capacity for resilient futures
Systems change is about seeing beneath the surface. Events may be the tip of the iceberg but deeper layers of patterns, structures and mindsets shape what happens above the waterline.
Iceberg Thinking gives you tools to explore these layers so you can act where it matters most.
This page curates resources to help you think systemically about the change you seek to make. Whether you are working in community, policy, practice or research, you'll find ideas and tools that support deeper analysis, sharper strategies and stronger collective action.
To learn more about Iceberg Thinking
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Read through the resources provided below
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Events
Treating mental health as central to disaster response
Every disaster is also a mental health event – resilience means planning for wellbeing as much as physical recovery.
When disasters strike, we often focus on the physical damage – homes lost, roads cut, power disrupted. Yet every event is also a mental health event. Trauma, stress and uncertainty ripple through communities long after the visible clean-up is complete. The ‘Event’ at the top of the iceberg prompts us to ask not just what happened? but who is impacted and how? The impacts of events on mental wellbeing is one of the deepest impacts of any crisis. When people are struggling with anxiety, sleeplessness or loss of hope, recovery falters.
Placing mental health at the centre of disaster response – alongside evacuation planning, infrastructure repair and financial relief – builds resilience that lasts. It means recognising wellbeing as essential infrastructure, not an optional add-on. Services, peer support networks and spaces for collective recovery act as buffers, helping people cope with both the event and the long road back. By preparing for the invisible as well as the visible damage, communities build resilience that is holistic and enduring.
Something to chew on
What would it mean to treat mental health as central to disaster response, not an ‘also’?
Events
Relationships matter most in disaster events
Strong relationships are the invisible infrastructure that determine how communities withstand disasters.
Events such as fires or floods don’t just test physical systems – they test relationships. The connections between agencies, organisations and communities are often the difference between a more coordinated response and a disjointed or confusing one. When relationships are strong, resources move quickly, decisions are trusted and recovery gains momentum. When they are weak, disaster spirals, delays multiply and mistrust grows.
The iceberg prompts ask: who is impacted? who has responded, and how? These questions remind us that resilience at the event layer is never just about reacting in the moment. It depends on the relational infrastructure built long before the crisis. Trust, cooperation and communication are what allow people and organisations to act quickly when disaster strikes. Relationships are not just social ties – they are critical system links that keep communities safe.
Something to chew on
How resilient are the relationships that will be tested when disaster strikes?
Events
Building resilience through redundancy and buffers
Redundancy and buffers are lifelines – investing in them makes communities crisis-ready.
When disaster strikes, systems with buffers – spare capacity, back-ups, redundancies – are the ones that endure. Buffers may seem wasteful in quiet times, but in moments of crisis they are shock absorbers.
Without spare water, back-up power or alternative routes, people are left stranded. The Event ‘transmits’ deeper into disruption of the positive Patterns of our daily lives. With buffers, communities can absorb shocks and recover quickly. Redundancy is not inefficiency – it is foresight. Local supplies, alternative systems and flexible arrangements serve as hidden insurance policies. They may sit idle in normal times, but when the unexpected happens they prove essential. Designing systems with buffers is a practical way of building resilience into the everyday.
Something to chew on
Where could your community build in buffers today that might save lives tomorrow?
PATTERNS
Breaking free from harmful cycles
Resilience means challenging cycles that trap communities in fragility and creating new patterns of strength.
Patterns are the rhythms of a system. They can show stability and strength, or they can trap communities in fragility. When floods return every few years, or health services are consistently underfunded, the result is not bad luck – it is deepening a cycle of vulnerability. The iceberg prompts ask: what patterns can we see? what knowledge do we have about their causes? Naming harmful cycles starts to shifts awareness, giving us the chance to step outside them.
This is often the hardest move, because what repeats can feel like “the way things are.” Yet resilience depends on questioning those assumptions. Communities that can shift energy and resources from endless rebuilding to investment in prevention can break that loop. Naming and challenging harmful patterns creates the opportunity for new trajectories. Each cycle broken represents a move from vulnerability to agency, from fragility to strength.
Something to chew on
Which repeating cycles in your world need to be broken to build resilience?
PATTERNS
Spotting cycles before they trap us
Patterns reveal the rhythms of resilience – spotting them turns repetition into foresight.
Patterns are the early signals of how systems behave over time. Floods every few years, outages each summer, or growing mistrust in institutions are not one-off events – they are cycles. The iceberg prompts ask: what’s happening? what cycles are we seeing? is the pattern changing? Recognising patterns allows us to anticipate instead of react.
Farmers adjusting to shifting rainfall, councils preparing for hotter summers and communities noticing rising energy costs and shifting behaviour are all examples of adaptation in action. Patterns may be subtle and hard to detect, but once identified they create foresight. Naming them turns repetition into knowledge, and knowledge into preparation. By learning the rhythms of our systems, we can shift resilience from chance to choice.
Something to chew on
What patterns are you seeing in your community that might shape the future?
PATTERNS
Reading emerging trends as signals
Resilience means reading small signals as warnings – or opportunities – for the future.
Not all patterns are obvious cycles. Some are emerging trends that quietly reshape the future: hotter summers, new technologies, shifting demographics. The iceberg prompts ask: what trends are emerging? how are they changing? These signals point to risks and opportunities, if only we pay attention.
When storms grow more intense year by year, or social isolation increases, communities that notice early can prepare. Acting on small signals requires courage, as it often challenges business-as-usual. Ignoring them leaves communities exposed. Resilience comes from treating emerging trends as the early chapters of tomorrow’s story. By reading signals early, communities gain a head start in shaping that story for the better.
Something to chew on
What small signals might be telling you about big changes ahead?
Structures
Seeing the hidden rules that shape outcomes
Structures are the hidden rules that shape resilience – naming them is the first step to redesign.
Beneath events and patterns lie the structures that quietly drive them. Rules, policies and relationships often determine whether communities move forward and thrive or remain stuck. The iceberg prompts ask: how is the system structured? what rules maintain it? These are not abstract questions. Property rights, planning laws and funding models all shape everyday resilience.
Structures can create fairness or reinforce inequity, encourage adaptation or lock in response-only cycles. They are invisible until they fail, and by then the costs are high. Resilience grows when we see these hidden rules clearly and ask whether they are serving us. Naming structures opens the door to redesign, which may be slower but is far more powerful than short-term fixes. By exposing the architecture of systems, communities can find leverage points to change them.
Something to chew on
What hidden rules and arrangements in your system shape resilience without most people noticing?
Structures
Redesigning systems for long-term resilience
Redesigning structures creates lasting resilience, even if the change is slow and contested.
Structures create the patterns we live with. When rules, policies or funding flows reinforce vulnerability, building resilience requires redesign. The iceberg prompts ask: how are the parts of the system connected? what rules maintain it? Redesign is not quick – it demands new governance models, fresh incentives and shifts in resource flows.
But the impact lasts longer than any event-based response. A region that channels disaster funds into prevention instead of only recovery is engaging in redesign. These changes are often slow, contested and politically difficult, but they create resilience that endures. Redesign means asking whether current systems are fit for the futures we face, and being willing to take them apart and rebuild them for sustainability, equity and wellbeing.
Something to chew on
Which structures in your world most need redesign to support resilience?
Structures
The power of connections in system structures
Structures are connections as well as rules – strengthening them strengthens resilience.
Structures are not only rules – they are also connections. How information flows, how agencies coordinate, and how communities link across boundaries all shape outcomes. The iceberg prompts ask: how are parts of the system connected? how do those relationships reinforce patterns?
When connections are strong, resources move quickly and patterns shift positively. When weak, crises compound. Building resilience means treating relationships, networks and communication channels as infrastructure. They require investment, trust and maintenance, they are the glue that holds resilience together. A structure designed for flexible, evolving connection is a structure designed for resilience.
Something to chew on
What connections in your system could be strengthened to change how future crises unfold?
Mindsets
The assumptions that shape our resilience
Assumptions shape systems invisibly – making them visible is the first step toward resilience.
At the deepest level of the iceberg lie the beliefs and assumptions that quietly design our systems. These are beliefs and assumptions are so ingrained they feel like common sense. The iceberg prompts ask: what values and beliefs designed this system? what assumptions are we carrying? If we assume disasters are inevitable, we plan only for recovery. If we assume everyone has the same capacity to prepare and respond to disaster, we will overlook those people that need a hand in some way.
Assumptions like these lock communities into vulnerability. Surfacing them opens space for examining them. When beliefs and assumptions are visible, they can be tested, reimagined or reshaped to those that support resilience. By examining assumptions together, communities can find agency to reshape the way systems are built and maintained. Making the invisible visible is the first step in choosing more resilient ways of thinking, planning and acting.
Something to chew on
What assumptions about resilience does your community take for granted?
Mindsets
Changing the story to change the system
Narratives about resilience shape systems – shifting them unlocks transformative change.
Mindsets live in the stories we tell about ourselves, in our cultures. Narratives about resilience shape the structures we design, the patterns we follow and the events we face. The iceberg prompts ask: what values and beliefs drive this system? what new narratives could guide change? A community that sees itself as a victim may design dependency, while one that frames itself as prepared may attract investment and energy.
Stories ripple outward, making them some of the highest leverage points in systems. Changing them requires dialogue, trust and co-creation, but once a story shifts, so does the system. Resilience is not only about plans, budgets and policies, its about the narratives we use to shape the future. When communities create new narratives, they create new possibilities.
Something to chew on
What story does your community tell about itself – and is it the one you want for the future?
Mindsets
Values at the heart of transformation
Values are the foundation of systems – shifting them reshapes resilience from the ground up.
Every system rests on values. They determine what we prioritise, what we protect and what we invest in. The iceberg prompts ask: what values designed this system? what other values could drive change? When resilience is built on values of equity, care and sustainability, very different structures and patterns emerge.
Value shifts are hard, but they are also the highest leverage points. By making values explicit, communities can choose which ones should guide future resilience building. Asking these questions together surfaces the trade-offs we are willing to make, and points toward the futures we want. Transformation begins when values shift, because new structures, patterns and events inevitably follow.
Something to chew on
What values would you want at the foundation of your community’s resilience?
Relationships
How mindsets create the structures we live in
Mindsets build structures – changing beliefs is how we redesign the rules.
Mindsets sit at the base of the iceberg. The beliefs and values we hold shape the structures – rules, institutions and systems – that govern our lives. The iceberg prompts ask: what beliefs designed this system? what values keep it in place? If a community believes economic growth outweighs environmental care, it will design structures that prioritise short-term gain. If it values equity and care, it will create systems that share resources and foster collaboration.
By surfacing beliefs, we see how mindsets construct the scaffolding of systems. Making these beliefs visible allows communities to decide whether to reinforce them or shift them toward different outcomes. Mindsets are not fixed – they can be re-examined and reshaped. When they change, the structures that follow change as well.
Something to chew on
What beliefs in your community are shaping the systems you depend on?
Relationships
How structures drive the patterns we see
Patterns are not accidents – they are produced by the rules we set.
Structures create patterns. Funding models, policies, infrastructure and resource flows generate the cycles we experience. Recognising that patterns are products of structures gives communities focus and leverage. By changing structures, we can change the rhythms of resilience.
Asking what incentives, policies or flows of resources shape repeating patterns is the first step in breaking harmful cycles. When structures shift, the patterns they generate shift too – opening space for resilience to grow.
Something to chew on
What rules or arrangements in your system are creating the patterns you see?
Relationships
How patterns become the events we experience
Events are the surface of deeper patterns – resilience means preparing for what they reveal.
Events are the visible tip of patterns. Repeated droughts break farm budgets, hotter summers produce more bushfires, policy decisions create a new business opportunities. The iceberg prompts ask: what cycles are visible? are they intensifying? Seeing events as products of patterns shifts our thinking away from reacting towards foresight.
Today’s emergencies are tomorrow’s certainties if the pattern continues. By naming patterns, we can anticipate the events they create and prepare accordingly. Recognising the link between deeper rhythms and surface outcomes helps communities plan with foresight rather than react with surprise. Preparedness improves when we see events not as isolated surprises, but as the inevitable expression of patterns beneath the surface.
Something to chew on
What current events in your community are actually the surface of deeper patterns?
Strategies
Persistence – resilience in survival mode
Persistence is survival – essential in crises, but never enough for lasting resilience.
Persistence is resilience at the surface of the iceberg. It is the immediate act of survival – sandbagging homes, evacuating, patching power lines. The iceberg prompts ask: what happened? who is impacted? who responded? These questions frame crisis response.
Persistence is essential, but limited. Communities cannot stay in survival mode forever. Recognising persistence as one layer of resilience helps us value it while also seeing when we must go deeper – into adaptation, redesign and transformation. Survival secures today, but deeper strategies secure tomorrow.
Something to chew on
When does your community need persistence, and when is it time to move deeper?
Strategies
Adaptation – learning from patterns
Adaptation is foresight in action – preparing for the cycles that shape resilience.
Adaptation builds resilience by preparing for recurring pattern of events. It means asking not only what happened? but also what keeps happening? When patterns are noticed, it creates foresight. Adaptation uses that foresight to prepare.
Councils updating building codes, farmers shifting sowing times and communities setting aside reserves are all examples of adaptation in practice. It is proactive and practical, but also limited if patterns intensify faster than communities can adjust. Adaptation helps communities cope with foreseeable risks, buying time and reducing harm, while preparing the ground for deeper change.
Something to chew on
What patterns could your community adapt to now, before they become crises?
Strategies
Redesign – changing the rules of the system
Redesign means changing structures to break cycles and build resilience.
Redesign sits at the structural layer of the iceberg. It asks: what rules and connections drive current patterns? how could they be restructured? By shifting governance, altering funding flows or redesigning incentives, communities can escape harmful cycles.
Redesign is harder and slower than adaptation, but it creates deeper, longer-lasting change. It is resilience with structural ambition. By changing the way systems are organised, we change the patterns and events they produce. Redesign is about creating futures that do not simply repeat the past but are better matched to the future.
Something to chew on
What structures in your community could be redesigned to change recurring patterns?
Strategies
Transformation – shifting the deepest mindsets
Transformation is paradigm change – shifting values to unlock systemic resilience.
Transformation is the deepest resilience strategy. It means shifting the values and narratives that hold systems in place. It means creating a new identity. Transformation occurs when communities reimagine themselves – from victims to innovators, from coping alone to thriving together.
It is difficult, slow and contested, but it is also the deepest leverage point. When mindsets shift, everything else can follow. Transformation reshapes not just systems, but identities and futures. It is resilience as reinvention – the deepest change of all.
Something to chew on
What new narrative could transform the way your community approaches resilience?
Synthesis
Navigating the whole iceberg
The iceberg reminds us resilience is multi-layered – events, patterns, structures and mindsets must all be engaged.
Resilience grows when we see the iceberg as a whole – not just the visible events, but the patterns, structures and mindsets beneath. Each layer offers a way of acting: persistence, adaptation, redesign and transformation. The iceberg prompts help us ask: what’s happening? what drives it? what values sit underneath?
Working across layers means not only responding to crises but also redesigning and reimagining the systems that generate them. A community that responds at all levels – evacuating during floods, tracking rainfall cycles, reforming building codes, learning from the past and preparing for the future, reframing its identity as a “flood-ready town” – demonstrates full-spectrum resilience. By acting across the iceberg, resilience shifts from reactive ‘bouncing back’ to transformative ‘bouncing forward’.
Something to chew on
How can your community act across all layers of the iceberg, not just the events on the surface?
Synthesis
Finding leverage in the system
Leverage points show us where small shifts can reshape whole systems for resilience.
Not all interventions are created equal. Some are surface ‘light touches’; others reshape systems entirely. Donella Meadows reminds us that the deepest leverage lies in shifting mindsets and narratives, while rules and structures offer medium leverage, and event-level fixes are the weakest. The iceberg prompts ask: where are the highest leverage points? what could shift the system most?
By choosing interventions carefully, communities can achieve far more with fewer resources. Adjusting subsidies may help, but redefining the purpose of an economy can transform it. Resilience grows when we look for the points where effort has the greatest systemic impact – often deep below the waterline. Leverage is about finding the fulcrum that can move the whole system.
Something to chew on
Where in your system is the deepest leverage for building resilience?