Reflections on Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems: a Collective Narrative

On Saturday, August 30, 2025, Russian-speaking readers of Adam Kahane’s book Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems: The Catalytic Power of Radical Engagement gathered virtually to reflect on their experience discussing the book during biweekly calls over the past three months and to work on questions and insights that would help Adam prepare for the upcoming session with the group hosted by Fyodor Ovchinnikov an Dmitri Makarov.

Participants’ reflections were recorded and processed using the Collective Narrative Methodology to create a balanced and coherent overview of the ideas discussed in breakout rooms while preserving participants’ own wording as much as possible.

Here is the video recording of Adam's response to this collective narrative:

COLLECTIVE NARRATIVE

Applicability Criteria and Adaptation to Different Contexts

While discussing Adam’s book, many of us said that, on the one hand, we accept and acknowledge the universality of the habits he lays out; on the other hand, some of us feel that, depending on the context, our personal subjective experience and the language we use to describe it can carry much greater weight when we are working on systems transformation. It is clear that the book was written based on many stories and feedback from people in different countries, but in the end the lessons from these stories were cast into a very American book format. Therefore we would like to ask Adam what he considers more important: to learn the universal language of his habits, or to use his book to acquire and make sense of subjective experience?

We are also interested in understanding the criteria of systems (cultures, norms, languages, institutions, etc.) to which these habits can be applied. From what Adam writes, it is clear that they should be applicable not only (and not even primarily) to the “White man’s world”; but are there any threshold criteria that determine when the habits are applicable? For example, can Habit 6 (“Collaborating with Unlike Others”) be applied under conditions of war and dictatorship, or Habit 5 (“Experimenting a Way Forward”) when the cost of error is extremely high?

Within such criteria: how can these principles be adapted to different cultures? Adam describes the actions of a systemic transformation facilitator as a universal framework, and we would like to know about translating this universal framework into a local culture: how are these universal habits translated into local contexts? How do they permeate a culture, and how important is that?

In particular, we discussed that we (a Russian-speaking group) grew up in Russia (and some of us grew up in the Soviet Union), and in our culture there is a certain, quite specific attitude toward the self-help genre that surely differs from how an American audience receives books written in this genre. In our cultural context such books are often taken as a simple manual for action rather than a invitation for deep reflection, and this dichotomy came up often in our discussions.

Continuing to Work with the Book in the Russian-Speaking Space

We also discussed how we would like to continue working with the book and with systems transformation processes—how we can implement this approach and bring it to life in practice. There was a request to organize some kind of community for further reading and practical application: to continue making sense of the book in small pieces, to read daily, to apply daily, to embed these habits and exchange experiences. We also discussed ways of further disseminating this book and this work in the Russian-speaking communities.

Some of us look at this book as an educational tool, and we clearly sense a demand for such a format. With that, we would like to know whether Adam would like to convey anything to us or to learn anything from us as a Russian-speaking group from the post-Soviet space. Can he highlight anything for our context, and does he want to articulate certain points that would be specifically relevant to us?

We are also interested to know whether there are similar examples in other groups from other spaces, and whether it is possible to connect and exchange experiences with them. The international calls Adam organized have already taken place, and some of us would like to know whether we can build more horizontal relationships with different groups of people who have read and discussed Adam’s book.

Accessibility of the Book for a Broader Audience

Some of us also asked whether this set of habits is applicable beyond activism—to ordinary people—or whether this division between “ordinary person” and “activist” is false, and the book works to dissolve this division. Some of us gave an unambiguous answer: from Adam’s book—particularly from the introduction and Habit 1 (“Acting Responsibly”)—it is clear that systems transformation is possible from a wide variety of positions, including those outside traditional activism. But there were also those who could not identify themselves with the book’s stories and felt that the idea of transforming systems was too far from the ordinary person. Has Adam himself reflected on this?

At the same time, some of us who did not often attend the discussions but read the book and followed the chat, said that the most valuable parts of the book were precisely the stories of how different people work on changing systems. Author’s commentary and recommendations related to specific “habits” (which might also be called “actionable principles”) to some of us seemed targeted at a not very advanced audience, while the discussions in the chat, by contrast, at times seemed too complex and overly abstruse for those not steeped in the theories that some participants were discussing. Nevertheless, even in this case the experience was received with gratitude, as it undoubtedly broadened horizons. In terms of practical work on change, at least for some of us, specific examples—real-life stories—were the most valuable.

Some of us noted that such discussions and such work attract certain kinds of people, which makes the book’s core audience fairly homogeneous. Although our group generally brought together very different people, the most active participants were mostly those already engaged in systems transformation—those who had already chosen the path of radical engagement, rather than accepting their own powerlessness in the face of a system that seems like an inevitable given. We asked how to extend this work to other groups of people who differ from those who usually come to such discussions. Can we build more bridges?

The Ethics of Power and the Limits of Tolerance in Systems Transformation

While discussing generative systems change, we also raised the question of manipulation. Often participants in a change process may merely imitate a desire to improve the system as a whole, in reality carrying out various manipulations in the interest of their own group. In particular, we discussed “Wikipedia wars,” when each side tries to insert its own representations into Wikipedia, thus changing the public narrative while undermining trust in Wikipedia as a source.

In one of his early books, Power and Love, Adam says that we must be guided by both, but then the question arises: who, and in what situations, should exercise power? As facilitators of systemic change, should we be neutral toward the interactions of different actors, or must we exercise power to counter manipulation in certain situations?

If we say that we should collaborate with unlike others (Habit 6) and listen to everyone’s views—including on how it came to be that the system functions poorly—must we always be neutral toward that past, or do we have the right to offer some judgment and determine what in the system’s past was harmful in order to progress toward some better universal values? And if all participants in general aspire to this, yet some archaism persists based on cultural, historical, value-based—e.g., patriarchal—representations, then what are we to do with that? And where is the boundary of the flexibility and tolerance toward different people that is needed to change the system for the better?

If a facilitator ought to be neutral, how can they be independent and maintain balance in a situation that directly affects them personally? If a facilitator ought to be engaged, how can we avoid imposing our own values and judgments in the style of colonialist “civilizing mission”? And how can we know that we have a mandate for systemic change that legitimizes us raising and discussing certain problems in the first place?

For some of us, Habit 6 is now the key and most difficult one. In the introduction Adam mentions it among the habits he himself needs “to learn to do better,” and we would like to ask Adam whom can we turn to if we want to learn this habit, and why he himself finds this habit difficult. Also, while discussing Habit 7, we came to the question: how do we know whether we are halfway through or already at a dead end? How can we tell whether we need to keep going, or whether we are already at a dead end and need to change direction and look for a way out?

The Book’s Scientific Foundation and Ways to Address Reductionism

Another of our questions concerned the scientific basis of the book. We understand that the book is written in the self-help genre, which implies ideas and practice, but we wondered how this works in contrast between natural sciences and social systems, and whether the book is grounded in academic research, or whether these are simply certain life lessons. Some of us also wanted to know about the theoretical grounding and references from a somewhat different angle: how does Adam’s narrative relate to already recognized sociological theories? We would like to locate his book on the map of sociological concepts.

At the same time, a number of us see the following problem: people with a “technical background,” who usually work with ordered systems, often try to force-fit simple methods and techniques onto social systems. Does Adam have recommendations or examples that can help people unaccustomed to working with complex social systems and inclined to perceive them as technical ones? The whole book, of course, is about this to some extent, but is there anything more concrete for those who approach social change with the mindset, “let’s unscrew this gear, screw a new one in here—and it will work!”, while the human aspect is being thrown out of this whole picture? This point was not very clear to some of us, and we did not find a definite answer in the book.

Other Questions

Some of us would like Adam to share how he managed to participate in so many projects and transformational processes when each of them lasts for years. How does he sense his boundary of engagement with a project? What observations and conclusions has he drawn from participating in projects that ended abruptly? What helps when resources run out but he still feels responsibility for the system?

We are also curious to know Adam’s views on risks and specific features of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is rapidly evolving these days, because generative AI now acts as a double factor—creating content for communities and changing relationships within communities and social groups.

Some of us would also like to ask Adam how he evaluates his work. The book has been written and published, the process has been reflected upon, and readers have begun to think about changing their own culture of working with systems. How closely does the text on paper now correspond with the text in Adam’s head? Does the order of chapters in the book matter? What would he do differently now? And what is the next step—what is Adam thinking about now? How does Adam himself envision the continuation of this work, and might there be points of interaction between us, as a group, and him in this regard?