Impact networks sound great in theory

But they don’t just magically happen.

Too often, well-intentioned efforts fall short and break down.

It’s all easier said than done.

On paper, networks enable:

For me at its core, weaving is about this:

To collectively move beyond colonial legacies of hierarchy, extraction, and dominance to cultivate regeneration, relationality, and social justice.

I know.

That’s a mouthful.

So, let`s get more nuanced by asking these questions:

What type of strategies & practices are needed to cultivate impact networks?

And, how can we build the capacities needed to weave networks effectively?

Let’s dive in!

Capacity Building for Systems Change

To tackle the questions above, let’s explore a simple metaphor.

Remember the last time you cooked a dish.

You likely knew the recipe, the ingredients and the step-by-step process.

But that was not always the case.

When you first started cooking, you struggled with the basics. The results probably wasn't your best meal. And it took practice to get better. You needed to build specific capacities (skills, knowledge & mindsets) to create better meals.

Cooking a meal is simple.

Weaving networks is complex.

But the idea of building your capacities and learning new skills still applies.

Capacity building describes any process of strengthening skills, knowledge, mindsets resources, and structures.

In the context of weaving, capacity building focuses on e.g. relational skills, facilitation, and systems thinking.

By cultivating these capacities, weavers enable groups to become resilient & impactful.

In other words:

It’s easy to know what it takes to cook a meal, but its hard to master all the nuances & techniques that makes a great chef.

Similarly, if you are weaving networks, it’s vital to know which skills enable you to do so effectively & to practice them continuously.

Unfortunately, weaving is not widely taught (yet!).

So, let’s look go deeper.

Four Areas of Weaving Capacities for Transformative Impact

Explore what types of capacities are needed to co-create change

There’s something wild, organic, and deeply human about weaving that resists being pinned down into neatly packaged definitions.

Weaving thrives in ambiguity, emergence, and lived experience.

But here is a paradox:

It’s sometimes helpful to have a lens as a tool for sense-making.

Just keep in mind:

There are many way to weave.

The following four weaving capacity areas have been developed over 7+ years of action research in the Weaving Lab.

Let’s take them one by one.

1. Cultivating Relationships

Building relationships, fostering trust, and creating spaces for belonging.

Weavers prioritize relationships over transactions.

They ensure that people feel seen and valued.

Weavers do so, by facilitating spaces of trust where people can bring their whole selves without fear of extraction or tokenization.

This ensures that networks form through mutual care, storytelling, and shared purpose rather than professionalized, efficiency-driven interactions.

In this way, weaving ensures that co-creation is generative, rather than extractive.

2. Collaborating Systemically

Facilitating interactions that align diverse efforts towards systems change.

By fostering co-creation across boundaries — sectors, geographies, disciplines — weavers help uncover patterns, synergies, and emergent opportunities that wouldn’t be visible otherwise.

Collaboration is a dance rather than a machine.

That’s why weavers move beyond Western models that often prioritize speed and linear progress over deep listening and emergence.

In this way, networks can navigate complex systems & contribute to transforming them.

3. (Un-)Learning Together

Creating conditions for collective learning, reflection, and adaptation.

Weavers emphasize learning as reciprocal rather than extractive.

So, in equitable networks, embodied, ancestral, and land-based knowledge is valued alongside academic or technical expertise.

Weavers co-create pluriversal learning spaces that hold multiple truths rather than assuming one universal framework.

They also un-learn blind spots, assumptions and harmful behaviors.

In this way, weavers stewards spaces where different ways of knowing coexist and inform one another.

4. Embodying Well-being

Cultivating practices for personal, societal & planetary thriving

Weavers foster cultures that move away from burnout & colonial culture rooted in capitalist productivity mindsets.

They center communal care, land connection, and somatic healing in network practices.

That is because weavers recognize historical and intergenerational trauma and therefore creating spaces for collective healing & change.

A network that prioritizes rest, ritual, and joy as much as work.

In this way, networks can contribute to the interdependent well-being of self, others and the planet.

IV. A Pathway to Capacity Building: The Network Weaver Game & Toolkit:

As you can see, weaving isn`t a walk in the park.

It takes years of practice to do it well.

To make it easier, we - a group of 30+ weavers, designers & facilitators - created something for you:

The Network Weaver Game & Toolkit enable you and your team or network to

1. Reflect on your capacities.

2. Create learning strategies.

3. Implement weaving in practice.

The following three steps are the foundation of this intuitive capacity-building process:

Step 1: Reflect on your Practice

Everything starts with awareness.

That’s why the first step is to play the Network Weaver Game.

If you are a solo player, it guides you through a set of reflection questions, providing insight into your skills, strengths, and learning goals.

For networks, it gives invaluable data of where you stand collectively and what capacities need to be built through intentional practice, training and learning initiatives.

But awareness without a plan is just inaction.

Step 2: Create a plan

This plan bridges awareness and action.

Now, that you know where you want to grow as a weaver, you can set new learning goals.

To make it easier, we created the Network Weaver Toolkit.

The most natural way to continue after playing the weaver game, is to sign up for the 5-day free email course. The course guides you step-by-step to create your learning strategy.

Other than that here is what’s available to you in the toolkit:

• Access job opportunities, methods and tools.

• Connect, learn & collaborate with weavers worldwide.

• Easily find suitable resources e.g. books, programs, videos, etc.

• Build a learning plan by identify resources, questions & experiments.

• Learn the basics through a crash course written in accessible language.

Now that you’ve got a plan, it’s time to act.

Step 3: Experiment in your network

How you act fully depends on your learning goals.

So, there is not much to say here.

The free email course actually supports you to create your learning goals and transform them into specific experiment to try in your network.

So, that’s the easiest way to get into action.

There you have it:

A simple capacity-building process that can hold the complexity of your learning, becoming and un-learning.

I hope it will be helpful on your path!

That’s it!

Warm wishes,

Adrian Röbke
Building the capacity of impact networks to create systems change.

PS: Any questions, ideas or feedback? Just send me an email over at [email protected]!

More to Explore This Week

About the Systemic Shift Newsletter

This weekly newsletter is dedicated to exploring practices, mindsets, and strategies that make networks effective in driving systemic change. Each issue offers practical tools, real-world lessons, and curated opportunities to help you build impactful, collaborative networks & communities.

Stay tuned next Tuesday for more!