I interviewed Marilyn Darling and Heidi Sparkes Guber just as the COVID-19 crisis was beginning to take on global proportions. Marilyn and Heidi are the founders of Fourth Quadrant Partners, an organization that works to create sustainable social change through emergent learning.  Their work pulls from decades of research working with groups as diverse as school districts and the U.S. Army.

I was deeply moved by this conversation because of how well it articulated something that I have come to understand in a tacit way: when it comes to learning or community building you have to engage people around what really matters to them.  Often, just discovering this, is a learning process in itself.  The genius of Marilyn and Heidi’s work is the way they’ve distilled a very specific approach to working with, learning from, and mobilizing action through inquiry.

Their work revolves around leading communities through an iterative process that returns learning to the system.  It’s powerful because it builds on itself through real world activity.  It isn’t conceptual.  It’s practical, evidence based, and highly emergent.

I found the tools and strategies shared in this conversation to be extremely useful.  In my line of work, I am constantly bringing people together and guiding conversations.  This interview gave me insight into the mechanics of a powerful conversational learning process that can be used across a wide variety of applications to facilitate meaningful change.

If you’ve ever participated in a learning experience and dropped out or delivered a learning experience and had people drop out – this conversation will help you understand why.  And if you’ve ever wanted to mobilize a group of people towards some greater purpose – this conversation will show you how.

Please enjoy.