The Social Field

The Social Field is a podcast that showcases stories about what it means to be a social performance practitioner. Designed for people from a range of sectors (mining, oil and gas, renewable energy, forestry, agriculture, protected areas management and more) this will be appeal both to those directly involved in the discipline and to those accountable for teams doing stakeholder engagement, socio-economic development in communities, and social risk and impact management.

The Social Field is a podcast that showcases stories about what it means to be a social performance practitioner. Designed for people from a range of sectors (mining, oil and gas, renewable energy, forestry, agriculture, protected areas management and more) this will be appeal both to those directly involved in the discipline and to those accountable for teams doing stakeholder engagement, socio-economic development in communities, and social risk and impact management.

This is  a teaser for the six new episodes launched as part of season two.

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors.

This episode introduces you to The Social Field season two,defending the value of spaces like this and presenting storytelling as the structuring device for the rest of the season. As part of this episode, we link the focus directly to the work of addressing our most intractable problems associal performance practitioners. We also introduce some of our storytelling gurus who help us understand the strategic value stories can offer to our businesses and our work in sustainability and social change.  

Contact:

To learn more about the work Jess Schulschenk is involvedin, follow her on https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-schulschenk-9627944.You can also find out more about the Embedding Project at https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=embedding%20project&origin=GLOBAL_SEARCH_HEADER&sid=K-.

To learn more about the work Brian Fitzgerald is involvedin, follow him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfit.You can also find the resources he mentions in his interview at the followingwebsite: https://www.dancing-fox.com.

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors.

Mpinane Mmahlatji, a facilitator of complex multi-stakeholder processes shares her rich experience of how important it is to start our interventions by gaining a deeper appreciation of the system and challenge we are facing. She also suggests we reframe how we plan for transition and exits. Kalnisha Singh adds to this discussion with a reflection on how to understand the moment one finds oneself in. She also challenges us to imagine the future with more ambition. Here the storytelling device of ‘timing’ teaches us how to orientate ourselves and others in the telling of our own stories, how to pace our interventions appropriately for different stakeholder audiences, and how to define our planning horizons in ways that support more meaningful conversations and outcomes.

Contact:

To learn more about the work Mpinane is involved in, follow her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpinane-mmahlatji-formerly-senkhane-7ab6a696.

To learn more about Kalnisha’s work follow her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalnisha-singh or go to KD Strategies website at https://kdstrategies.co.za.

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors.

Karien Lotter, a social scientist with experience in the work of land access, displacement and resettlement, shares with us the learnings from her studies in regenerative systems around the importance of adopting different perspectives as we seek to understand and then intervene into the range of systems at play influencing communities. Bongani Baloyi shares his experiences of how cross-continent knowledge exchanges can support shared learnings. Here the storytelling devices of ‘characters’ and ‘location’ underscore the importance of zooming our focus both in and out to different scales in order to help us make sense of the different elements of the system at play. If we do not do this, we risk creating large blind spots in our work. 

Contact:

To learn more about the work Karien is involved in, followher at https://www.linkedin.com/in/karien-lotter-804a011a/.You can also read more about her thinking at the Landscape Lens platform on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-landscape-lens/posts/?feedView=all.

To learn more about Bongani’s work follow him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bongani-baloyi-506402105or go to the MG5 Holdings website at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mg5-holdings-36257392.

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors.

Queen B (or Bianca Jordan) is a socio-economicdevelopment manager in the renewable energy sector. She explores with us who is narrating our socio-economic development journey, considering the challenges ofco-creation as well as the empowerment journey required. In this episode, we also take a fuller view on the role played by a narrator in setting the frame for the work, including by setting the agenda, defining the language and selecting the participants who are involved. We are challenged to see how we can share aspects of this powerful framing role with other stakeholders, and communities in particular.

Contact:

To learn more about the work Queen B is involved in, followher at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bianca-michaeline-jordan-24297681.

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors.

Mariam January, a sustainability consultant and partowner of her family’s taxi business, shares with us some of the ways in which the different worlds she live in clash, highlighting the influence of “the rules of the game” in shaping how we move through different spaces. She alsochallenges us to be awake to the structural forces that influence how things play out – so we can both be more honest with ourselves and, where needed, confront them. 

Contact:

To learn more about the work Mariam is involved in, followher at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariamjanuary/

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors.

We explore the skills, tips and tricks of how storytellingpractices can be used more effectively to enhance our work as social performance practitioners. 

Contact:

To learn more about the work Jess Schulschenk is involvedin, follow her on https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-schulschenk-9627944.You can also find out more about the Embedding Project at https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=embedding%20project&origin=GLOBAL_SEARCH_HEADER&sid=K-.

To learn more about the work Brian Fitzgerald is involvedin, follow him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfit.You can also find the resources he mentions in his interview at the followingwebsite: https://www.dancing-fox.com.

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors.

Karien Lotter, Andy Booth and Rob Gerrits participate in this long form and standalone podcast episode where they discuss the launch of the The Landscape Lens: a five-part conversation series exploring how transformative projects can move beyond managing impact to managing change. This looks beyond mitigation to actively engaging with inevitable landscape-level social, economic, governance, cultural and other changes.

This episode explores the key themes from this series and discusses its reception and aspirations for the future.

More on The Landscape Lens:

Large-scale private sector energy and extractive projects don’t simply cause impacts - they reshape landscapes, livelihoods and institutions over generations. Yet our dominant management frameworks remain rooted in risk mitigation and compliance, designed for static contexts and short timelines.

Each paper builds the argument step by step: from reframing the social dimension, to exposing why current methods fall short, to seeing systems and landscapes differently, and finally, to what it takes inside organisations to make this shift real.

Read the Series:

• Paper 1 – Managing the Social Dimension of Large-Scale Transformative Projects https://lnkd.in/dFFujqnP
• Paper 2 – Why the Way We Work No Longer Works https://lnkd.in/dKwDXUb2
• Paper 3 – Seeing the System https://lnkd.in/d_9Gwn_6
• Paper 4 – Seeing the Landscape https://lnkd.in/drvxuJ4c
• Paper 5 – Are Major Projects Ready for Systems-Based Thinking? https://lnkd.in/dZ2f-UCh

#LandscapeLens hashtag

#TransformativeProjects

#SystemsThinking hashtag

#SocialPerformance

#RegenerativeDevelopment hashtag

#ChangeManagement

Due to popular response, we have decided to offer the full length interview between Alison McCallum and Nomfundo Mogapi as a SEASON ONE EXTRA.

Those of you who have enjoyed episodes 2 and 3 which featured Nomfundo Mogapi (from the Centre for Mental Wellness and Leadership) will find this especially interesting.

We also hope you will share this with your managers and human resources colleagues who will find it especially interesting in so far as it explores how they can create a safer environment for social performance practitioners to work in.

Contact:

To learn more about the work Nomfundo does, contact theCentre for Mental Wellness and Leadership at⁠https://cmwl.co.za/⁠

Credits

Presented by: Lisa van Dongen and Alison McCallum

Co-producers: Mzamo Moloi and Lisa van Dongen

Sound design and engineering: Audiodacious

Special thanks to all contributors as well as AngloAmerican, the sponsor for season one.