two decades trying to professionalize changemaking, and what experiences convinced me that the world needed better transformation infrastructure.LINK: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/why-i-care-10e?r=1i4aw7For Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, I stepped outside my usua
- Jun 28, 202654 min
Beyond solutions — our story problem: Interview with Dr. Dominique Hes
I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Dominique Hes — regenerative design pioneer, educator, co-author of Designing for Hope, and one of the biggest influences on my own thinking over the past two decades.“We have become very good at changing the stuff. We have paid far less attention to changing the story.” — Dr. Dominique HesThat distinction (and how it came to matter to Dominique) framed almost everything we discussed.For years, Dominique has worked across science, engineering, architecture, and regenerative development. Yet she increasingly believes that:Our greatest challenges are no longer technical. They are narrative. Because economics is a story. Planning is a story. And so is law. organizations. and markets. Even many of the systems we experience as fixed are, ultimately, stories we collectively agreed to live inside.Stories are infrastructure.That conversation led somewhere neither of us expected: the regenerative brain. The possibility that our collective excellence in analytical, literate, reductionist thinking has left us less practiced at noticing, relationships, presence, and seeing wholes.Perhaps regeneration requires a different way of paying attention.“Listen with the intent to learn.” — Dr. Dominique HesListen not to reply, persuade, or defend, but to understand. That feels rare. And vital.Another lovely moment came from me asking Dominique, What kind of changemaker do you consider yourself to be?“I’m mycelium.” — Dr. Dominique HesNot a profession. Invisible infrastructure in healthy forests. Connecting ideas, people, and places. Moving nutrients where they are needed. It struck me because invisible work was one of the themes of my Field Notes for Q1 2026. Perhaps some of the most important changemaking resembles mycelium far more than the visible leadership we tend to celebrate.Nature on the BoardWe also explored one of Dominique’s newest experiments: serving as the Voice of Nature on the board of Regen Melbourne. Not symbolically. Practically. She reads every board paper twice: once as Dominique (the left-hand page in her notebook) and then again as Nature (the right-hand page). Her description of the moments when the two disagree—and how that practice has changed the board’s governance — was one of the most thought-provoking parts of our conversation.What is hope?We finished on hope, which is in the title of Dominique’s book and at the heart of her work. Not hope as optimism, but hope as a practice of contribution, one relationship at a time.If you’ve been following the recent conversations here — from Laura Mae Lindo, Whitney Austin Gray, Andrew MacLeod, and now Dominique Hes — you may notice a thread emerging. Again and again, the work comes back to the same question:How do we create the conditions in which better futures become not merely imaginable — but normal?Dominique’s answer is both deceptively simple and profoundly challenging:Perhaps to expand what is possible, we must change our stories.References* Designing for Hope (2015) by Dr. Dominique Hes & Dr. Chrisna du Plessis: https://www.booktopia.com.au/designing-for-hope-dominique-hes/book/9781763874909.html?srsltid=AfmBOor4mU4litT-1fW7VPrEDuHkx_CPiZ2G5tqNjOQq8isD1fYkTstd* Mycelium Seed, Dominique’s Substack: https://myceliumseed.substack.com* Regen Melbourne: Nature on the Board https://regen.melbourne/gazette/dominique-hes-nature-on-the-board* Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth (2015) by David Korten. https://www.amazon.com/Change-Story-Future-Living-Economy/dp/1626562903* Right Story, Wrong Story (2023) by Tyson Yunkaporta. https://www.amazon.com/Right-Story-Wrong-Tyson-Yunkaporta/dp/1922790958▶️ Watch or listen to Changemakers Handbook on Substack, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/changemakers-handbook-with-elena-bondareva/id1828981728<a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4MGxEQM72DhSvpURHo7IQS?si=e6cef2
- Jun 20, 20268 min
What are fathers for?
I thought that writing something that went beyond biology and stereotypes for Mothers’ Day was hard. Then I started thinking about fathering.For Mother’s Day, I found myself writing about mothering as a choice: a way of caring for what is vulnerable. It felt surprisingly coherent. Fatherhood felt different. More contested. More uneven. More shaped by personal experience.What are fathers for?In a moment when many men seem increasingly uncertain about masculinity, fatherhood, and their place in society, I wasn’t sure I knew how to answer. Partly because my own experience refuses to fit neatly into any story I know how to tell.So I asked my audience:What is something a father or father figure gave you that would have been difficult to receive elsewhere?More than fifty responses arrived from around the world.Some people answered immediately. Others took days. A surprising number struggled to answer at all, and that, too, felt significant.One person responded:“A longing for a father… If I had my father, I wouldn’t long for one in others.”Another wrote:“There is something uniquely painful about being hurt the most by the person who was supposed to love you the most.Whatever fathering is, people seem to notice both its presence and its absence.Your answers were remarkably variedSome named values:“Integrity. Work ethic.” — Sujatha“Humility.” — Jeff“Patience.” — Rick“Counsel.” — Jim“Compassion.” — Alex“High standards as a man, father, leader.” — H.G."Discipline." - GuntherOthers described confidence:“Belief — my Dad always believed in me, sometimes when I didn’t.” — Davina“Confidence in life.” — Mukt“Confidence in my abilities.” — AndreaOne respondent described learning to build and repair almost anything alongside her father before concluding:“That confidence in turn birthed resilience.”Others spoke about safety:“A safe place. Acceptance. Reassurance. Rescue.” — Sara“The space to make my own decisions (and mistakes) without fear of judgement... the room to grow.” — Anthony“Security.” — Nick, Jennifer“A grounding presence.” — Paul“Unconditional support and always a safe place to land.” — Lynn“Unconditional love and support in all my decisions, even the ones he disagreed with.” — EricOne surprising answer stayed with me:“To know what it feels like to be delighted in.” — TiffanyInterestingly, this question is attracting attention far beyond my inbox. Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent) has just interviewed the author of the new book Dad Brain, exploring the growing body of research on how fatherhood changes men’s brains and behavior.Who fathers us?What struck me was not just the variety of answers, but who people were talking about. Fathers, certainly. But also grandfathers. Professors. Mentors. Advisors. Stepfathers. Coaches. People who were not necessarily related to them at all.One responded opened with,“I don’t think these things are inherently masculine.”He then proceeded to describe a grandfather who taught him generosity, courage, emotional openness, humor, advocacy, and how to love with his whole heart. That response helped clarify something for me. Perhaps fathering is less about who performs it than what is contributed.Our parenting norms aren’t universalNature itself seems remarkably unconcerned with our assumptions. Male seahorses carry pregnancies. Emu fathers incubate eggs and raise chicks. Across the animal kingdom, parenting responsibilities are distributed in countless ways.Perhaps humans are not so different.Perhaps fathering is not a category of person but a category of care.Again and again, people described fathering as modeling a way of being in the world. Sometimes that meant trust in themselves: confidence, self-reliance, resilience, ambition, a sense of worth or the room to grow. Sometimes it meant trust in how the world works: how to build, fix, compete, endure, recover, or make sense of things. And sometimes it meant trust in how to participate with integrity: how to love, how to treat others, how to stay calm, how to stand for something, how to be strong without becoming hard.And perhaps the strongest evidence that it matters is that people notice when it is there — and when it is not.So this Father’s Day, consider thanking or honoring the father figures who helped you trust yourself a little more, understand the world a little better, and participate in it a little more wisely.And to every single person who chooses to father the world: Happy Father’s Day! May you know that your care mattered, often in ways you
- Jun 11, 20268 min
Why I Care
Almost two years ago, I published a piece called Why I Care.Change-maker’s Handbook (the book) came out in late 2023. I was starting to mine my twenty years of changemaking experience for patterns and lessons that may benefit others, interviewing practitioners, and shaping my PhD research. Re-reading this piece now, I am struck by how many of the themes that would later emerge in my research were already present within it — not as theory or findings, but as lived experience.Most of you would have never seen this essay, so I thought I would share it again. After the original piece, I’d like to tell you what I now see differently._ _ _Why I Care (2024)The baby in the photo, I was born and raised in Moscow. Now Russia, then the traumatically imploding Soviet Union and the West’s sandbox for crude experimentation in forging a democracy and a market economy from scratch. Unlike many other countries — including those of the former Soviet Union — Russia had no history of either. This was like teaching a child to swim by throwing them into the deep end: there was no muscle memory to trigger.Raised by two university professors and a veteran of one of WWII’s all-female front-line battalions, I witnessed what it meant to strip a society of its value system without meaningfully replacing it. Once-respected professionals, my mom and dad were now paid in towel fabric, plates, and promises because anybody who relied on the government was, well, instantaneously overboard without a life raft. Surgeons, police officers, and scientists were bartering on street corners. In shame, nobody was making eye contact.I was not yet seven when I — clad in layers that kept us somewhat warm via sheer bulk, not smarts — first held my parents’ spot in lines for bread, sugar, or butter in the pitch black of winter mornings. Those were, indeed, separate lines with none of the efficiency of Western food banks.As it relegated people to shuffling huddles, I looked Need in the eye before I could recognize its power over everybody in my world.It would be years before I understood the meaning of eating pancakes for dinner every night of the week. By the age of eleven or twelve, I was responsible for growing (often to be canned) our annual supply of vegetables, fruit, and berries during the summer. I still can’t throw food away.At school, we routinely sat for hours on end without teachers, who were forced out into the fickle market economy to make ends meet. There were no extracurricular activities. Playgrounds got dismembered for parts. All the parents were so preoccupied with surviving that as children, we were raising ourselves.I remember acknowledging that change was non-negotiable. Still, I knew in my gut that it need not callously decimate people’s lives. Before even hitting my teens, I remember the Moscow intersection where I first committed to finding better ways to do it; ways that did not pull the rug from under people’s feet; ways that protected the environment as well as human dignity; ways that reinvigorated rather than decimated; that unlocked possibility rather than entrenched despair.My postgraduate research at Cornell University allowed me to delve into broad-spectrum change, and I have not stopped since.I was in my 20s when, on a flight, I first wrote down my purpose, “To mobilize people to imagine and create realities far better than they have experienced.”Curiously, this has not changed for me. I don’t know if this is atypical. I accept that one’s purpose may change with time, and I wish we knew more about this; one of my standing invitation for social sciences research.Even if it took me years to see it clearly, my purpose has been my compass for over three decades.May I suggest that you have a lot to gain and nothing to lose by giving a go at distilling yours. Section 1 of my book, Change-maker’s Handbook, focuses on purpose and can guide you. It may mean all the difference in the impact and contentment you experience as a changemaker, and I would love to hear from you whether it does! https://open.substack.com/pub/changemakershandbook/p/playlist-purpose-is-fuel-for-changemaking?r=1i4aw7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web_ _ _When I wrote this piece, I was trying to explain myself and my commitment to better equip changemakers for their vital work. Today, I find myself asking a different question. Not why I care but
- May 31, 20269 min
What are changemakers for?
I have repeatedly spoken and written about purpose.Across earlier posts, I have argued that purpose is fuel for changemaking; explored the idea that each of us possesses gifts, experiences, and motivations that point toward particular forms of contribution; and written about superpowers, mandates, and the strange experience of feeling repeatedly drawn toward work that is neither convenient nor obviously rewarded.Those ideas remain central to my thinking. Yet the deeper I go into this work, the more they seem to point toward another question entirely: What are changemakers for?This may sound obvious, odd, or both. We tend to think of changemakers as individuals with causes, ideas, wounds, gifts, convictions, and projects. We ask what drives them, what problems they are solving, and how we can help.All useful questions.But if changemakers are real — more than a corporate buzzword or aspirational LinkedIn identity, but as people predisposed toward transformation — then another question becomes unavoidable.Why do changemakers exist?Across countries, sectors, professions, ideologies, and generations, some people seem persistently drawn to changemaking. They notice problems others normalize. They imagine alternatives others dismiss. They struggle to disengage from harms they did not create. They continue engaging long after exhaustion, cynicism, self-interest, or social pressure would have persuaded many others to stop.Not all changemakers agree. Not all succeed. Not all are even pursuing the same future. Still, they are everywhere.What if societies require transformation in the same way they require continuity?What if human communities need people who are unusually sensitive to unrealized possibility? People who repeatedly question inevitability. People who become uncomfortable when preventable harm is normalized. People willing to move toward uncertainty in pursuit of a future that does not yet exist.Goodness knows we need them now.Perhaps we always have — whether anybody, changemakers included — recognized the function clearly or not.Human beings are astonishingly capable of normalizing the unbearable. We adapt to institutions that degrade us, incentives that distort reason, technologies that outpace our ethics, economies that drain us, and narratives that shrink our hopes.This capacity to adapt can protect us. But at times, it can also trap us. Changemakers, at their best, disrupt that trap.They are not the whole answer. They are not saviors. They are not automatically wise, ethical, effective, or right. But they may perform a necessary function inside human systems: noticing where reality no longer fits the frame, where harm has been normalized, where possibility has been declared impossible too soon.Studying changemakers reminds me of immune systemsHealthy immune systems do not dominate the body. They detect threats, respond to harm, support repair, and help living organisms survive what might otherwise overwhelm them.Without an immune system, the body becomes dangerously vulnerable. With an overactive or misdirected one, the body can self-sabotage. This feels increasingly useful to me as a metaphor for changemakers.A society without changemakers would likely struggle to adapt. A society composed entirely of changemakers would likely implode.The work, then, is not to romanticize changemakers. Nor is it to dilute, silence, or punish them for picking at what others would rather leave alone. The work is to understand what function they perform, what conditions allow that function to become regenerative rather than destructive, and what kinds of support, ethics, relationships, competencies, and institutions might help changemakers serve transformation well.This matters because changemakers are often treated as anomalies. Too disruptive. Too intense. Too idealistic. Too impatient. Too difficult. Too unwilling to accept “that’s just how things are.”Sometimes, all of that is fair.Yet perhaps some of what makes changemakers difficult is inseparable from what makes them useful. The person who cannot stop asking whether the system is solving the wrong problem may prevent pseudo-consensus. The person who balks at existing constraints may chip away until unrealized possibility comes into view. The person who feels responsible for harms they did not create may help an entire society take responsibility.Without changemakers, many necessary transformations may never happen. Purpose, in this sense, is not only personal. It is ecological.The question is not simply, What gives my life meaning? It may also be, What kind of contribution does the world seem to need of me?Changemakers’ contribution seems to be helping systems change before
- May 22, 20267 min
Most people are not changemakers
Modern “change” culture may create an impression that those oriented toward continuity, care, craft, mastery, preservation, relationship, beauty, stability, or stewardship are somehow less vital — or even less committed to humanity’s future — than those oriented toward disruption and reinvention.I do not believe this for a second.In fact, the more I practice changemaking, the more reverence I feel for people whose primary contribution to the world may not be transformation at all. My last post introduced the 6 attributes of changemakers. Now, I turn to the people whose contributions let changemakers do their thing. Theirs is not secondary work. It is civilization.I am increasingly aware that my changemaking has been made possible by countless people who are probably not changemakers themselves.The teachers who honed my potential. The people who ensured my scholarships were credited correctly to my university tuition accounts. Those who made sure I ate something wholesome. The friends who tethered me back to reality when I became a hot air balloon buoyed too far upward by causes and ideas.I owe everything I have accomplished — and likely much of what I still will — to people who built the roads I travel on, ensured fresh water and air, grew my food, tended to my health, and created art that kept weaving me back into humanity while I wrestled with how it might need to change.What studying changemakers has shown me* Changemaking is real. Not merely as a buzzword or aspirational personal brand, but as a recognizable practice of transformation.* Some individuals — I refer to them as changemakers — appear uniquely predisposed toward changemaking. They persistently ask: Why is it like this? Why do we accept this? Could this work differently? What would it take to change it? Goodness knows we need people willing to question inevitability, challenge harmful systems, imagine and build alternatives, and continue long after exhaustion, cynicism, self-interest, or social pressure would convince many others to stop. For more, see my last post: https://changemakershandbook.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-change-maker-signs* Our future equally depends on the people whose contributions take entirely different forms. I have become equally convinced that changemakers depend on people oriented toward many other equally vital forms of human contribution.* Importantly, changemakers do not have exclusive dibs on creating change. Nor does it mean that changemakers cannot care deeply about continuity, ethics, beauty, relationship, or stewardship.The more I study changemakers, the more I think of them as something like a society’s immune system.At their best, changemakers help societies detect harm, aim higher, adapt, and regenerate. At their worst, they are destabilizing, reckless, and destructive.Weak immune systems are dangerous, but so are overactive ones. Left entirely to themselves, changemakers might redesign civilization incessantly. Some of those redesigns would be extraordinary. Some would be catastrophic. All would be exhausting.Human flourishing has probably always depended on many different forms of devotion existing alongside one another.Which may be one reason changemakers need not only to hone their own strengths, but to cherish the countless contributions that keep us alive, connected, nourished, honest, safe, or sane long enough to do our thing at all.A future worth building takes bothPerhaps maturity — especially for changemakers — involves finally recognizing that people who do not share our particular fixation on transformation are not necessarily barriers to the future we want. They may be part of the reason we survive long enough to build it.Are you a changemaker?I have been building a survey (stay tuned) to help explore that question, based on six recurring attributes my research increasingly points toward, to better understand one particular orientation toward change — and how it exists alongside many other equally vital forms of human contribution._ _ _Changemakers’ Handbook is an audience-supported publication focused on professionalizing changemaking in a post-solutions world. Consider subscribing to join future live conversations and to access all posts.Image credit: Eleanor Smith from <a target="_blank" href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referr
- May 14, 202616 min
Are you a changemaker? Signs, habits, and habitat of the people who can’t seem to leave the world alone
Have you ever wondered if something is wrong with you?If you feel responsible for problems you did not create, see possibilities others miss, and find it difficult to stay passive in the face of systemic harm, you may be a changemaker. Not in the influencer sense or as branding, but as your orientation toward transformation. And changemakers may be among society’s most important — and least supported — resources.Across more than 20 years of research and practice in transformation across six continents, I have observed that some people appear consistently drawn toward systemic change efforts regardless of sector, profession, ideology, or geography.While their personalities vary dramatically, they can be strikingly similar in how they relate to responsibility, uncertainty, systems, and action.Importantly, predispositions are not the same as competencies. Predispositions may explain why some people repeatedly engage in changemaking. Competencies determine how effective they are.My current research suggests that changemakers frequently exhibit six recurring predispositions:The signs1. Responsibility beyond causationChangemakers often experience unresolved social, institutional, or environmental harm as psychologically difficult to ignore — even when they did not personally create the problem. Many describe that once they become aware of systemic harm, they “cannot look away.” Guilt for all that goes unresolved is the surest tell you’ve spotted a changemaker in the wild.2. Possibility orientationChangemakers see possibilities others miss. They glimpse plausible futures where today’s impossibilities become ordinary reality. They imagine scenarios in which today’s harms, constraints, and institutional logic no longer hold — and often detect pathways others dismiss as unrealistic, premature, or impossible.3. Expanded scope of concernChangemakers often struggle to “stay in their lane” when systemic problems affect communities, ecosystems, or future generations. Such problems feel like their responsibility regardless of institutional, professional, and social boundaries. This does not necessarily reflect rebellion. Rather, many instinctively recognize that complex problems cross such boundaries.4. Agency orientationPassive observation rarely feels like an option. Even when risks are substantial and success uncertain, changemakers often feel compelled to intervene rather than remain spectators.5. High tolerance for uncertaintyTransformation is uncertain, nonlinear, and difficult to control. Changemakers often continue acting despite ambiguity, delayed feedback, contradiction, and incomplete information. Many also learn to navigate tensions that cannot be fully resolved: hope alongside realism, action alongside humility, strategy alongside adaptation.6. Systems sensitivityChangemakers frequently perceive relationships that others experience as separate. They notice patterns, interdependencies, contradictions, incentives, and unintended consequences across social, technological, institutional, economic, and ecological systems. Long before formal systems thinking language enters the picture, many changemakers appear instinctively attentive to interconnectedness across problems, interventions, and outcomes.WARNING: If you — or someone you know — consistently exhibits these signs, you may be a changemaker. This makes you part of one of society’s most important — and structurally under-supported — populations.Ecological functionOur work — remaking the world for the better — sure is cut out for us.For centuries, changemaking happened through improvision. Consequently, its impact has been haphazard. The unlikely upside of nearly assured self-destruction. An incidental byproduct rather than an outcome of intentional effort.Thankfully, changemakers are adaptable, creative, versatile, relentless, and many.Misunderstood, under-equipped, chronically unsupported, occasionally vilivied — and somehow still showing up.Imagine what becomes possible once we stop treating changemaking as accidental heroism and start treating it as a human capability worthy of cultivation.The dangersAs changemakers, we navigate major fault lines.* Loneliness. Many changemakers — and I have asked hundreds worldwide — feel alone. When most people can’t understand why we care — why you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders — it can be isolating.* Shame. If guilt is brutal, shame is cruel. Unlike guilt, which at least picks on behavior, shame concludes that you — at your core — are no good. Dr. Brené Brown is a
About Changemakers’ Handbook with Elena Bondareva
Your front-row seat to PhD findings into change-making and no-holds-barred insight into my experience across 6 continents. Join me in fueling dialogue on the why, the how, the how not to, and the personal toll of creating regenerative transformation. changemakershandbook.substack.com
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