Listen - excerpt

Listening is an essential skill to practice in all seasons, but for me it has a particularly attuned whole-bodiedness in Spring. Spring can help us to remember to recommit to ever-deepening listening. Each year during this season I return to my Signs of Spring practice - a careful watching, waiting, noticing, and listening for the progression of subtle changes that signal Spring is on the way. Cultivating readiness to be surprised by something new, or again.

It’s a long list of noticings and grows longer with each turn around the sun. The increasing crescendo of the dawn chorus. The changing sounds of wind in the trees – from rattling bare branches to swishing and rustling leaf sounds. The first lawnmowing. The ruckus of different birds in their courting – Eagle, oh my! The sounds of my neighbours resuming their warmer weather social strolls and backyard visits. And on and on it goes. A cascade of seasonal awe and wonder that never gets old. There is something about the careful noticing of this particular seasonal progression that always stops me in my tracks, takes me into hush time, inviting and instructing me to listen with all of my senses. To breathe deeply and take it all in.

What might we be listening for, as Signs of Spring, of coming aliveness, in transforming the public sector from within? As innovators and transformational characters, we must return, and return, and return again to listening. Find places, ways, and moments, to sit quietly with ourselves, each other, and the natural world and be – breathe - together. All of my Spring conversation partners shared incredible examples of what they are listening and attuning to in their transformation work, and I will share some of these now.

Deanna Rogers talked about how she listens for the longings, which she described as looking/listening underneath the complaints, symptoms, and challenges for the possibilities that these things are pointing toward. She attunes to where there is something coming into movement, to what feels good, and where there is energy and potential for abundance based on what we desire or what we want to happen. She says that when we can slow down and get curious about what these longings might be trying to tell us – as individuals and in groups – then hundreds of possibilities come, showing us the seeds that we want to be planting and the things we might try out to see what works at this unique moment in time.

Lisa Gibson shared some specific listening capabilities of public innovators that she has seen to be most effective in their transformational efforts. She said that their antennae are constantly going out to people in all different parts of the organization, and they are really deeply listening all the time. She described them as having an almost chameleon quality. They will be in a particular type of conversation over here, and then another type of conversation over there. They have different reasons and justifications for the work that they use for different people - here is a financial reason, over there it’s for justice. Then they have extraordinary abilities to weave together a vision as a complex narrative that can speak to this multiplicity of needs that are present and pulling on different people. They have a particular flexibility of mind and the ability to take on different roles as they listen for opportunities, see where a little doorway might be, where the moments to come together are.

Sophia Ikura said that "I'm always listening for the possibility to bend the health care system toward equity in the population health work that we’re doing. I think about this in big dots and little dots... I listen to this by observing what’s happening, asking detailed questions, trying to understand their approaches, and noticing what’s accumulating. Then I’m listening for where there is space and gaps in the thinking at the system level and how these can be filled with the very specific examples that disabuse leaders of the notion that equity is not possible. I’m listening for what is possible because it’s already happening – so much of what we do is knitting the creativity of what is already happening in the field to make it visible and legible by the system."

I asked Janey Roh about what gets in the way of good listening, and she shared a great list:

(1) Assumptions and leading questions. Questions that are designed to affirm your own assumptions about something. Recording your own conversations and noticing what you are asking is a helpful way to learn.

(2) Our own personal bias, how we interpret a response.

(3) When you don’t have enough curiousity about a particular situation, when your own judgement starts to creep in.

(4) When we’re feeling rushed, and focus on targets and deliverables, what we need to do rather than how we are doing it. Then we’re not really listening, not attuning to what’s emerging, things that you can inquire more about.

(5) When people talk, they leave hints and morsels of stories all the time. As listeners we need to pick up on these and inquire further.

(6) Not being flexible with your tools or the interactions. For example, particular words can hold different connotations and bring up lots of feelings so you may need to adjust. Having paper or a computer and writing things down often feels less natural in the kinds of settings we’re in so you may need a different strategy to remember what is discussed. Voice record if you can, this helps to stay in the moment.

(7) Being open and transparent from the start about what we’re doing, where this is going to go, who gets to control the information shared here. Always get permission.

(8) Fear of asking. Lots of times people feel it’s not polite to ask something. So set the stage in a way that feels like people can say no, they don’t have to answer if they don’t want to. People often want to share more than what we think they do. People are tired of small talk. They want to have meaningful conversations and want to share their stories, experiences, be noticed and seen, especially when the story gets to be their own. Fear of not asking can lead to more stigma, secreting away of things the mainstream society might view as shameful. Overcoming fear helps to create a space of non-judgement.

Dialogue Partners:

Deanna Rogers (she/her) is a Registered Clinical Counselor with training in somatic experiencing, a program focused on trauma resolution that integrates mind, body, and underlying nervous system patterns. Over the last decade, her primary focus has been to study and work with plant medicines and psychedelics with the intention of healing and personal and spiritual exploration. Deanna supports her clients to uncover their own truths and answers by asking the right questions using curiousity and compassion. I first met Deanna many years ago through a mutual friend when she was building some innovative educational programs at a university. Since then, she has become a neighbour and friend.

Lisa Genki Gibson (she/her) is a transformative facilitator, coach, educator, and systems change consultant. With training in social work, gender and development, integral theory, and Zen she supports individuals, teams, and organizations to bring their whole hearts forward in creating a more just, caring, and sustainable world. I first met Lisa many years ago, as one of the generous people who said yes to helping to facilitate the earliest lab processes in the Solutions Lab – when I had very little idea about what we were doing. Since then, we’ve taught together, sauna-ed and walked, and I continue to learn so much from Lisa every time we meet.

Janey Roh (she/her) was a key team member at InWithForward, a social design firm working to turn social safety nets into trampolines, for a decade. She led Kudoz, which evolved into Curiko – a community building platform that cultivates delightful learning and connecting experiences for people living with and without disabilities. I met Janey many years ago when I was at the Solutions Lab, and Janey and her team helped us to do some ethnography with seniors in Vancouver. Since then, she has been a featured guest in many learning communities that I’ve facilitated and, along with Lisa Gibson, we taught the Social Innovation Certificate at SFU together.

Sophia Ikura (she/her) is a health and social policy innovation practitioner, applied researcher, and author. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Health Commons Solutions Lab, established in 2017 to advance community-driven and systemic solutions to health inequities. Following a 25-year career in public service and health policy, she now leads multidisciplinary teams working with communities and governments to design and scale equitable, integrated approaches that address persistent challenges in health care access, chronic disease, and social determinants of health. I met Sophia not so long ago at the Future of Labs gathering, but I feel like I’ve known her much longer. Her work to transform the health care system toward equity is inspiring, and I’ve learned a lot from her work in the short time that I’ve known her.

Cole, Lindsay (2026). Transforming the Public Sector from Within. University of Toronto Press.