The Adaptive Food Systems Leader: Managing Projects for Lasting Change
As nonprofits, community-based organizations, government agencies, and others seek to make progress on the civic challenges communities face, they must navigate complex systems and intervene skillfully to catalyze systemic change through their projects. It takes time, however, to identify and articulate the deep-rooted issues at the core of our communities before jumping to solutions, strategies, and tactics. It takes acts of intentional leadership, and it is critical to (re)assess what constitutes “leadership” as we contribute to the larger movement to transform our food system, especially in uncertain times.
This free, 3-session course will explore the traditional components of project management and incorporate Adaptive Leadership, which offers an approach to achieving large-scale impact through complex systems navigation within a shifting and changing landscape. As a “how” for project management, Adaptive Leadership differentiates the types of civic challenges we face to strategically cultivate leadership approaches and create the environment in which these approaches can be applied. This is an applied course, so participants will translate concepts learned to the context of their current or prospective project. Each session will build upon concepts from the previous session, following a format of engagement among participants to warm-up, introduction of project management components and corresponding leadership concepts and tools, interactive application exercises, and time for reflection.
The Food Systems Leadership Network is excited to partner with Kolia Souza and Tina Khan to bring you this training.
Kolia Souza is a health equity advocate, trainer, and project manager with over 10 years experience in local and regional food systems development and strategic communications each. In addition to offering consulting services, Kolia has worked in university outreach and national technical assistance centers, and has been a community organizer. She has experience collaborating with government at all levels, national nonprofits and community-based organizations, academic institutions, local and state agencies, health and wellness coalitions, and communities at large. Most recently, Kolia co-coordinated the Michigan Local Food Council Network and led the national Racial Equity in the Food System workgroup. She is also a national trainer for Coming Together for Racial Understanding.
Tina Khan has dedicated years of professional service to Kansas communities through Rural Food System Development. By way of Food & Farm Councils, she works to connect multiple sector partners within production, processing, distribution, access, and consumption. Through her position with the Kansas Leadership Center, Tina emphasizes leadership development at a local level as communities work through food system barriers. Previously, Tina spent 13 years in Dual Language Bilingual classrooms as a teacher-advocate for families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. She has nearly 20 years of experience in team training and group facilitation, while certified to teach and coach the tools of Adaptive Leadership.
Course Timeline
Registration closes April 22nd
Session 1: Creating the Project Blueprint & Anticipating Challenges
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 from 1 – 5 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. PT
During this two-part session, participants will be introduced to the components of project development and risk management. Part one will focus on developing and preparing the project scope; setting PACT goals; and establishing the project timeline, budget, and benchmarks as well as introduce partner identification and resource allocation. Participants will begin incorporating adaptive leadership skills into their project building work by identifying the technical and adaptive issues therein. Part two will focus on assessing project risk and bias and introduce conflict and change management. Participants will begin to build adaptive leadership skills to diagnose process challenges and how to hold to purpose in anticipation of working with various stakeholders.
Session 2: Building Project Support
Tuesday, May 6, 2025 from 1 – 4 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. PT
This session will focus on engagement, both among the project team and community stakeholders. Elements of risk and bias explored during Session 1 will be translated to strategies that seek to engage underrepresented voices in the context of power dynamics. Participants will be equipped with the tools of adaptive leadership to navigate conflict and manage change, specifically the Productive Zone of Disequilibrium to fully engage stakeholders in the work, as well as how to speak from the heart. Participants will apply multiple interpretations as they get used to uncertainty and conflict in managing food system projects.
Session 3: Launching the Project & Ensuring Success
Tuesday, May 13, 2025 from 1 – 4 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. PT
The final session will build on learning from the first two sessions to develop an understanding of how deep systemic issues influence long-term project success. Taking a deeper dive into change management, participants will articulate criteria for project success and be introduced to monitoring and evaluation strategies and models to track and respond to project ebb and flow over time. Participants will also explore how to benchmark and map project success by incorporating the elements of appreciative inquiry and tools to construct powerful questions for forward momentum.
Office Hours with the Community Food Projects CoP
Wednesday, May 21 2-3:30 ET / 11 a.m. – 12:30 PT This session will include a recap of some of the highlights from the course as well as time for questions about how to apply this in your context. Registration for the community of practice is separate from this course- sign up here!
Registration Closes April 22nd.
Questions? Email [email protected].
Recommend0 recommendationsPublished in Uncategorized
Responses