Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change

The two typical ways that people try to solve their toughest group, community, and societal problems are fundamentally flawed. They either push for what they want at all costs--in its most extreme form, this means war--or try to avoid conflict, sweeping problems under the rug in the name of a superficial "peace." But there is a better way: synthesizing these two seemingly contradictory approaches.

Adam Kahane argues that the two typical ways reflect two distinct, fundamental drives: power, the single-minded desire to achieve one's purpose, and love, the drive to unite with others. Both of these drives are inextricably part of being human, and so to achieve lasting change you have to able to work fluidly with both. In fact, each needs the other. As Martin Luther King Jr. put it, "Power with-out love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic."

Kahane delves deeply into the dual nature of power and love, exploring their subtle and intricate interplay. With disarming honesty he relates how, through trial and error, he learned to balance between them, shifting from one to the other as though learning to walk--at first falling down, then stumbling forward, and then moving steadily toward sustainable, systemic solutions.

For the last twenty years Kahane has worked around the world on a variety of challenges: economic development, food security, health care, judicial reform, peace making, climate change. He has worked with diverse teams of leaders--executives and politicians, generals and guerillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, clergy and artists. He has seen, up close and personal, examples of inspiring progress and terrifying regress. Power and Love reports what he has learned from these hard-won experiences.