Systems Leaders: Mexico

Over the course of our 200,000 year existence, humanity has come to dominate the planet. We tamed fire to use as energy, we plowed forests to build our farms, we moved waterways for navigation, we mined metals and stone to create our cities. Then we built enough bombs to destroy all of it. The ashes that landed from the testing of atomic bombs in the 1950’s were a symbol of the dawn of the Anthropocene, a new era recognizing that it is now humanity that serves as the dominant influence on the processes of our planet. Despite being dependent on the services that the earth provides, our growth and unlimited resource extraction have pushed our ecosystems to the brink, and in doing so, endangered our very own survival.

The humanity that cut down the trees is the same as the humanity that has brought the Mexican Wolf back from the edge of extinction. The humanity that built the bombs is the same humanity that has lifted billions of people out of poverty. The Anthropocene may be characterized by destruction, but it is also an opportunity to redefine the relationship we have with our planet. How we move forward is our choice and there are many among us ready to take these wicked challenges head-on.

We call these people systems leaders.

“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.”

― Nadeem Aslam

Our usual method of fixing societal problems has been to break them apart into individual elements, find the broken piece and fix it. This short-term solution fails to consider what caused it to break in the first place. It is like trying to fix a flat tire when the road is covered in nails The problem isn't the tire, but we can't see that if we don't step back. To achieve different results, we must use systems thinking. This method requires us to shift our perspective of all the individual elements and see them as a piece of something larger. The challenges of the Anthropocene are more complex than a single cause leading to a single effect. We need a holistic view of the whole system that the problem operates in, the different pieces and their relationship to others, and the points where we can leverage solutions that will make the most impact.  Nothing exists in a vacuum. To solve the challenges so that they stay solved, we must first change the system. To change the system, we need systems leaders.

While many in North America see climate change as a distant problem, its effects are a reality to people across Mexico. Changing growing seasons have affected farmers' harvests, extreme drought has made water scarcity soar, and depleted aquifers are causing a city of 22 million to slowly sink into the ground. With grim projections of a 3-4 degree annual temperature rise in the north and Mexico City on track to entirely run out of drinking water, the consequences of inaction are dire. Below are two organizations in Mexico that ready to tear down these systems and rewrite a more sustainable view of the future.

Using two very different methods, from two very different organizations, Isla Urbana and Mezcal Amarás embodied the three systems leader capabilities. But this is a two-way street. They are systems leaders, but the communities they worked in enabled that leadership. While in Mexico, we met with many remarkable families who were impacted by these different organizations. These people had changed their farming methods, learned to use new technology, worked to pressure local governments, and provided outreach to get more of their community involved. When we asked why they did these things, we kept coming back to the same answer: trust. Each of them trusted the organization they were working with to do the right thing by them. For this reason, I’d like to propose a fourth, more simple systems leader capability: reliability. When a systems leader says they are going to do something, they show up and do it.

The challenges of the Anthropocene are colossal. We need to reimagine a future for humanity that looks radically different than everything we’ve done before, and we have only decades to make some of these changes. If we fail, the predictions range from highly pessimistic: it will be the destruction of human existence, to only slightly rosier: hardship and suffering for the billions who cannot afford to adapt. But we are being asked to make these changes by organizations that have repeatedly failed to do the right thing. Oil companies knowingly covered up their own findings about the dangers of carbon emissions. High-profile international NGOs have been criticized for causing more harm than good. The wealthiest countries in the world have failed to enact legislation to meet their own climate goals again and again. Isla Urbana and Mezcal Amarás were different. They didn’t just throw money at a problem and walk away. They got to know people, empowered them, helped them. They said they were going to make something better, and then they did. These organizations are small, but the ripple effects of their contributions are enormous. In the absence of leadership from our top organizations, it is ripple effects from communities and organizations like these that will solve the challenges of the Anthropocene. To use Delfín’s words, these systems leaders are slowly but surely changing the picture of Mexico from black and white to color, pixel by pixel.

“Amarás Philosophy.” Mezcal Amaras, 2022, https://mezcalamaras.com/en/pages/filosofia-amaras.

Isla Urbana, 4 Oct. 2022, https://islaurbana.org/english/.

Senge, P., Hamilton, H., & Kania, J. (2014). The Dawn of System Leadership. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 13(1), 27–33. https://doi.org/10.48558/YTE7-XT62

Subramanian, Samantha. “In the Mezcal Craze, Wild Agave Plants Are Vanishing in Mexico.” Quartz, 8 Mar. 2022, https://qz.com/2130873/in-the-mezcal-craze-wild-agave-plants-are-vanishing-in-mexico.

wwf_mexico. “WWF y Mezcal Amarás Colaboran En Crear Modelos De Producción De Mezcal Más Sostenibles.” WWF, 21 July 2021, https://www-wwf-org-mx.translate.goog/?368090%2FWWF-Mexico-y-Mezcal-Amaras-colaboran-en-crear-modelos-de-produccion-de-mezcal-mas-sostenibles&_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc.