At the beginning of the year, I'm reflecting on "busyness". It's an affliction for many of us. Being busy means we don't have time for things that really matter to us or we miss important opportunities. Some organisations view busyness as a marker of leadership success. Busyness may also meet our psychological need for validation, self-worth, avoiding emotions &/or staying in control. We can make 2025 the year when, individually & collectively, we are less "busy": medtrics.org/why-do-we-alway…. By Dalia Oufi. Graphic by @lianafinck via @AdamMGrant.

Making change happen across a system of different organisations & groups is different to managing change within a single organisation. @CollaborateCIC is a great source for approaches to system change. They use the term "system activist" rather than "system leader", as mobilising for change in a system doesn't always need formal power. They say that becoming a system activist requires a fundamental change in the way we think & feel about our work & our own role in it. They suggest seven shifts that system activists make: 1) From Organisations to Outcomes: They know that collaboration beyond the boundaries of their role/organisation is needed to improve outcomes. 2) From Management to Mobilisation: They recognise that they can't rely only on the formal authority of their role & need to build informal authority to influence & generate action by others. 3) From Me to We: They know that their perspective on the challenge & its possible solutions, is partial & limited. 4) From Expert to Explorer: They navigate through uncertainty & adopt a learning approach, guiding others through that. 5) From Delivery to Co-creation: They recognise that disagreement is inevitable & have the ability to harness it productively; they distribute power & put people with lived experience at the heart of decision-making. 6) From Expectations to Agency: They recognise that the patterns, rules & behaviours that have sustained the systems’ old ways of functioning may also need to change. 7) From Head to Heart: System activists recognise that they are a part of the system they are trying to change & they need to change as much as everyone else. collaboratecic.com/insights-…. Via @annarandle