 Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. This quote by the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead highlights how change starts small with a few individuals and then grows outwards to become a movement. Change does not happen by accident or spontaneously, it is led by pioneering individuals. For sure, systems change is about collaboration and the mobilization of whole ecosystems of people and organizations. It is a hugely social endeavor. However, this process starts with an individual or group of individuals separately feeling something is not right and going on a personal journey of questioning and discovery. That journey inevitably means facing challenges along the way as an individual. Initially, each individual has to face the fears of letting go of the past and exploring the unknown future. Systems change cannot happen without the subjective personal transformation of those who pioneer it. In a metaphorical sense, someone has to pay the bills for the creation of this new world. At the beginning, those are the leaders, the ones who step across the line, create a new space and are prepared to resist the forces that will be inevitably directed at them for challenging and threatening the existing system. Leaders illustrate how what is is not the only possible way that things could be. This both inspires people but also threatens the existing regime. Change requires creating some kind of a vision of a different world, a vision that does not yet exist. This will have to be unique to the system changer. If not, there would be no point in starting a new change process. One may as well follow someone else that already has the vision. To lead this change, the person is going to have to create the story of a different world and that starts with the change agent cultivating and growing their own view of the desirable and possible future. Change begins with us. As Jeffrey Bedeson said, you can't change the system without changing yourself. System change is a deeply personal endeavor. It is as much about the individual's subjective transformation as it is about the objective transformation of the system itself. They are two sides of the same coin, two dimensions of the same process. If we are going to lead change, we have to see the new, create it in our lives and live it. Doing this requires that we separate ourselves from what is. Separate ourselves from what we have grown up with and has probably supported us for most of our lives. It requires that we as individuals make a journey of separation and rediscovery. This is an inherently personal and subjective journey. As Otto Sharmer, the creator of Theory U says, this is about finding a way to break the patterns of the past and tune into our highest future possibility and to begin to operate from that place. This is what is required of a system's leader to be the first to see and live the future possibility. As Otto says, leadership in its essence is the capacity to shift the inner place from which we operate. Once they understand how, leaders can build the capacity of their systems to operate differently and to release themselves from the exterior determination of the outer circle. Systems change is difficult, but a lot of the difficulty is not out there. It is in one's own subjective journey that begins long before the objective endeavor of changing a system begins. A lot of the challenge in changing complex organizations is in finding the right motivation and this requires a deep dive exploration into one's values. Our values are central. We as change agents have to have the right values and act upon them. If you aren't clear about your values and motives, your actions will be just as incoherent and you will dissipate your time and energy going in all directions becoming overloaded. You need to focus on yourself and this focus comes from being clear about what is important and what is not. We come to this conclusion by clarifying our values. This is a process of letting go of those things that are not a value and investing ourselves in those things that are a value. We are born into a world that expresses a certain set of values. If we want to change it, we are going to have to figure out a better set of values and that means questioning what is a value and what is not to create a new value system. The world we create will be an expression of the values that guided our action in creating that world. If we want a different world then we are going to have to question and formulate a different set of values and then act on those with coherence. The success of our actions as change agents depends primarily not on what we do or how we do it but from the inner place from which we operate. Our values are important because they define our motives which ultimately defines how far we can go. Systems change is a creative process and a deeply personal one. People don't change systems due to extrinsic motivations. They do it from deep intrinsic motivation. This intrinsic motivation has to be very strong if they are going to sustain the long-term endeavors needed to move a complex organization. Changing a complex system can be a lifetime's work and may well require a commitment on the part of the changemakers to outcomes they will never even see in their lifetime. It takes a strong, gritty kind of motivation that comes from something intrinsically at the core of the change agent. Being clear about your motives and continuously working to expand them is the pathway to success. Being unclear about your motives and having a fixed limit is the road to failure. Multiple failings are inevitable. This is why a critical reflection on motives is essential. Temporary failure is good as it is the opportunity to learn. Terminal failure, giving up, is not good. The difference between the two is just motives. We fail terminally because we have reached the limits of our motivation. There really is no such thing as failure when the motives are aligned correctly because you are always prepared to revisit your motives and redefine the scope of your engagement to overcome the current stumbling blocks that caused you to fail. The road to success is really about connecting with a context or environment that is of an appropriate scale relative to the problems that you are trying to tackle. When you are connected, inspired, and motivated by that broader process and environment then you will be able to overcome the stumbling blocks within it and have the motivation to stay failing and learning until you succeed. Motivation is what gives us the capacity to go back to the beginning and deconstruct our assumptions, values or motives that led us to the point of failure and then reconstruct them again so as to overcome the stumbling block. As forum for the future note in their systems change capabilities system change is both complex and uncertain as we are trying to navigate into an unknown future. Underlining the other capabilities is the need for individual change agents to be able to reflect, learn and continually develop their skills and resolve to implement systems change. They need to cultivate personal resilience to deal with the demands of the work and be able to act with integrity and purpose.