What Tonya’s Reading: ‘Power and Love’ by Adam Kahane

These thoughts were originally published in July 2018 by Centre for Social Innovation:

Power and Love by Adam Kahane.
“Adam is a facilitator of change labs and a principle at Reos Partners – global leaders in transformational processes. It was amazing to read about Adam’s insights about group processes. I really appreciated his vulnerability and felt a lot of comfort knowing that I wasn’t the only one that had dealt with failures and challenges in handling these types of complexities. I was left with a lovely group of change lab stories on which to draw, some amazing leads to further explore other thinkers and doers and a sense that I wasn’t that far off. I felt more confident in myself – in holding the space between power and love, individual and collective, structure and flow, independence and belonging. Probably most excitingly, I actually finished a book and boy, did it ever feel good.”

 

What Tonya’s Reading

What Tonya’s Reading is an ongoing series of thoughts by Tonya Surman about things she’s reading from the world of social innovation.

Tonya is a Toronto-based social entrepreneur, a co-founder, and the current CEO, of the Centre for Social Innovation. She was the founding co-chair of the Ontario Nonprofit Network and has been active within the Ontario Social Economy Roundtable and the Social Enterprise Council of Canada.

Before this, she channeled her overzealous optimism into a national coalition of organizations working on children’s environmental health, a social enterprise offering e-mail to activists, and an edgy online news hub for Canadian progressives. Between these experiments in social entrepreneurship, Tonya has found the time to create a coop daycare, host chaotic street parties, and create community gardens. She is also the mother of two wonderful boys which, in the end, is what matters most.

In 2009 Tonya was named a Global Ashoka Fellow. She was recognized for building shared spaces and networks for social innovators designed to foster cooperation.

Tonya Surman is available for speaking engagements.

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