About Whole Story
Working Well with Complexity
Different kinds of challenges call for different approaches to problem-solving. Many planning and strategy methods are designed for problems that are complicated but predictable. In these situations, outcomes can often be planned and controlled through careful analysis and execution.
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But many of today’s challenges — such as climate change, housing insecurity, or biodiversity loss — are complex systems challenges. They involve many actors, shifting conditions, and systems interacting over time. In these contexts, outcomes cannot be controlled directly.
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This raises an important question: how can organizations act responsibly in systems where outcomes cannot be directly controlled?
The Whole Story Stewardship Cycle
A framework for responsible action in complex systems
This work is informed by an emerging framework called The Whole Story Stewardship Cycle. The cycle offers a practical lens for understanding how responsibility operates in complex systems and where organizations can meaningfully influence change.
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This framework continues to evolve through practice, dialogue, and ongoing research into governance and responsibility in complex systems.
Traditional approaches often assume that actions lead directly to predictable outcomes...
But complex systems behave differently..
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Stewardship Cycle
(A framework developed through Whole Story’s practice for working responsibly
in complex systems.)
The Stewardship of Conditions Principle
In complex systems, outcomes emerge from the interaction between actions and the conditions surrounding them, and those outcomes reshape the system over time. Responsible leadership therefore focuses not only on what we do, but on how we care for the conditions that shape what becomes possible.
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This is the Stewardship of Conditions Principle.
Stewardship (Orientation)
Stewardship is the stance we bring to the systems we are part of — our responsibility toward the system and its future. It shapes how people exercise their agency and power within complex environments.
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Stewardship asks:
• What responsibilities do we hold toward the systems we are part of?
• How do we care for the conditions that shape collective futures?
Conditions (Shape What is Possible)
Conditions influence how decisions are made and what actions become possible.
Examples include:
• governance structures
• trust and relationships
• participation and inclusion
• knowledge flows
• institutional norms.
Actions (What People Actually Do)
Actions are the decisions, strategies, and interventions actors take within a system. Actions both respond to and reshape the conditions around them.
Examples include:
• policies and programs
• collaborative initiatives
• facilitation processes
• investments and partnerships.
Emergent Outcomes (What Unfolds in the System)
Outcomes emerge from the interaction of many actors, actions, and conditions. Because complex systems are dynamic and adaptive, outcomes are:
• partially unpredictable
• shaped by feedback loops
• influenced by multiple scales of interaction.
Outcomes then reshape conditions, beginning the cycle again.
Learning in Relationship
The Whole Story approach draws on multiple ways of knowing. It is informed by fields such as complexity science and resilience thinking, which explore how social and ecological systems behave when they are dynamic and interconnected, as well as traditions of adaptive governance, institutional analysis, and organizational learning that examine how people make decisions and act together within complex systems. Across these traditions, a shared insight emerges: complex systems cannot be fully predicted or controlled, and outcomes arise from the interaction of many actors, decisions, and conditions over time. The Stewardship Cycle builds on these insights by focusing on responsibility in complex systems.
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This work is also shaped through ongoing practice in community and organizational settings, and through a living process of dialogue, reflection, experimentation, and learning. Whole Story is influenced by Indigenous knowledge systems, where teachings are shared through relationship and consent. We recognize that Indigenous knowledges are not ours to claim or translate. Instead, our role is to listen, create space for diverse knowledge to be heard directly, and support learning across perspectives in ways that respect difference and relationship.
About the Founder
Julia Coburn
(She/Her)
Founder | Relational Systems Facilitator
Julia Coburn is a relational systems facilitator who supports organizations and collaborative networks working on complex social and environmental challenges.​ Her work focuses on helping groups make sense of complex challenges, develop thoughtful strategy, and bring diverse perspectives into relationship so that collective intelligence can emerge.
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Across her career, Julia has worked in many contexts and at many scales. She co-founded WorldVuze, a global dialogue platform connecting students in over 70 countries, and supported
​​​national partnerships with organizations such as UNICEF Canada and Kids Help Phone. She helped steward a national Community of Practice in community-based research, collaborating with community, Indigenous, peer, and academic researchers across Canada. She also co-founded Cross Community Connect in Tanzania, supporting community-led solutions, youth leadership, and local entrepreneurship.
In municipal planning and sustainability, Julia has contributed to nature-based planning, climate resilience, and systems-focused initiatives, supported by her Master’s in Environmental Studies (Planning) from the University of Waterloo. As a researcher with the Centre for Community-Based Research, she co-designed and implemented community-engaged research with people with lived experience, community members, staff, and other partners to inform organizational learning, alignment, and programming.
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Julia also writes about complexity, governance, and systems change, exploring how organizations can work responsibly in interconnected systems.
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Through Whole Story, she brings these threads together to support organizations in building shared understanding, developing thoughtful direction, and strengthening their capacity to learn and adapt as conditions change.