An Evening with Adam Kahane

Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change

The Book

&

An Evening with Adam 

Suspend that usual notion of power as power over, Adam tells us. Instead, consider using the word power as the drive toward self-realization, the drive “to achieve one’s purpose, to get one’s job done, to grow.” Think of this as power to.

Shelve typical ideas about love as romantic love only, he says. Think of love as “the drive to reconnect and make whole that which has become or appears fragmented.”

Understand, as Martin Luther King Jr. did, that both are necessary. “Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic,” Dr. King said. Building on this, Adam tells us,

Power without love is reckless and abusive, or worse, and love without power is sentimental and anemic or worse. We can see both of these degenerative forms in our world, in our work, and in our selves. Choosing either power or love is always a mistake. How then can we exercise power and love together?  (p. 53)

Thus was the basis for the captivating talk in which Adam elucidated his ten commandments for approaching social change, and for looking at ourselves.

Adam’s work in more than fifty countries has informed his compelling ideas—from scenarios in South Africa as the country transitioned from apartheid, to post-civil-war Guatemala, to India, Japan and others. Continual learning is key, and Adam often uses the phrase, “what I’ve learned,” or “what I’m learning” as he tells stories of the people he’s learned from, including those with whom he’s worked and those whose works he’s read, such as Paola Melchiori, Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Tillich, Rollo May, Robert Johnson, among many. 

Not flinching from the difficulty of putting these ideas into practice and the impossibility of thinking of love and power as easily integrated, Adam offers the analogy of walking. When we walk, we use one leg at a time. But both legs are necessary. Power and love—use one at a time. Both are necessary. With practice using both becomes more natural.

Thank you to The Leadership Project of PassageWorks Institute, co-sponsor of this event, to Naropa University for hosting it, and the the 75+ attendees who engaged so wholeheartedly. A special note of gratitude to Adam Kahane for being with us, nudging us to think beyond the conventional, and to do what we can. More good news is that Adam is finishing his next book.