I never met Donella Meadows. But over the past few weeks, it feels as if I have—through her words, the people she inspired, and a web of connections that, fittingly, formed a system of their own. This system led me straight to her.
It started with an idea. I wanted to write about Donella Meadows—not about The Limits to Growth (which has been analyzed to exhaustion) but about her principles, her mindset, and what she would do if she were alive today. I wanted to understand her beyond the headlines, beyond the controversies, beyond the common narratives that have been told and retold.
So I reached out—to the Academy for Systems Change, to the Balaton Group, to the people who knew her, worked with her, and were shaped by her thinking. What happened next felt like stepping into a system coming to life. A network of people, scattered across time zones and disciplines, started sharing stories, reflections, insights. Piece by piece, Dana’s legacy began to emerge—not just what she wrote, but how she thought, how she led, how she lived.
Connecting the Dots
One of the first things I learned from Dana’s work is that systems are more than just their parts—they are their relationships. It’s the connections that give them meaning, that make them whole. And that’s exactly what happened as I pieced together this story.
I read about her fascination with land stewardship and community-supported agriculture—how she saw land not as a commodity but as a shared resource, something to be cared for, not just owned. Someone sent me a link to The Farmer’s Land Trust, a modern embodiment of the principles she would have championed today. It clicked: her thinking wasn’t just about environmental sustainability—it was about rethinking ownership, rethinking power.
I heard stories about how she was thrilled to discover biochemical explanations for organic farming, how she saw deep systemic connections in things most people overlook. One person told me that if Dana were alive today, she would be asking urgent questions about who controls information flows, how AI shapes our perception of reality, and whether we still have the ability to see a shared truth. Just as she saw the deep systemic connections in agriculture, she would now be questioning who owns our digital ecosystems. The same principles apply—who controls the resources, who sets the rules, and who benefits?
The Hidden Aspects of Dana’s Leadership
There are qualities of Dana’s leadership style that are not very well known. She kept multiple audiences in mind when communicating her work. If she was working on population growth, she would produce policy-oriented debriefs and speak directly to decision-makers. At the same time, she would produce an academic paper and craft general public communications to reach broader audiences. In Limits to Growth, the Stabilized World run—a scenario that contained many of the promises and choices for a sustainable world—received minimal attention from the media, which focused instead on collapse narratives. But Dana knew better. She understood that transformation required not just highlighting risks but also offering visions of possibility.
Finding Dana in Today’s Challenges
Through all these conversations, I started to see the world differently—not just as a set of problems but as a system of relationships, leverage points, and opportunities for change.
It’s easy to feel powerless in today’s world. Climate change accelerating, misinformation spreading, economic inequality deepening. But if there’s one thing I learned from Dana’s thinking, it’s that we are not separate from these systems—we are part of them. That means we are also part of the change. The question isn’t whether change will happen, but how we will shape it.
So I asked myself: What would Donella do?
She would start with truth-telling—not in a way that fuels division, but in a way that fosters understanding. She would look for the leverage points—the places where small shifts create big changes. She would focus on visioning—imagining the world we actually want, not just reacting to crises. And she would lead with love, because in her view, rationality and love were the same thing.
And then it clicked again. This wasn’t just an article about Donella Meadows. This was a piece about the piece. A system within a system. I set out to understand her thinking, and in doing so, I found myself living it. I found myself not just writing about systems change but experiencing it firsthand—the way ideas ripple, the way connections form, the way learning moves through networks of people who care.
Stepping Into the System
Maybe that’s the real lesson here. The question isn’t just What Would Donella Do?—it’s What Will We Do?
Because here’s the truth: Systems change isn’t something that happens outside of us. It happens through us.
Donella’s work is a roadmap, but the journey is ours to take. We can find the leverage points in our own lives, our own communities. We can shape the narratives, challenge the structures, design new pathways. We are not just observers of broken systems—we are participants in their transformation.
So this is my invitation: Step into the system. See the world through Dana’s eyes. And then ask yourself—not just once, but every day:
What would Donella do? And what will you do next?
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