Customer Reviews

Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change

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I have one foot in the "love" communities (art of hosting, theory U, facilitators network etc), where I have noticed very good intentions and good processes, but quite few results. My other foot is in the power community (as a government official in a political department) where I witness many results but also questionable intentions and agendas.

I liked the first half of the book the most, where I was provided with some interesting viewpoints and a language to understand and differ from generative/degenerative power and same for love. The second half of the book is more confusing and less clear.

I am inspired by the concept of combining love and power in order to manage things in the most constructive ways and I believe most leaders and innovators can be in inspired by reading the book. However, I would personally like some more insights on how to choose love in the middle of a political system. I find it challenging and difficult to keep track of love when acting in a political system. I would enjoy reading more about that.

Overall I recommend the book to anybody seeking to understand how to manage and enable sustainable change.

Having read and been inspired by Adam Kahane's previous book, Solving Tough Problems, I was eager to read Power and Love. What I found was a personal story, told in a highly readable way, in which I found lessons and insights which could be applied to both my work and my personal life.

The key message is that both Power (the drive for self-realisation) and Love (the need for unity) are necessary, and that there is an inherent dilemma between the two. Just like your two legs, they should be used in dynamic balance to be able to walk smoothly.

I really enjoyed the Falling, Stumbling and Walking chapters where Kahane highlights his theories through examples from both his work and personal life. I also appreciated that he was not shy in sharing his blind spots and mistakes so the reader can also learn from them.

I think Power and Love is a book that can be read several times with different mindsets - e.g. a quick entertaining read, a more reflective experience and also great for a book club / discussion group.

"Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change" uses Adam Kahane's tremendous experience of designing dialogue processes and mediations in South Africa, Colombia, Guatemala, Israel and on several environmental issues as examples of the generative and degenerative uses of power and love. The book is both theoretical and at the same time extremely practical for anyone working in the fields of group facilitation, large-scale systems change, or mediation. The lengthy examples of his work with diverse stakeholders around contentious issues are riveting and instructive. He is quite transparent about his successes and failures, and also very self-disclosing about his own process in the journey of learning how to walk with both power and love. Because of this journey the book has a lot of power and a lot of heart. I recommend it highly.

I first heard Adam Kahane speak about, `Power and Love' over a year ago before he had written this his second book on the subject. The impact of what he said was so great that I immediately wrote about it and sent the article to two different journals connected with people trying to create community. To my amazement I was inundated with phone calls, emails and letters. People from all over the world responded with the same sentence:
Thank you for writing about this, I now understand what was always going wrong in our different attempts to work together.
Many of these people then went on to read Adam's first book on the subject. I would now like warmly to encourage you to read this his second. It is helpful in that it builds on the themes of the first book which are now enlarged upon and deepened through the author being able to reflect on what he himself has learned in his earlier attempts to become literate in both love and power.
The issue of being able to be both an individual and to work with other people in such a way that a task is done without sacrificing selfhood is a pressing one. When a group of people are both self-realized and willing to put who they are at the service of something that they all recognize as important they experience not only the joy of community; they are also effective way beyond their ordinary expectations. Furthermore what they do together is rich and original, what the designer William McDonough calls, `piquant'. Goethe said that we develop our character in the full flow of life and we develop our gifts alone. This is interesting in connection with the theme of this book because in many professions and in many social situations the issue of character is subsumed by the agenda of the social group or organization. People find themselves saying `I am just doing my job' at best keeping their conscience at home in the private sphere. The issue of developing our gifts, on the other hand, is often just completely ignored, mostly because people feel that they need to make a living and would never be able to do that with something they simply loved. They feel that unless their gift is good enough to put them among the great people, remembered by history, it shouldn't be given priority. This division of ourselves and this neglect of what we love, in art or play, leads to a lack of congruence between our inner and outer values. It is important to be able to act from the base line of our conscience wherever we are and it is important to be creative, to play, not because what we make will be great but because making it helps us to remain in touch with the vital wellspring of our inner selves. Every attempt we make to work together will need this kind of whole self, a self who wishes to manifest its potential, to be aware of and even in service of the community and to maintain health and strength to live in a sustainable way. It is these possibilities that this book addresses.
What is meant by power and love is explored at the hand of Paul Tillich and Martin Luther King and through the author's own attempts to become literate in both. Using stories and concepts, describing success and failures, he makes these two aspects of our humanity accessible and therefore applicable to our own experience and situations.
Two other aspects of life are discussed. They are in my view as important as the issue of power and love. The first is the role of the peacemaker in creating toxic groups. The peacemaker as described here could probably be called a degenerate peacemaker. This is the person who will not allow risks and closes down processes and prevents transformation. This kind of peacemaking, rather than helping, reinforces the status quo and its abuses, often allowing the innovative and original members of the group to be frustrated in manifesting their essential contribution. For me this is one of the most essential chapters of the book because this aspect of community and group disruption has a huge impact both in the smallest group such as a family or a group of friends and in wider communities of every sort. The problem of power becoming abusive is something most of us are familiar with. The misuse of peacemaking causes just as much havoc. It was through Adam that I first heard this described though I had experienced it time and time again. For this I cannot thank him enough.
Most people will never become visible in the history of the world. They may live in places far away from the news headlines or the front line of political or commercial power. The feeling of powerlessness and insignificance is probably one of the primary reasons why people choose to numb themselves rather than to awaken their thinking and find ways of living that challenge the status quo. This is why I was also so touched by Adam's exploration of the effect that an individual can have on the world through how they change themselves. Adam speaks about the moment of liberation where the human being finds the place of freedom in changing themselves and how it is exactly this first step that prepares the ground for all the work we may do either on our own projects or in our ability to accommodate and understand each other.
We are often filled with idealism at the beginning of an endeavor. Taking that idealism on through disappointment and failure is one of the greatest tests we can face. On a personal and a political level human beings need tools both for learning to work together and for finding the courage to endure and try again while learning from our mistakes. This book provides the analysis of many of our mistakes. This analysis has the potential to liberate us from constantly repeating them. Adam's description of the nature of love and power and of the role of individual self-transformation gives us tools for real communication and for finding the still point where we would be able to sense the emergence of a creative future.

I felt compelled to write after just completing the book. I am inspired and touched by his humanity and sharing of the humble, teachable moments and stories in his life. I couldn't put the book down. I loved the references and particularly enjoyed the mention of Paul Tillich. The quote "love is not the union of the strange, but the reunion of the estranged. Estrangement presupposes original oneness." was new for me and meaningful. The interweaving of love with power and power with love is compelling...we need to both love and take action, using our power for good.
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No management book I have read describes theories of successful leadership as powerfully as this book. The source of the book's power is in its personal nature. By personalizing his experiences, Adam disarms the reader. He challenges us to persist in seeking positive change both in the problems we come across and in ourselves. His honest and open narrative draws the reader into each dilemma,encouraging us to think about our own failings. The concepts in this book are obvious and yet have so obviously been overlooked. His theories, which are as relevant to the commercial world as they are in a social or environmental context, are credible having been based on Adam's unique experiences and been critically evaluated by him. The book is a must read for all levels of management and those looking to make a difference.

I found this book helpful in broadening my thinking around what it takes to facilitate meaningful and lasting change - for others and for myself as the facilitator. My work is in helping young people facilitate change, and I've found myself often getting hooked on the desire to create spaces that honor a person's need for love and belonging. This book illuminated and solidified for me the importance of also making space for people to feel, talk about, and experience more messy and uncomfortable emotions that are connected to power. As he points out, power is always present - just sometimes concealed. What's more, Adam Kahane's willingness to share the highs and lows of his own learning journey makes this book authentic, accessible, and engaging. I highly recommend it!

Adam Kahane has authored a brilliant book, Power and Love; a theory and practice of social change.

Initially, Kahane believed that working to include love in change efforts was what was necessary to make effective change happen. But he learned that love without power was not effective, could even make things worse.

He talks about two kinds of power-- power TO and power OVER.
"The power to move towards self-realization and the power to steal or suppress self realization of another." "Power over abuses force and compulsion to suppress or oppress or dominate another.
He discusses degenerative power, degenerative love and the tough job of how to pull them together and make them work


Some quotes from his book:

If we are to succeed in co-creating new social realities, we cannot choose between power and love. We must choose both.

...if we are afraid of being contaminated by the dirty realities of power, we will fail to effect social change.

... love without attention to or transformation of power can be, not merely sentimental and anemic, but reinforcing of the capacity of the already powerful to act recklessly and abusively.

Love creates opening, potential, and opportunity, but power is required for these to be tested and realized. Dialogue that does not acknowledge and work with power therefore cannot create new social realities.

Love without power is dangerous because power is never absent-- only sometimes concealed.

Choosing either power or love is always a mistake.

BTW, he was an excellent guest on my radio show.

Power and Love proves Adam Kahane to be that rarest of professionals: a reflective practitioner. His fondness for memoir-like accounts of his professional evolution was already evident in his first book, Solving Tough Problems, which provides a fascinating portrait of how a person trained in "hard" modes of thinking came to appreciate the power of "soft" human qualities in leading change. But this fine second effort represents a deepening and maturing of his craft, applied to a wider range of intriguing case examples. He signals the beginning of his journey with a powerful quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., which reads in part: "power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic." He goes on to make the case for the truth of this axiom, offering an elegantly simple theory of social change. And then he illustrates both the difficulty and the possibility of combining these seemingly paradoxical qualities. In succeeding chapters, he provides examples from personal practice that move gradually along on a continuum from failure to success.

The practitioner who would follow Adam Kahane's lead will not find a manual with detailed "how tos" for leadership of social change. But she will find a deeply reflective, intelligent and illuminating record of the evolving insights of one of our most experienced practitioners of social change. The author has stated elsewhere that "confession is good for the soul, but not for the reputation." In this volume I believe he has in fact enhanced his reputation through disciplined and rigorous confession, holding himself accountable in ways that most of us are tempted to avoid. To be consistent with the honesty that the author demonstrates, I must confess to being a friend and former colleague. Although this relationship weakens the objectivity of my testimonial, the fact that I have independent knowledge of some of the cases strengthens my ability to affirm the integrity of his effort. He provides an account in which he takes a view not just from the dance floor but also the balcony, critiquing his own approach from multiple perspectives. You don't have to take just my word for it. The book features enthusiastic endorsements from nearly 40 leaders and thought leaders in all sectors. Their testimony affirms my conviction that Adam Kahane is a truly reflective practitioner, who offers in Power and Love a weighty contribution to the field.

I am a teacher and co-creator at the KaosPilot International, based in Århus- Denmark, we find Adam Kahane books of high inspiration and helpful in our work.
His books are very human and honest and helps us connect to the important work he is doing. His books helps us to connect and find ways to be a contribution in the work we are doing.
In other words Adam Kahane help us through simplicity and depth to help our students to rise above confusion and control, to be able to co-create. We are grateful. Thank you.

Kristin Birkeland