With Sascha Haselmeyer, 7 Dec 2023
Summary
This Session explored how systemic transformation is crippled by the modern obsession with speed, rapid scalability, and transactional “quick fixes” . Sasha Haselmeyer shared his evolution from working in tech-driven, hyper-accelerated procurement spaces to realizing that durable social changes operate on decadal timescales. Participants shared counter-intuitive insights on balance and structure, dissecting five fundamental principles for systemic change. The session concluded that true relational change required building deep foundations rather than rushing to isolated milestones.
Key Learning Points
- The Fetish of Speed: The modern fast-lane culture idealizes agile methods and market dominance while actively offloading collateral damage and societal externalities.
- The 40-Year Metric: Real, systemic social change reliably takes a minimum of 40 years—and sometimes multiple generations—to ground itself firmly into societal structures.
- The Paradox of Structure: Organic collective creativity stalls at both extremes; it requires an intentional, balanced middle ground containing just enough structure to flourish.
- The Non-Idling Listening Phase: When attempting to build change across historic trauma or deep systemic mistrust, the initial phase of pure active listening can require 10 to 20 years.
- Outsider Co-Creation: Authentic social movements remain highly adaptable and deliberately leave solutions unfinished so that adversaries and outsiders can enter as fully empowered co-creators.
- The Penalty of Abandonment: Walking away from a community during difficult, sluggish periods does not simply freeze progress; it burns established public trust and forces future efforts to start from a severe deficit.
Action Points
- Hold the Urgency: Resolute change-makers must actively withstand the psychological temptation of rushing immediately into superficial action, deliberately preserving an open space for new frameworks to emerge.
- Audit Disingenuous Lines of Inquiry: Critically evaluate recurring group check-ins and personal relationships to catch hidden, repetitive, or transactional questions that signal a lack of genuine listening.
- Share Direct Systemic Agency: Intentionally move beyond treating marginalized groups as mere recipients; systematically create pathways that place the individuals most affected into senior, driving creative roles.
- Reject Solution Locking: Refuse to freeze an initiative around a single permanent blueprint, leaning on cross-disciplinary insights from art and science to stay completely flexible.
- Reframe Technology as an Enabler: Actively build or select digital tools structured around explicit human values instead of shoehorning fluid human relationships into rigid, pre-existing data fields.
- Commit to Long-Term Permanence: Transition away from temporary consulting models toward long-term local presence, acknowledging that the most transformative movements are held up by those who stick around.
- Protect Voice Over Optimisation: Avoid altering authentic messaging just to please technical metrics, search engines, or short consumer attention spans.
References
- Felipe, L. — “I’m coming forward with pooled rains and a slow pace…” (Opening poem citation)
- Haselmeyer, S. — The Slow Lane: Why Quick Fixes Fail and How to Achieve Real Change (Book)
- Lovelace, A. — First conceptual documentation and historical framework of artificial intelligence (1817) (Participant mention).
- Institute for Inclusive Education — University senior lecturer integration program case study (Disability rights movement example)
- Community Solutions — US multi-city initiative ending homelessness (Long-term movement mapping)
- UserVoice — Prisons rehabilitation, probation truth-telling, and ex-offender partnership data (Systemic case study)
Knowledge Base Categories: 1) Regeneration & Universal Wellbeing 2) The Future of Weaving
