Staying curious after the Upstream Retreat
An incredible group of change agents.
An urban farm focused on restoring the soil and nurturing community.
Two days and one beautiful dinner together.
Two fun and determined facilitators.
Over twenty open minds and a handful of friendly disagreements.
Some big questions and a range of options about the way forward.
And more butchers’ paper full of notes than we’ve seen before….
These were the ingredients that shaped The Next Economy’s Heading Upstream project retreat last week.
The retreat was part of a small initiative to inform how to convene conversations and act on the economic root causes of some big challenges facing Australia today.
All too often these challenges are dealt with in isolation, as if they are separate crises. Yet in many respects health inequalities, harm to the environment, educational disparities, housing distress, and so on are symptoms of an economic system not sufficiently delivering for people or for the planet. Public policy often seems to be a game of Wack-a-mole, moving from downstream response to one crisis and then the next.
The Next Economy set out to learn from people (with a proven track record of change making in their own work) how change happens in Australia and what barriers, hurdles, and power dynamics hinder change.
We wanted to get a sense of whether the amazing minds we’d invited to share their experience and perspectives also shared our sense that Australia needs to find ways, language, and tools to look at the systemic roots of the challenges many of us tend to work on in isolation.
We were keen to hear from this unique range of people what the most pressing upstream actions are and how to make them happen.
And we wanted people who might never otherwise get to chat, stroll, and eat together to have some time for open conversations and sharing perspectives.
So, what came out of it?
There are many learnings we will work our way through. We will gather the participants’ suggestions for what economic change needs to encompass. And we will reflect on how different formats and activities might be woven into a potential series of convenings in the future. We envisage these will focus on one challenge at a time whereby we gather people with different perspectives on this challenge to identify its economic roots (and interconnections to other challenges). We will hold our initial plans lightly and be open to different scenarios as we build the next phase of the project.
As we do so, what is clear to us is that the group we’d assembled are keen to find ways to address economic root causes.
There was some convergence about the importance of changing how the economy is framed, discussed and questioned in Australia. In other words, they want to go upstream to the mindset level.
This is great because without change in mindsets, all the progress and policy wins that can be eked out will be vulnerable to push back and resistance. Policy and practice change is what will make a difference to people’s material circumstances. But without the bigger shifts in how people – not least, but not only policy makers – think about the economy, the conversations risk remaining stuck on making Band Aids responses better.
That links to another message we heard: people are keen to learn more about how to speak about economic system change. What metaphors cut through? What ideas and frames resonate with different audiences? What types of evidence is useful in supporting arguments and what messengers will various groups find compelling?
The different groups, sectors, and personalities in the room reflected the sort of ecosystem needed for the big shifts needed (though we missed some folks and perspectives sadly). Not only does the economy need to be reframed, the work of pioneers that show what is possible needs to be legitimised so others are inspired themselves and policy makers change the rules of the game to be more supportive of activities in line with what people and planet need. Similarly, the changes in policies that have potential to make the economy serve the needs of people and planet need to be embedded, protected and expanded. Finally, a broader base of support needs to be built, beyond helpful opinion polls (of which there are many) to active engagement. A national conversation about what sort of country we want to be is part of that, as is learning from communities who bear the brunt of the current economic system to appreciate their priorities and build pathways forward together. This will entail new partnerships, new friendships, and new approaches.
No single person or even organisation can do this all on their own. So one of the final discussions was about how the various pieces of that ecosystem can be supported, connected, amplified and backed up. And back each other up. The Next Economy is excited to play our role in this, alongside others who bring what we can’t, but who share our goal of an economy that better serves people and planet.
With thanks to the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation for their support for this initiative.
