Systems Change

An Introduction

Contents
Overview
Context
Systems change

Change
Change Theories
Adaptive Cycle
Two loop model
Transitions

Mapping
Holistic Approaches
Systems Mapping
Systems Archetypes
Stakeholder Mapping
Incentives Mapping
Models & Value Mapping

Envision
Horizon Scanning
Inner Change
Theory U
Systems Leadership
Narratives

Strategy
Leverage Points
Multi-level Perspective
Systems Aikido
Systems Acupuncture
Systems Gardening
Systems Entrepreneur

Develop
Collaboration
Ecosystems
Scaling
Platform
Sustaining
Overview
In a recent SSIR article, Kania and Kramer make an interesting remark: “The scale and
complexity of the U.S. public education system have thwarted attempted reforms for
decades... The heroic efforts of countless teachers, administrators, and nonprofits, together
with billions of dollars in charitable contributions, may have led to important improvements in
individual schools and classrooms, yet system-wide progress has seemed virtually
unobtainable.”

This quote goes to the heart of a primary question facing both individuals, organizations and
whole societies today: Why, despite the best efforts of countless public, private and civic
organizations and the mobilization of vast collective resources do so many social and
environmental problems remain so persistent and intractable? The best intentions and
endeavors of countless individuals and organizations do not seem to sum up to the solutions
on the macro-level that are now much needed. This begs the question, what are we
missing?

Across the public sector, the social sector and other areas people are now starting to
become aware that maybe the underlying reductionist assumptions and paradigm through
which we traditionally tackle issues may not be appropriate for the scale and complexity of
today's issues. In this respect the new ideas of systems change are now rising to
prominence, there is now a sense that its vision, scope, and vocabulary is of a kind that is
sufficiently powerful to match the complexity of the challenges at hand. By leveraging a new
set of ideas we start to look at what we are doing afresh and with greater clarity that gives
renewed inspiration and momentum to our endeavors to shape complex organizations
towards more sustainable outcomes.

We now start to see these challenges as systemic, open-ended, co-evolving and with no
known solutions requiring new ways of innovating, new ways of leading, organizing and
responding. A way that leverages the power of the very complexity that creates these
challenges, a way that is not incremental or linear, but holistic and networked, an approach
that works with complexity rather than pushing against it.

This approach is inspired by and based upon a new way of thinking embodied in complexity
theory and systems thinking. A powerful new set of ideas, that hinge around holism,
systems, emergence, self-organization, nonlinearity, networks, adaptation, resilience, etc.
Systems change is about changing the underlying structure to a complex system to change
its behavior and outcomes. This stands in contrast to more traditional approaches that rarely
question system structure but focus on changing components, events, and outcomes.

The hope is that by seeing system structure, by changing those structures and organizing in
new ways, we can create patterns and institutions that better organize us in synergistic
ways. So that the system's structures we inhabit don't incentivize and coordinate us in ways
that have negative externalities leading to so many of the wicked problems we face but
instead they have positive externalities that sum up to something greater than the sum of
their parts as new types of organization emerge better suited to respond to the complex
nature of today's challenges.

This book gives an overview of this new way of thinking, its methods and models, guiding
you from theory to practice in an attempt to give a 360-degree view of this exciting new area
with untold potential.
Context
The term systems change is quite a new one but it is certainly no accident that it has come
to our collective vocabulary at these times. In many ways, we can recognize it as an
emerging response to the conditions of our age and the way that our world has evolved over
the past few decades. As such it should be of value to us to say a bit about this broader
context in our endeavor to better understand systems change.

Many processes of change have transformed our world over the past several decades at a
stunning pace. The growth in global population, the expansion of a standardized industrial
technology infrastructure around the planet, the great acceleration of economic activity, the
expansion of the market system around the world, the advent of information technology and
a global telecommunications network that interconnects billions of people.

All these developments have brought us into an age of complexity, where much if not most
of how our world works and how we coordinate human affairs - in terms of social institutions,
economic production and exchange, technology infrastructure and our socio-ecological
systems - is now mediated and interlinked by highly complex systems. These complex
systems take the form of networks that span across traditional domains, jurisdictions and the
boundaries of our industrial modes of organizing.

Complex Systems
We find ourselves in a world of complex systems that our traditional ways of thinking and
organizing leave us ill-prepared to manage and direct. Our failure to understand, design or
manage these complex networks, leaves us in a world of fractured industrial age systems
and structures that create huge negative externalities.

In every aspect of our lives we now find that we form part of systems - be they the supply
chains where our clothes come from, food systems, energy systems our political
organizations or financial systems - that are fractured, where our actions have small
negative externalities that accumulate on the macro-level to render them dysfunctional over
time, unsustainable and leading us towards mounting crisis.

MIT professor Otto Scharmer, asks a poignant question along these lines when he says "the
fact that we collectively create results that nobody wants, in almost any kind of system today,
how can we make sense of that?"

Increasingly it is recognized that the failure of such systems is not an accident or the product
of any one actor in the system but instead, a product of the very way the systems we inhabit
and depend upon are organized with a resultant growing demand to change those systems
rather than just changing any of their parts.
A Changing Approach
Our initial reaction to the unfolding sustainability crisis was to throw stones at the bad guys,
the energy companies, corrupt politicians, the banks - to take piecemeal actions and hope
that they would suffice. But in recent years such simplified solutions appear more limited in
the face of the complexity of the issues and a lack of desired results.

Today leading environmental organizations, NGOs, foundations, public institutions, research

centers and a growing number of individuals are starting to think differently. They are starting
to look beyond the immediate pain points, asking if there is a different way to respond to the
scale of the challenges that would be of an appropriate kind to match their scope.

These challenges are now increasingly recognized to be complex and interconnected.

Russell Ackoff found his own terminology for these kinds of challenges “English does not
contain a suitable word for ’system of problems.’ Therefore, I have had to coin one. I choose
to call such a system a mess.”

"Messes" we now term "wicked problems." We now start to see these challenges as
systemic, open-ended, co-evolving and with no known solutions requiring new ways of
innovating, new ways of leading, organizing and responding. A way that leverages the power
of the very complexity that creates these challenges, a way that is not incremental or linear
but holistic and networked, an approach that works with complexity rather than pushing
against it.

This approach is inspired by and based upon a new way of thinking embodied in complexity
theory and systems thinking. A powerful new set of ideas, that hinge around holism,
systems, emergence, self-organization, nonlinearity, networks, adaptation, resilience etc.

Limitations
This new thinking shines a light on the limitations of our existing approaches and why we
don't seem to get the outcomes we hope for. Today if something breaks in our societal
systems, we separate it out in to parts, analyze, find the faulty part and switch it out for a
better one. The problem with this is that rarely does it result in the kind of change leaders
hope for, instead, they are often confronted by new problems caused by the initial solution -
and the initial problem might also be back and bigger this time.

This reductionist approach focuses our attention and response on separate parts, rather
than asking how those parts are interrelated into the whole. As such it blinds us to the
patterns and networks that we need to influence so as to drive large scale changes.

An analytical approach draws upon the past to give us a sense of the future, we start to see
the world as predictable and controllable so we start to plan incremental linear progress -
when rarely is it the case in complex environments - and we lose the potential for the kinds
of radical nonlinear change processes that are really needed.
We fail to see the whole context within which events happen, so we think we have to change
the events themselves when a much more powerful approach is to change the context. We
see static snapshots so we try to shape the outcome to each new event when what is
needed is to better understand the dynamic processes that shape those events.

This new approach that builds upon systems thinking is now termed "systems change".
Systems change is about changing the underlying structure to a complex system to change
its behavior and outcomes. This stands in contrast to more traditional approaches that rarely
question system structure but focus on changing components, events, and outcomes.

The hope is that by seeing system structure, by changing those structures and organizing in
new ways, we can create patterns and institutions that better organize us in synergistic
ways. The aim is to change the system's structures that we inhabit so that they don't
incentivize and coordinate us in ways that have negative externalities leading to so many of
the wicked problems we face but instead they have positive externalities that sum up to
something greater than the sum of their parts as new types of organizations, functionality
and desirable outcomes emerge.
What is Systems Change?

The term systems change is a relatively new one, coming to prominence within just the last
decade, as such it is safe to say that it is still in its formative stage with many different
perspectives on what it is exactly. We may find many people using the same term but
depending on their background it means many different things. Before we start let us take a
look at a number of these interpretations.

Ashoka defines systems change in terms of tackling root causes: "Systems change is an
approach to tackling the root causes of a problem by identifying and creating shifts in the
systems that are responsible for the problem."​1

The author and advisor Charlie Leadbeater talks about it in terms of transformation and new
rules: "Innovations which are transformative and generative; which change the rules of the
game, create new relationships and create, with that, new flows and resources through
society."​2

Forum for the Future's definition is in terms of changing systems pattern or structure:
"System change is the emergence of a new pattern of organization or system structure. That
pattern being the physical structure, the flows, and relationships or the mindsets or
paradigms of a system, it is also a pattern that results in new goals of the system."​3

John Kania, who developed the systems change practices at New Profit, talks about it in
terms of shifting the system conditions when he says: "We're thinking about systems change
not as an issue or a person that needs to be fixed… it's the set of conditions that surround
that individual. We need to work on shifting the conditions that hold the problem in place."​4

Complexity
In many ways, we can see the rise of systems change as a response to the growing
complexity of the challenges faced by societies around the world. As a function of this
complexity, we are moving from a world where one organization could drive changes to a
world where that is no longer possible because of the scale, interconnectivity, and
complexity of the issues today.

The reality is that when you are addressing large-scale complex challenges and you are
sincerely motivated to find solutions then one quite quickly realizes that what you need are
methodologies that are significantly different from current ones. New innovation
methodologies, different mindsets, you need a new kind of leadership, you also need
different ways of collaborating and organizing people around a given issue.

As Kyle Peck says: "Systemic change is an approach to change that acknowledges the
complexity of the way the world really works." Systems change embodies this realization and
draws upon a new set of ideas from complexity and systems thinking to provide an approach
that is more appropriate given the complexity of these issues.

It is precisely the complexity of today's issues that defies traditional transactional or singular
interventions; allowing the problem to perpetuate, be it climate change, homelessness,
conflict, segregation, or intergenerational poverty.

For those who are really committed to dealing with these "wicked problems" the emphasis
shifts to the structure of the systems that are creating the problems rather than just dealing
with the symptoms. As James Greyson of BlindSpot Think Tank remarks: "If we were totally
serious about climate change, then actually we would be looking at something much more
systemic. We would actually be seeing climate change as a symptom, not just as a cause
and the symptom being a result of the way that we run the world. The way that we set up the
systems that we all live within because currently, they are setup to cause climate change
and a range of other problems."

Multidimensional
Seeing and tackling these "root causes" derived from systems structure requires a more
holistic way of seeing the world. Systems change is based upon the paradigm and ideas of
systems thinking which is a holistic view of the world; we are always reasoning upwards to
try and understand a system within its whole environment and context. This holistic
approach allows us to recognize the many dimensions and facets to a system, to embrace
this complexity rather than trying to reduce it.

Jocelyne Bourgon expresses this key multidimensionality tenant of systems change when he
says: "Complex issues are multidimensional and whenever you try and reduce them to a
single dimension you are on the verge of making a dramatic mistake because by prescribing
a solution that is unidimensional you are about to make the problem even worse."

Systems change is a response to the complexity of the world we live in and with that an
acceptance that there is no "silver bullet." Indeed it is a recognition that such a narrow
approach often makes the problem worse in the long run.

Systemic change is a change that takes into account all the various pieces that influence a
system, that means the people, the politics, the values, the reward systems, and the many
other factors. Too often we see social interventions that are ‘service-rich and system-poor.’
People are bombarded by interventions from different providers, all of which add up to less
than the sum of the parts. It is the system itself that pushes people into difficult situations or
prevents them from getting out and no simple summation of isolated interventions adds up to
systems change.

Holistic Approach
This holistic approach is very important as a starting condition when dealing with complex
systems. As Petra Kuenkel, director of the Collective Leadership Institute, notes:
"Wholeness, at a large scale, is our ability to look at things from a distance and to take into
account a larger perspective, because if we don't do this we do not only act in isolation, we
may act in the naivety that the positive intention that we have will have a positive impact and
it may not necessarily be the case, because we have not taken into account a larger
context."​5

Systems thinking, as the foundation for systems change, is important because it helps to
elevate our thinking to the systems level. When we can do this our approaches can become
radically more innovative and effective.

Think about a transport system, we see a bus passing, it is overloaded with people, so we
think "Oh, the transport authorities should put on more buses." This is a scarcity mindset that
is inherent to a component-based vision of the world. If we can elevate our thinking and
vision to the systems level we might start to see the bus as part of an overlapping set of
different networks. This vision would let us see that maybe instead it is a product of the lack
of coordination between the different transport modes that creates bottlenecks. This, in turn,
would lead to us developing an alternative strategy, perhaps to restructure the system by
better understanding the networks of connections and connecting things in new ways, then
maybe we would not need more buses. Indeed our initial solution based upon a partial view
of the system may well have made things worse, by adding congestion and perpetuating a
system that had structural dysfunctionalities.

A central premise here is that people have to become aware of the systems they form part of
before they can operate on that level and start to effect change at that level. Indeed it is
precisely this that we are struggling with as societies; that we are not really aware of the
complex systems we are a part of or how they work, which means we have little to no
capacity to intentionally shape them. The result of this is that all we can do is react to
unforeseen events when they occur and then create some rationale as to why they occurred
so that we feel like we are in control.

Petra Kuenkel puts it well when she remarks: "any sustainability challenges we are dealing
with, they are actually a result of a fragmented way of thinking... so can we take [our
thinking] one level up so that we can defragment the thinking so that we can defragment the
actions."​6

Nonlinear Change
Systems change is a theory of change that is nonlinear. It is based upon complexity and
systems theory's understanding of complex nonlinear organizations and how they change
over time. This nonlinear approach stands in contrast to most theories of change that are
based upon certain assumptions of linear causality; stability, predictability and the capacity
to directly affect the system toward changing in a prespecified desired direction.

The dominant, mechanistic paradigm we live with today views change as something that can
be “managed” through centralized, top-down design processes that produce clear,
predictable outcomes. This type of linear cause-and-effect thinking has influenced the design
and development of our Industrial Age institutional arrangements that contribute to many of
the global wicked problems we face today.
A new cross-domain collection of knowledge dealing with the dynamics of change within
complex systems is now emerging that challenges these assumptions and has the potential
to create new approaches to management, design and problem-solving. Insights from a
diversity of fields such as mathematics, physics, ecology, sociology, and organizational
development have revealed that change within open, complex systems takes place in
counterintuitive ways. Although change within such organizations can be stimulated and
even lightly directed, it cannot be managed or controlled, nor can outcomes be precisely
predicted.​7

Acceptance of the nonlinear nature to complex organizations and the fact that we can not
directly change them through linear causal interaction leads to a new approach to change
and a whole new kind of strategy. The strategy of the systems changer is about identifying
"leverage points" and then performing "systems acupuncture" to strategically influence those
important points in the system, where small interventions can have long term lasting effects.
Systems change eventuates when the interventions are made in the right place, given the
right motives and combined in the right way. This is about shifting the conditions that hold
the problem in place and it takes multiple synchronized and coordinated interventions at
leverage points that are often found at counter-intuitive places in the system and typically not
easy to find.

Collaboration
Systems change is certainly not a theoretical exercise, it aims at actually changing the
complex systems that make our economies and societies work - or not work as the case may
be. Thinking in systems, having a holistic view, identifying leverage points and formulating a
strategy is just the beginning.

The aim is to build ecosystems of actors that have a shared understanding of the system
making them capable of collective action. These ecosystems of actors need to develop
shared system diagrams to build everyone's awareness; to build shared language. This is
about building the collective intelligence of the group and their collective agency.

Beyond awareness, these platforms need to have agency through collaborations that enable
a diversity of actors across the system to start to synchronize their activities in synergistic
ways. Platforms for system change work to build systems awareness through bringing
people together, creating structures that enable them to work together, make collaboration
an attractor and demonstrate value to the stakeholders. Likewise, they have to build
adaptive learning feedback loops for the network to explore and learn about the problem and
possible solutions.

Collaborative change requires building shared understanding, shared language and

ultimately some form of collective intelligence. This starts with recognizing the other actors
and the need to work together, then coordinating, collaborating, synthesizing; the result is
the emergence of some new functional pattern in the system. As Co-impact highlights in
their approach: "Systems change is about realigning the underlying relationships, functions,
incentives, and motivations to a higher (outcome-focused) equilibrium."​8
Examples
Systemic innovations can be suddenly pushed forward by a crisis, cultural changes or
disruptive technology among other things. More often they are the result of slow but
cumulative processes entailing changing infrastructures, behaviors and cultures that reach a
tipping point, at which stage large scale systems changes happen very fast; the fall of the
Berlin Wall is but one such often cited example of systems change.

Other examples may include the Civil Rights movement in the US, the creation of welfare
states in the mid 20th century, the spread of democracy. One of the most recent, large scale
and dramatic illustrations of systems change may be the rapid spread of the market system
around the world with the rise of economic globalization in the 90s and the changes in
patterns of work, economic conditions, power and culture that it has resulted in for billions of
people.

However, none of these processes of systems change were on the strategic level that we
are looking for today; they changed systems, yes, but not in the strategic fashion we will be
outlining in this book. Today we are searching for a more conscious and strategic way to
influence and shape complex organizations when needed. It can be easily argued that
examples of people doing such a thing, at the scale required, does not yet exist.

Systems change with intentionality, where we really bring new ideas and thinking together
with deep insight and analysis combined with the formation of platforms for collaboration that
drive comprehensives systems-level change within a large complex system such as the
global food system or energy system, this has not been realized at scale yet.

We have changed systems but we have never really consciously and strategically changed
one of the kinds of global systems - to a higher equilibrium - that ultimately need to be
changed if we are going to realize sustainable outcomes for all. Such things it could be
argued are largely beyond us today and thus true examples probably do not exist yet, but
hopefully lie somewhere in the future. We might say that it is part of the systems change
movement to bring them into being as an example of possible ways forward.

We highlight this in an attempt to ensure that systems change remains an active endeavor
on all levels, both on the small scale but also on the largest scales possible. In a talk by Indy
Johar, he framed the situation well by saying "The scale of change, if we want to survive as
a global civilization, will be of an order that is unimagined, let us start the conversation from
that perspective."​9
Section 1: Change

Section 1: Change
In this section, we are going to explore the nature of change within complex organizations.
The first thing to note is how complex organizations change is fundamentally different from
our traditional linear conception of change management. Nonlinear systems of all kind are
marked by discontinuous processes of change, what are called phase transitions, where the
structure of the whole system changes as a new overall pattern emerges and the old pattern
disintegrates.

Our traditional understanding of how change happens is that we - or someone - imposes that
change based upon some preconceived plan. However as we will discuss in this section,
systems change is not like this, with systems change we are always working with the change
potential of the system rather than imposing a preconceived plan on it.

Although this process of change may not be linear and predictable in detail it is not random
and we can say something about the general pattern that complex systems adhere to as
they evolve. If we do not understand that they are changing and how they are changing then
we will fall into the trap of thinking that we need to change them directly ourselves; which is
an impossibility and the surest way to waste our time, energy and resources.

The better we understand how complex adaptive systems change the more we will see that
we do not need to directly change them ourselves. For this reason, it is critically important
that we start with an understanding of how this process of change plays out in complex
organizations.
Theory Of Change

Systems change is about changing complex organizations, it is thus before anything what
we would call a "theory of change" - it will give us a set of ideas and methods about how to
do change in complex environments. People have been thinking about how to do change
within organizations long before we came up with the idea of systems change, so a good
place to start is by first understanding a little about theories of change in general so that we
can better position systems change in its broader family and see how and why it is unique.

The Center for Theory of change tells us that a "Theory of Change is essentially a
comprehensive description and illustration of how and why the desired change is expected
to happen in a particular context."​10 Quite simply theories of change are the essential plan as
to how we are going to get from where we are to where we want to be.

NPC in their paper entitled Creating your Theory of Change break this down a bit farther
noting "a theory of change is a scheme to help us describe the need you are trying to
address, the changes you want to make (your outcomes), and what you plan to do (your
activities)."​11

A theory of change is always present within a planned course of action, whether it is

explicitly acknowledged or not. What we wish to do here is make as much explicit as
possible so that we can be clear about it and know the assumptions involved. This gives us
the capacity to question whether those are valid assumptions and whether the whole thing
makes sense or where the issues might lie.

Often organizations wish to see a change, they will have an idea about what they would like
to see as the outcome, their view of the world is based upon some assumptions, and they
take some actions but there is little coherent connection between them, because they are
not really aware of them as a whole.

As such a theory of change is a powerful tool that helps organizations articulate the
connection between their actions and their mission. It aims to give an outline of both the
assumptions involved in supporting the change process and the actions that will lead to the
desired outcome. The theory of change defines long-term goals and then maps backward to
identify necessary preconditions. Through theories of change actions and the achievement
of the long-term goals can be better understood, connected and articulated.

A theory of change is often illustrated by a diagram or chart which should help us to consider
and communicate the assumptions and enablers that surround our initiatives and explain
why we think our activities will lead to desirable outcomes.​12
Simple and Complex
Theory of Change developed from the field of program evaluation in the 1990s as a new way
of analyzing the theories motivating programs and initiatives working for social change.​13
Since then the use of the Theory of Change in planning and evaluation has increased hugely
among, NGOs, philanthropies, government agencies, etc. Change processes are now no
longer seen as linear, but as having many feedback loops that need to be understood, with
links to complexity and systems thinking now forming.

Theories of change can be simple and linear in their assumptions taking the form of logic
models and log frames or even gantry charts, involving linear causal relationships, or if-then
relationships. However, systems change is based upon the assumption that the system we
are dealing with is not amenable to this kind of linear process of change but is a search for a
different form of change that would be relevant for more complex nonlinear change
processes. With nonlinear processes of change, one thing does not lead sequentially to
another, but instead, outcomes emerge out of the underlying structure of the system, the
way the parts are interrelated.

Theories of change make the connection between what we are doing and the changes we
want to see, this remains the same even when dealing with complex systems. So a theory of
change still applies, we are still acting strategically to change a system and we need to be
aware of the assumptions we are making, where we want to go to and our general approach.
The intervention however is now no longer a linear process, it is one that instead is based
around the nonlinear process of emergence.

Although change in a complex organization is nonlinear we still need some theoretical

grounding to structure our thinking as to how change happens and this is what we will look at
in the coming three modules as we look at the adaptive cycle, the two-loop model and
transition theories.
Adaptive Cycle
The adaptive cycle is a heuristic model developed by C.S. Holling for understanding macro
processes of change in ecosystems, however, the adaptive cycle is equally applicable to any
complex adaptive system. It can be used to identify structural patterns in both ecosystems
as well as social systems as they go through nonlinear processes of change. Systems
change is about changing complex adaptive systems - i.e. living systems - so understanding
these inherent processes of change in living dynamical systems will be of great value.

The model describes how complex adaptive systems evolve in terms of four phases, with
these four phases being exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization.

Exploitation
The first stage of exploitation is one of a new environment, it is one of growth, a time of
expansion and increasing complexity. A system in the exploitation-stage has successfully
reoriented post-crisis and there is now plenty of freely available resources for rapid growth
and development. A time dominated by positive feedback and self-organizing processes of
assembly. This is a period often marked by abundant resources and entrepreneurial
leadership as the environment has plentiful untapped and uncommitted potentiality, which is
waiting to be reconfigured into new possibilities.

Once kick-started along a growth trajectory, many resource flows are available for
experimentation. In the r-stage, network connections are established and interdependencies
are built. At this stage, positive feedback can work to take hold of some emergent pattern
and rapidly scale it up, as might be seen with the exponential growth of a start-up company
as it rides the positive feedback loop of economies of scale.

Conservation
The conservation stage is a state of equilibrium, it is about controlled development and this
‘equilibrium’ is a time of stability. The system has reached a high level of complexity and
connection between its parts.

A mature system in the conservation stage dynamically performs at a high level of activity
and can be seen to be optimal, exhibiting strong stability. At this stage, negative feedback
cycles dominate over positive feedback, but as the system settles into a stable configuration
there is the possibility of rigidity forming.

Characteristics of a rigid system include very few key nodes with a high concentration of
influence, and low diversity both in nodes and pathways. Additionally, a rigid system is brittle
and vulnerable to disturbance because of reduced diversity and inability to self-organize.

This mature act of specialization weakens resilience by permitting systems to become

accustomed to and dependent upon their prevailing conditions. In the event of unanticipated
shocks; this dependency reduces the ability of the system to adapt to these changes.

The system may become rigid and seemingly indestructible, but stagnation and a lack of
flexibility may eventually make the system vulnerable to destruction by an external
disturbance.

Release
The release phase is one of crisis and collapse when the system is destroyed by an external
disturbance. Positive feedback generates dramatic change, and the system falls apart as It
is pushed out of its stability domain.

The test of a system in the release state is its capacity to survive in the face of extreme
disturbance or disordered collapse. A system must maintain vital functions throughout the
crises.

One of the ways that the diversity maintained through small-scale disturbances contributes
to the resilience of the system is by cultivating a large stock of resources from which it can
pull during a crisis, both in terms of organizations and their relationships, which is essential
for leadership to emerge during the release-stage.

Emergent leadership occurs when actors not tasked with leadership roles informally assume
key positions during the crisis. Failure to survive this stage can result in a complete
breakdown of the system cycle.
Reorganization
Reorganization is a time when the system begins to recover from falling apart. It is a creative
time when change can take a variety of possible directions; that is, the system has the
possibility of moving into a variety of new stability domains.​14

‘Chance’ can be important to the way the system reorganizes, determining which new
stability domain it enters. The growth stage that follows reorganization depends on the
course initiated during re-organization. To reorient after crises, the system must reorganize
and reconnect these pathways and node relations.

The release stage provides opportunities for new elements to enter and become more
prominent in the system, be they species, nutrients, individual people, citizen groups or
institutions. At this stage in the cycle, the probability of several alternative future states is
high.

The complex adaptive system can reorganize and return to its former regime, shift to a
different regime with similar structure but with changes in feedbacks and dominant
processes, or transform into a new regime with novel state variables and feedbacks. As
novel societal or ecological groups assemble, some succeed and others fail, and the
adaptive cycle may then be repeated.

Conclusion
The adaptive cycle is a heuristic model that tells us something about the different stages of
the process of evolution. We need to understand these inherent dynamics of complex
adaptive systems because this is how we change them. As noted no one can change such a
system we have to instead work with this adaptive cycle to enable it to evolve in a certain
direction. Without understanding these inherent cycles or where the system might be in we
have little chance of working with those dynamics and will likely exert our resources in the
wrong direction without success.
Two Loop Model
The Two Loops Theory of organizational change is a model of change that tries to describe
nonlinear emergent processes of change within complex organizations. It is a model inspired
by looking at the growth and decline cycle of living systems.

Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze from The Berkana Institute first pointed to this model in
their paper entitled “Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale.”

Frieze and Wheatley demonstrated a key dynamic at the heart of every organization
transformation, how "as one system culminates and starts to collapse, isolated alternatives
slowly begin to arise and give way to the new."​15

As with all living systems they are born, they grow, peek and then start to decline, ie they
have a lifecycle. In contrast, our more mechanistic view of the world is that something can
just go on operating indefinitely and if there is a problem we can always intervene and fix it.

This may be true for a machine but unfortunately, we bring this same kind of thinking to our
organizations, when in fact organizations are more like living systems rather than machines;
they change in a nonlinear process, similar to that of the growth and decay of ecosystems.
This simple insight can turn out to be quite powerful and help us to avoid common pitfalls
that stem from a linear mechanistic view of the world.
Loss
The Two Loops Model highlights how we need to look at both the growth and the decay
sides of transformation. If we want to launch a successful organization transformation effort,
we need to support the disintegration cycle and the germination cycle in the overall process.
This model highlights a key issue that our job as systems changers is not all about creating
the new, it is as much about helping the existing system decay with dignity so that the new
system can emerge.

With complex systems we never really get to start from a clean slate, when changing
systems there is a massive weight of highly invested stakeholders that have the mass of
resources and expertise, these people have dedicated their lives to building up the existing
system, it's structures and processes and we are now trying to challenge that way of working
while at the same time we need to move those resources to the new pattern.

We are navigating the loss of a system that maintains the way of life for many people, at an
organizational level or a sector level we're asking people to do things that are uncomfortable
and difficult for them.​16

Take for example tackling homelessness within a given city. As a collaboration to end
homelessness at least one of us in the room will be a homelessness provider, getting paid to
provide refuge and if we are successful in our purpose we will likely be putting them out of
business, yet at the same time, they have to align with the overall purpose.

Real lasting change is democratic, it involves people in creating their own future, the
alternative is a dictatorship and dictatorships are inherently unsustainable. Systems change
is a commitment to sustainable ways of operating and at the heart of that is a commitment to
non-dictatorial modes of change and leadership.
We have to get everyone involved both the old and the new and this means learning how to
navigate the loss of the old at the same time that we are supporting the new, aiming to
create structures that will enable that. The two-loop model will help us with this as it helps us
to recognize the underlying dynamics at play.

Model
The model as a whole describes two "loops." The first of these is used to represent the
growth and subsequent decline of the existing incumbent systems. The second loop is used
to represent the new emerging next generation of this system.

The model as a whole describes the transition or process of nonlinear change from the old
system to the new. By nonlinear we mean that it is discontinuous, there is no linear set of
steps that will take us from the old to the new, but instead, there exists some phase
transition that engenders a qualitative change in the process of getting from the old to the
new.
Growth
Looking at the first loop we can see its rise, peak, and fall. In this initial rise faze something
is being brought into the world and it needs what we might call "stewarding." It needs
leadership, new structure, resources, and fostering.

As this pattern develops and reaches its ascendancy the system becomes the dominant
mode of organization, the "establishment." Those in the system become increasingly locked
into a dominant paradigm that describes the world and the centrality of their place within it.
At the peak is often a false sense of permanence, a delusion that things will go on getting
better ad infinitum, with little imagination for any other possibility.

Those farther from the center with an impartial view may well see the system is about to
enter into decline. At this point, there may be the signs of the first divide in the system
between those assuming things will continue as such forever and those that start to plan for
its demise.

As time progresses and the system declines, those wedded to the regime will continue under
the assumption that nothing has changed as the gap between their belief and the underlying
reality widens.

One could point to countless examples of this in business and politics, the providers of the
mainframe computer could not see the personal computer coming or dictators claiming their
rein will go on forever just before their downfall.

Decline
As the system enters into decline what is now needed is hospicing, this requires attending to
the emotional and spiritual needs of the individuals or organization, helping them to develop
alternative narratives that lets them accept reality and let go of the past. However, hospicing
capacity will be limited if the system is still in denial.

Finally, when an organism or organization dies it needs to be decomposed, meaning that the
resources that it contained for its operation need to be released back to the broader system
for the generation of the new pattern.

The fulfillment of this process takes a great effort of leadership as it involves letting go of the
past and giving over to the future system, giving up one's power, control, and resources to a
new pattern of organization. This is something that we rarely see in organizations on a large
scale, more often we see denial, resistance, and fighting before acceptance of the new.

As the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer describes it "All truth passes through
three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as
being self-evident."
One colorful illustration of this is Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan and his evolving
relationship with the digital currency Bitcoin. In early 2014 Dimon started his career in bitcoin
commentary at the World Economic Forum, labeling the cryptocurrency a “terrible store of
value” and suggesting that the Wall Street bank would stay as far away as possible. As he
said, “The question is, do we even participate [with] people who facilitate bitcoin?”​17

Shortly after he said “No government will ever support a virtual currency that goes around
borders and doesn’t have the same controls,” adding “It’s not going to happen.” A little after
he came to the conclusion that “It’ll eventually blow up. It’s a fraud, OK?”

The subsequent years saw a transition from denial and resistance to acceptance until by
2019 JPMorgan had made a complete U-turn when the head of digital treasury services and
blockchain at the bank, said: “We have always believed in the potential of blockchain
technology and we are supportive of cryptocurrencies..."

Second loop
In transitions something new is always born, however, it may look very different from the old.
What is important is that we try to grasp the full scope of change and not limit our
imagination or ambitions. Often the old regime will get a sense for the new and try to copy it
based upon the old logic and many may well accept this as the new even though it is still
supported by an underlying system that is disintegrating. The example of JP morgan's digital
currency launched in 2019 - over ten years later than the creation of the original digital
currency bitcoin - may come to mind here.

Or more broadly we can think about the current state of financial technology, fintech, where
incumbent banks that hear about the new and wish to be seen as innovative, will buy some
fintech startups to make their web site or mobile app look flashy.

Ultimately it is the whole system that is falling to bits and it is those that are outside of it that
will really understand the full context of the new and build something that is aligned with that
which will prevail.

Sometime around the peak of the old system new alternatives to the dominant approach
emerge. Outside innovators are there because they saw the decline of the old and left, or
maybe because they have always been left out, or because they represent a younger
generation who have grown up into a new set of possibilities that simply make sense to them
because they are not conditioned by the old logic.

It is when the pioneers of the new innovations start to get connected to each other that an
alternative starts to emerge and they start to give rise to an alternative pattern.

Networks form when people search for each other to meet their personal needs. Places
emerge where people inspired by the new innovations can connect informally to follow their
interests. Throughout history, these places have taken many forms, the Greek forum,
Florence Italy, Parisian cafes, the night clubs of Berlin, Silicon Valley, or the online
communities of today.
However, a network of such kind is not going to create a sustainable long-lasting or
influential organizational structure as it is too diffuse and incoherent to challenge the
prevailing paradigm. It's not enough just to come together to satisfy personal needs, at some
point, there has to eventually form something in the center, a coherent pattern of
organization, which is bigger than any one person's interests.

This often takes the form of what we call a "community of practice." When networks are
nourished by something that is held at the center the new system becomes sustainable.
When participants trust and work together for a common cause this is where resources need
to start to move from the old regime to nourish the new.

What happens at the very end of a living and dying cycle is that the new finally becomes a
system of influence. It becomes a system of influence when it illuminates to the old system a
new way of being. This is the point at which almost everybody will start to move towards the
new pattern which has to now be strengthened and scaled to support this demand.

The Berkana Institute describes their approach to developing the new as being about,
naming, connecting, nourishing and illuminating. They try to name the pioneers so as to
make them identifiable; connect them so that they will become something more than their
individual initiatives; nourish them by giving them the resources needed to develop;
illuminate by showing to others that this represents a viable alternative.
Past and Future
There is a big gap between when the new system will be ready to support the operations of
the organization and the disintegration of the old. It is important to note and keep in mind
they are paradigms and different worlds - the old will not recognize itself in the new for a long
time, if ever.

There are inevitably a lot of people who are going to get damaged and disrupted in the
process of this change. Some of the toughest, but most important transformational work
involves the integration of the simultaneous living and dying that has to take place among an
organization.

It is not so difficult to stay in the old and ignore the new, or vice versa just move ahead to the
new and ignore the old, as always the complexity arises at the intersection. Complexity and
creativity are always in the messy contradictory space in between, in this case in between
the old and the new regime.

Real meaningful and sustainable change is holistic, not partial, in this case, it means taking
into account the two paradigms, where we recognize the interdependence between them.
Aspects of the old have to be continued but recreated. As Charles Leadbeater puts it "the
future belongs to those who conserve old systems and combine them with new solutions,
instead of just rushing along into the new.”

The collapse of a system is rarely a good thing as it leads to outright chaos and destruction
of the system's core pattern. What we want is to use disorder to disrupt those inert patterns
that need to be while building something new that will support the continuation of those
aspects that need to be continued.

Value
The Two Loop model gives us some way to recognize and connect the past to the future,
which is of huge value. This model also gives us the possibility to try and come to some
consensus about where we might be as a group or even a whole society in this process of
change and thus the best actions to take. But to better understand this process of change
we need to look a bit farther at the nature of transitions which will be the subject of the next
module.
Transitions
For many interested in systems change, their motive to change a system hinges around
sustainability - whether this is environmental, social or economic.

The question of sustainability, in its general sense, is at the heart of systems change and
key to systems changing strategies, as we will discuss in a later module. But before we can
incorporate it as a key part of our strategy we need to understand something about the key
dynamics underlying sustainability and transitions in general.

Sustainability is an emergent property of a dynamic system. Non-dynamic systems can't be

unsustainable, likewise non-systems eg "things" can't be unsustainable, they can just be
more or less efficient. Sustainability is a product of the way the parts are interoperating
within the system to create its overall behavior. If the system interacts through positive
synergies between the parts then it is sustainable, if the parts interrelate through negative
synergies then it is unsustainable over time. Negative synergies create contradictions and
negative externalities and because of this systems have a life cycle.

As the famous sociologist, Immanuel Wallerstein says - "All systems have lives, no system is
eternal and that goes for the universe as an entire system to the smallest sub atom. All
systems have lives and the reason they all have lives is because they all have internal
contradictions, and over time they move far from equilibrium and when they move far
enough from equilibrium they begin to oscillate enormously and they have, what the
scientists of complexity call, this chaotic situation, a bifurcation and at that point the system
can not survive but where it will go is uncertain because there are two alternative
possibilities, that is a general premise."

Contradictions create externalities and these externalities build-up to render the system
unsustainable over time. Change happens when those externalities build up to a critical level
that degrades the system's environment that provides its input energy sources and the
system can no longer obtain the resources from its environment that are needed to support it
and it starts to degrade - if the process is slow - or possibly collapse - if the process is rapid.

Transitions
To explore this further we need to start a more comprehensive discussion on transitions. A
transition is a process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.
Transitions are pervasive in nature, many different types of systems evolve gradually and
then enter into a period of rapid change before emerging into a new form or state of semi
stability on the other side.

Seeds become plants, children become adults, a caterpillar dramatically transforms into a
butterfly. Examples of transitions in society and economy include: the transition from a linear
to a circular economy, or a transition from bureaucratic health care to human-centered care,
these are paradigm shifts.
Transitions are different from normal periods of change, during normal periods of change the
whole structure to the organization stays the same while the parts change. Things typically
grow or decay incrementally as one thing builds on top of another. Transitions instead
represent a transformation in the global structure to the system not simply in the individual
parts. During a phase transition the global structures that previously existed disintegrate as
new ones emerge.

As ice goes through a phase transition to become water its overall structural property of
rigidity disappears and the new one of solvency emerges without any of the individual atoms
or molecules being changed. This is an interesting observation to be noted, that during a
transition the parts may stay largely unchanged while it is the context around them that
changes fundamentally.

Typically two macro patterns are largely mutually exclusive, when we flip a coin we get a
result that is either heads or tails it is not somewhere in between. Two people can exchange
a song if they both use analog or both use digital but the two overall patterns are mutually
exclusive, there has to be one overall pattern for them to interoperate. It is because of this
fact - that the overall structure changes and that two overall patterns are often mutually
exclusive - that transitions typically happen very rapidly. For example, we can see this in
political regime shifts, political revolutions are typically short-lived and intense. In the space
of just one generation in the 5th century A.D. the Roman Empire in Western Europe
essentially fell apart.

This creates a process of change that is characterized by exponential growth. This

exponential growth is a hallmark of a phase transition and it is unsustainable resulting in an
unstable period of change. When an economy starts industrializing it typically does so very
rapidly as the whole organization becomes reconfigured all the parts are required to change
so as to fit in with this new organization.

During a transition the global structures that supported the system previously disintegrate
and new ones have to emerge, this makes transitions inherently unstable periods marked by
nonlinearity. As the previous structures that supported the system through a set of balancing
institutions and mechanisms disintegrate smaller and smaller events can affect the state of
the whole system.

Balancing forces become dislocated and positive feedback processes that compound upon
each other become more prevalent, creating more extreme events. We can see this well in
the changes in our ecosystems as balancing feedback loops have become eroded by human
intervention positive feedback becomes more prevalent and we get more extreme events, eg
hurricanes.

As the system approaches a critical phase transition these amplifying effects come to
dominate. During phase transitions, small events can appear to have large effects. Small
events through feedback dynamics drive exponential change leading to rapid decay or rapid
growth and the capacity to control this is greatly reduced.
Bifurcation
During a phase transition, the system is pushed far from its normal equilibrium state and it
can no longer carry on under its previous way of operating. The system has to explore new
ways of operating, innovate, rapidly iterate to evolve new structures before it runs out of its
previous supporting structure and resources. If it does not find new ways of operating and
develop new institutional structures, it will collapse when the previous structure and
resources run out. This is called the critical point.

As Professor Eve Mitleton-Kelly, of LSE notes "What happens, is when a system is pushed
far-from-equilibrium the following characteristics come into play to create the new order. It
will self-organize, it will explore possible solutions, it will co-evolve, new structures will
emerge, there will be a sense of coherence, but also the precise behavior can neither be
predicted nor controlled."

A bifurcation is when something splits into two different parts. In this case, it is a divide
between the old structures that begin to disintegrate and the new structures. Previously
unrevealed new long-range connections and patterns that were latent in the system emerge
in response to the changing context.

At a critical point, the system becomes highly nonlinear, smaller and smaller events can
have larger and larger effects, while traditional stabilizing institutions become less and less
effective and increasingly paralyzed in generating the required responses to the new
context. As the system becomes more critical it becomes less predictable and less
controllable. Financial crises are illustrations of this, where traditional powerful monetary
interventions can become almost completely ineffective because the system has become
highly nonlinear.

Collapse
As the system expands and becomes rationalized more specialized subsystems develop into
specific categories and a hierarchical structure forms for coordinating them. As greater
hierarchy forms and boundaries become more prominent members can also become more
removed from the consequences of their actions.

As the system becomes more rationalized and compartmentalized, it becomes more difficult
for members to relate to the whole organization, more difficult to create a shared vision and
common objective that all can identify with and work towards. The primary issue here is the
formation of large inert structures that separate the individuals from the whole resulting in
their disconnection from each other and the whole organization as they become more
focused on their own interests.

A primary cause of organizational collapse is the tragedy of the commons, in all

organizations the institutional infrastructure has to be able to align the individuals with the
whole organization, to ensure that the members perform the required roles and functions,
that resources are distributed in an appropriate fashion, that resources are not over
consumed, etc. As the organization becomes larger connecting the individual's actions with
those of the whole organization becomes more complex and difficult.

At some point the cost of the organization, regulation and there constraints becomes too
high for those at the lower levels of the organization, for these members it becomes no
longer worth staying in that organization and when a new form merges they move to that
alternative pattern, gradually reducing the resources inputted to the original organization.

The bottom of the hierarchy becomes eroded, fewer resources flow up to the top, the cost of
maintaining the structure becomes greater than the input resources and collapse becomes
possible. Collapse is when a socioeconomic system rapidly loses much of its structure and
organization resulting in a rapid simplification of an economy or society as it loses its
capacity to integrate and coordinate large numbers of people and functional roles. It loses
the capacity to extract the resources and perform the functions required to support the many
levels of the organization and institutions, creating the potential for crisis.

Transitions often involve short periods of crisis where local structures rapidly disintegrate as
multiple converging stresses result in the phenomenon of overload. Collapse occurs when
multiple simultaneous impacts occur upon the major central institutions and their inertia is
too great to deal with them.

Emergence
During a transition the centralized structures that supported the system in the previous
regime become no longer functional, they can no longer be depended upon to deliver the
required solutions to problems that extend beyond their level of structural complexity; in the
face of such problems, they appear at best paralyzed. In order for the system to maintain its
level of functionality or evolve into a new form, new functional structures have to emerge out
of the distributed parts.

Previously latent functions and capabilities become revealed and become critical to the
organization's future success unlike during a normal period. This is like in the Hollywood
films where it is always some police officer lower down in the ranks that turns out to be the
hero during a period of crisis.

Due to this increased importance of the latent distributed capabilities in the organization the
history of the organization becomes ever more important, it is the choices the organization
made in the past that brought it to its current state that come to matter.

Without dependence upon the legacy centralized organizations new capabilities have to
emerge out of distributed self-organization. As standard centralized structures become
increasingly discredited within the mainstream what was previously marginalized domains
and capabilities are recognized as increasingly important. As large incumbent centralized
organizations become inert it stops being the dog that wags the tail and starts to be the tail
that wags that dog. Fringe, informal, self-organizing networks emerge and have increasing
influence in a turbulent world, marked by exponential change, surprising shocks, and
extreme events.
Transitions often involve a new vision as this provides the context within which previously
unassociated members and organizations can self-organize to develop new structures.
Unsustainability is the necessity that pushes and technology may be what enables, but it is a
vision of the potential within a new level of organization that pulls.
Section 2: Mapping

Section 2: Mapping
In this section, we are going to use systems mapping to build up an understanding of the
structure and dynamics of the system we are dealing with. Systems mapping is the process
of mapping out the key elements in the system and the relations between them that drive the
system's behavior and outcomes over time.

This is the first step towards developing a shared understanding of what the system under
consideration looks like and lays the foundation for future co-learning. It creates a basis for
initiating a discussion on how different variables relate to each other and reaching
consensus on the main goals of the system.

As we will discuss during this section, systems mapping is not a monolithic thing, all complex
systems have multiple dimensions to them, social, ecological, technological, economic, etc.
In order to take a holistic approach our map will have to be multi-layered taking account of
these different dimensions.
Holistic Perspective
One of the central propositions of systems change is that we should not change a system
without first gaining a deep understanding of its overall structure and workings. A narrow
analytical and partial vision will lead at best to partial results, if we want to achieve
something more than this then we will need a more holistic vision of the system. It is only
from a more comprehensive view of what we are dealing with that we can hope to achieve
more comprehensive and complete results. This requires trying to understand the overall
structure, features, and dynamics of the system.

The reason our initiatives often fail is that we take a partial approach, based upon a partial
understanding of the system. We think that cybersecurity is about computers and code and
then spend millions in securing the information system itself without properly accounting for
the people, their motives, behavior, and habits. We think that education is all about what
happens in the classroom when it is as much about the many other dimensions to the
student's life as what happens in school.

To avoid these common pitfalls, we need to grasp the multi-dimensional nature of complex
organizations and map this out as best we can. If we want to be successful in our systems
change efforts we need to be aware of all the different dimensions to the systems we are
dealing with. Too often our endeavors fail because we try to reduce the whole system to one
dimension so as to simplify things.

Systems change involves working on many different levels and across many different
domains. As the Academy for Systems Change notes, system change “involves deep shifts
in mental models, relationships, and taken-for-granted ways of operating as much as it
involves shifts in organizational roles and formal structures, metrics and performance
management, and goals and policies.”

Dimensions
We are trying to get a vision for what elements, relations and networks are regulating the
state of the system and these take many forms.

Physical Environment
On the most basic level what regulates and coordinates us as individuals and organizations
is our physical environment. The physical layout of an office, the structure of a building, a
city, or a transport system regulates and coordinates human behavior in sometimes subtle
ways - often like a fish in water, we take it for granted.

Organizational Structures
We form part of organizations of various kinds from our cultures and societies to families,
businesses, nations or sports clubs. These organizations engender rules, incentives and
power dynamics that shape how people behave, what gets said or not said, who gets to do
what, what happens and what does not happen. Every day we and millions or billions of
others get out of bed and recreate our societal and organizational patterns, these patterns
are largely a function of the rules, incentives and power dynamics of our institutional
structures. To do systems change we are going to have to have some understanding of
these and map them out to make them explicit.

Mental Models
Beyond this how systems operate and people act to create emergent outcomes is a function
of the way they see the world and the mental models that we share as organizations and
societies. These models often go unnoticed as they are part of our culture, being imbued
with them from a young age. By surfacing these mental models we can see how we
collectively create outcomes by the way we see the world and by changing those models we
can create different outcomes. Systems thinking engenders a deep reflexivity about the
models that we hold and how they work to create the world around us. Part of a systems
thinking approach is to surface those and make them explicit.

Values
Ultimately what shapes human behavior and outcomes are our values. Values subtly shape
and guide us by telling us which way is up and which way is down. Even if our values are
apparent to us they may not be apparent to others, making them explicit is a part of creating
a shared understanding of the system we form part of. Mapping out the value system
surfaces alignments or misalignments of values which can help us to be aware of where
possible points of conflict or collaboration may arise.

Expanding Scales
The different dimensions of scale are likewise hugely important, we need to be able to look
at the system from the smallest level to the largest. Systems change all the time, on all
different levels, therefore systems change happens on all scales, from the smallest little
action to processes that take place across the whole global economy and biosphere. We
would not be doing systems thinking if we did not try to account for those many different
levels.

The smallest of levels might represent something like the way a person turns on their
computer or uses their toothbrush. The broadest level spans up to centuries and even
millennia-long processes of change within civilization itself, for example, the process of
globalization or the information revolution.

We shouldn't shy away from either the big or the small, both are equally important. Without a
view of both, we create potential stumbling blocks, while with a vision of the different levels
we avoid getting trapped on one level, we can learn how to leverage and use those different
processes of change that are underway on the different levels to our advantage. If our vision
is too broad only focused on the macro, we can stumble by creating devils in the details. An
over-focus on the details without a view for the macro increases the likelihood that our efforts
will be overridden at some point by those macro trends.
By understanding broader processes of change we can align our initiatives with them
mitigating that risk and leveraging their driving force, while at the same time keeping an eye
on the details to engage the local, the personal, the particular or specific as an advantage.

If we do not think of these different levels then we will not be able to harness the potential of
the change happening on those different levels and we will likely get stuck because we are
just looking at change on one scale. Unfortunately, most people get stuck on one level, but
to be a successful systems changer requires you being able to move through the different
levels, zooming in and out to see both the trees and forest and the different emergent levels
in-between.
Systems Mapping
Systems mapping is a type of modeling that is designed to reveal the underlying
interrelationships and structure of an organization. This is beneficial as it helps us to create a
shared overall model of the system, likewise, it helps us to start to understand how system
structure creates the observable outcomes.

When one looks at most systems, be that in education, finance, energy systems or politics,
one will observe that there is limited understanding or consensus about the overall system,
never mind an understanding of how the system's underlying structure creates the
observable outcomes.

Typically when someone is asked to describe the system they operate in they will create a
list of the elements without an understanding of how they interrelate to form the whole.
Healthcare management will describe the nation's healthcare as a system, but when asked
to describe that system they will simply give a list of the elements, hospitals, doctors,
policymakers, insurance, etc. without any real consensus between members about that list.

When asked what the problem with the system is, they will point to one of the parts, with
different members in the overall system pointing to different parts. The inevitable outcome of
this is incoherence and lack of capacity to take coordinated efforts for the benefit of the
end-user. If we want coordinated action we need some shared understanding of what the
system is and how it is operating and this is what systems mapping can give us.

Put simply system maps are powerful visualization tools that can help change agents
describe and diagnose the current state of a given system, create a shared vision of it, get
consensus about the problems and identify opportunities. Of course, if we want shared
consensus about the state of the system then the mapping has to be a collective action,
created by those different parties involved.

We have published a whole book on system mapping that goes in-depth on the topic so we
will just touch upon it here to get an idea for its benefits and its importance.

Mapping
A systems map first consists of defining the elements in the system. We start by asking what
are the key components? In ecosystems this may be the different creatures, in a financial
system the different institutions, or for example in a supply chain the different producers,
suppliers, transporters, etc. We now map the relations between those elements. These are
causal relations. So these relations might be that of influence, of financial exchange or of
physical exchange such as the exchange of some resource, like water.

A cause and effect relationship in a systems map is represented by an arrow between two
variables. By “variable,” we mean anything that can change over time. The arrow goes from
the cause variable (the one causing the change) to the effect variable (the one being
affected by the change).
There are two types of cause and effect relationships: positive and negative. A positive
relationship is depicted by the '+' symbol at the arrow's head, whereas a negative
relationship is depicted by the '-' symbol at the arrow's head.

A positive relationship means that the cause and effect variable is moving in the same
direction, such that an increase in the cause variable results in an increase in the effect
variable, and a decrease in the cause variable results in a decrease in the effect variable, all
else equal.

An example of a positive relation is Births to Population. This is a positive relationship

because an increase in births will mean that the Population will be larger than it would be if
the Births hadn't increased. Additionally, a decrease in Births will mean that the Population
will be smaller than what it would otherwise have been.

Conversely, in a negative relationship, the effect variable moves in the opposite direction to
the cause variable. So, in this case, an increase in the cause results in a decrease in the
effect, and a decrease in the cause increases the effect, all else equal.

For example, if the Price of grapes increases, then Demand grapes will decrease (due to
some assumed price sensitivity of people who buy grapes). We are also saying that if the
Price of grapes decreases, then the Demand for grapes will increase, this is a negative
relationship.​18

Feedback Loops
When we follow a chain of cause and effect, we might often end up back where we started!
Our last variable feeds back to the original cause. This means that we have discovered a
feedback loop in the system.​19

A feedback loop is a circular chain of cause and effect. So when A affects B, B affects C,
and C affects A again, we say that a feedback loop exists between these variables. Just as
there are only two types of causal relationships (positive or negative), there are also only two
types of feedback loops: reinforcing or balancing.

An example of a reinforcing feedback loop is one of Births and Population. The positive
relationship from Births to Population also works the other way around - the higher the
Population, the more Births there will be, all else equal. Therefore, an increase in Population
will increase Births, and so a further increase in Population. The initial increase in Population
is reinforced by this feedback loop structure in the system.

Another example of this would be the positive feedback loop driving climate change, which
can be identified as such: when arctic ice melts, land or open water takes its place. Both
land and open water are on average less reflective than ice and thus absorb more solar
radiation. This causes more warming, which in turn causes more melting, and this cycle
continues.
The other type of feedback loop that exists is a balancing negative loop. Whilst reinforcing
loops generally cause greater change within the system, balancing loops generally do the
opposite - they prevent change and create greater stability.

An example of a balancing feedback loop is that of Deaths and Population. When a

Population increases, the total number of Deaths also increases, all else equal. With an
increase in Deaths, the Population in turn decreases. An increase in Population is thus
balanced by an increase in Deaths. Conversely, a decrease in Population will be partially
compensated for by a decrease in Deaths.

Negative feedback loops are used as control and regulatory mechanisms like in a
thermostat. Whenever there is a Desired state in a system, then there will almost always be
a balancing loop that describes how that goal is achieved. For example, when the
Temperature in an apartment is lower than the Desired temperature, then there is a
Temperature gap. The heating system will sense this (via a thermostat) and will generate
Heat such that the Temperature gap is eventually reduced to zero (i.e, such that the
Temperature equals the Desired temperature). If the temperature drops below the Desired
temperature again, then more heat will be generated until they are again equal. This is a
balancing loop.

Stocks and Flows

To perform a more detailed quantitative analysis, a causal loop diagram is transformed into a
stock and flow diagram, which helps in studying and analyzing the system quantitatively,
typically through the use of computer simulations.

A stock is a term for any entity that accumulates or depletes over time. A flow in the contrary
is the rate of change in a stock. An example of a stock might be a water reservoir. It is a
store of water and we can ascribe a value to the volume it contains. Now if we put an outlet
on the side of our reservoir and started pouring water out of it, this would be an example of a
flow. Whereas a stock variable is a measure of some quantity, a flow variable is measured
as a rate of exchange over time.

By using these tools of system dynamics, we may get a qualitative and/or quantitative idea
of how a system of interest is likely to develop over time. For example, if we create a simple
2-dimensional graph with time on the horizontal axis, we will see how the different feedback
loops create different types of graphs.

Graphs for positive feedback loops typically reveal an initial exponential growth as they
shoot upwards rapidly, but then reach some environmental boundary conditions where they
crash back down again. A financial bubble and ensuing crash would be an example of this.
Whereas the net result of a negative feedback loop will be a wave-like graph that will likely
be bounded within an upper and lower limit over a prolonged period, with relatively smooth
fluctuations during the systems development that enable it to sustain an overall stable state
in the long-term.

Benefits
System mapping is a powerful tool for creating a shared vision of what the system we are
dealing with looks like, but it has many side benefits such as; enabling us to locate root
causes to systemic problems; identify the system's constituent elements; assess patterns of
interaction within a system; deepen our understanding of the complexity behind most
systems failures; serve as a visual guide to understand interaction and relationships; discuss
how to identify critical levers for change within a system; generate collective intelligence; find
patterns & pathways that lead towards action.

System dynamics is essentially just a technique. However, the use of this technique can
radically transform how one approaches problems and even how one understands the world.
Systems Archetypes

System archetypes represent commonly seen patterns of behavior in a system. They have
regularly seen arrangements of causal relationships between the system's parts and
feedback loops that lead to similar observable outcomes over time.​20

As an illustration, we can think about the general dynamic of unsustainable behavior seen in
a wide class of systems due to negative externalities. When a system has internal negative
synergies between the parts this creates negative externalities - entropy that is exported
from the system. For example, an old machine whose cogs and parts are no longer running
smoothly will create a negative externality of noise pollution.

These externalities then typically build up in the system's environment to render the
environment degraded and overtime not able to support the system, which leads to a
sustainability crisis. Climate change is one example, but there are many others, such as a
financial crisis created by the build-up of toxic asses in the system.

Another generic system archetype is a balancing process with delay. This archetype
explains the system in which the response to the action is delayed. If the members do not
perceive the delayed feedback, they might overshoot or underestimate the required action to
reach their goals. This could be evaded by being patient or by hastening reactions of the
system to realized measures.​21

Each archetype has a characteristic theme or storyline, pattern, and potential for action.
Being able to identify system archetypes in various situations enables a deeper and quicker
understanding of that system, and could also help us design powerful intervention
strategies.​22

The following System Archetypes describe the most common generic structures.

The Limits to growth pattern

The Limits to growth pattern is one of the most well known. It represents a period of
unprecedented growth produced by a reinforcing feedback process until the system reaches
its peak. The cessation of this growth is caused by limits inside or outside of the system.
However, if the limits are not correctly identified; the previous actions are continuously
applied, but more and more assertively. This results in the opposite of the desired state – a
decrease of the system. The solution lies in the reduction or removal of the cause of
limitation.​23
Shifting the Burden
This system archetype consists of two balancing loops or processes. Both are trying to
correct the same problem symptoms and bring the system back to balance. The above circle
represents the "quick fix" symptomatic intervention. It often solves the problem symptoms
rapidly, but only momentarily. The bottom circle, which has a delay, represents a more
fundamental response to the problem. Although the effects of the latter normally will take
longer to become evident, the fundamental solution will have a far more effective outcome.
‘Shifting the burden’ structures are common in our lives as well as in organizations. In these
situations, obvious symptoms of problems attract attention which often is dealt with by quick
‘fixes’ that make the symptoms reduced, at least for a while, but they reappear again later.

The Tragedy of the Commons Archetype

Imagine a lake in rural Kenya where everyone is allowed to fish. The lake doesn’t belong to
anyone in particular and you can fish as much as you want. Imagine that there are two
fishing companies in the area and that all those who fish in the lake belong to either
company Z or company X. The more fish company Z catches, the more profits they generate
and the more they will increase their Fishing, as profits allow the company to hire more
fishermen and buy more fishing boats. This principle is the same for Company Y and
together both companies make up the Total fishing. In the beginning, both Company X and
Company Y make good profits and provide a valuable service to the community.​24

However, when we look at the longer term we see that this system, if left uncontrolled, may
result in some unintended consequences. If the level of fishing is not limited in some way,
then it may eventually lead to a situation whereby more fish are being caught than are being
naturally replenished, leading to a decline in the number of fish in the lake.​25

Less fish in the lake, in turn, leads to more effort to catch a fish, as fishermen might need
either better boats to go to deeper waters, or to spend more time fishing to catch the same
amount of fish. This decreases the profits of both companies, as well as the fish provided to
the community. It also harms the fish population and perhaps the whole lake ecosystem.​26
Success to the Successful
This describes a dynamic where two people or activities require the same limited resources.
As one of them becomes more successful, more resources are assigned to them. However,
now the second one becomes less and less successful due to lacking resources, this
“proves the right decision” to support the first one. Problems arise if the competition is
unproductive and interferes with the goals of the whole system. The two activities or agents
might be decoupled or they should receive a balanced amount of resources. Examples may
be seen with a company that has two products giving success to the one that was initially
successful.​27

These are all recurring patterns seen in systems mapping, by understanding the generic
underlying dynamic we can quickly use it to map out another system that exhibits similar
behavior or symptoms
Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder mapping involves mapping out the various individuals or organizations that have
a part in the system we wish to change. Stakeholders have a stake in the outcomes to the
organization and thus an interest in shaping events according to their stake. With
stakeholder mapping, we are asking who are the individuals or organizations that have an
influence in determining the pattern and outcomes of the system and who are influenced by
it.

If we take something like the energy system we will see many actors, such as regulators,
policymakers, incumbent providers, startups, engineering companies, etc. each will have
something to gain or lose depending on the outcome, which gives them a stake and also a
desire to shape that outcome in a particular way.

Often systems over time evolve towards a state of equilibrium between these different
stakeholders' interests and influence. The objective of analyzing the field in this way is to
understand the formal and informal structures that have led to the current situation and to
examine which structures and behaviors are currently impeding or could enable the change
process.​28

Organizations are composites of beliefs, rules, incentives and physical resources and we
need to think about and map them out along these various dimensions. To map out the
system's stakeholders:

- We need to define the scope of the project and system.

- Create a list of stakeholders who form part of the system.
- Determine the influence of the actors - which members are influential, important or
have potential.
- Identify their importance according to different dimensions of influence e.g.
resources, decision making, leadership, etc.
- Place the stakeholders on the map, scaling them according to their level of
importance.
- Map out the flows between them, this could be a financial exchange, physical goods,
communication, trust, influence, etc.

Now step back and look at the map from the perspective of the different actors involved.

Information flows
To get any form of organization, people have to communicate. Thus the way that people are
connected is critical to the way that organizations operate, what gets said, who has a say,
who hears what etc. A society or organization without electronic broadcast media is very
different from one with, and a society with nonlinear networked communication is again very
different from one based upon linear flows of communication.
As Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message" positing that a medium itself,
rather than the content it carries, should be the primary focus of study. He said that a
medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the
medium but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.​29

Our existing institutional structures that are centralized and vertical are a product of linear
communications; where information flows into the center, is processed and sent back out for
executing upon. Without information flowing in different directions, it would be very difficult to
change this. Nonlinear networked forms of communication now make possible new forms of
organization via the production and dissemination of information.

This can be a powerful leaver for systems change as we have and already are witnessing.
The introduction of social networking technologies into many societies with brittle political
systems is now having a real impact as people can have their voices heard and start to
organize peer to peer. It is when people come together that they feel empowered and we
now have new ways to come together via the internet.

Mapping out the flows of information is an important first step to understanding how the
organization works and at the same time what possibilities are there for changing those
flows of information to change the structure of the system.

Power Mapping
"Systems change requires a strong analysis of power and the actors involved – a mapping of
power, allies, and opponents. Who’s with you? Who’s against you? Who are your blockers?
What are they in it for? Why might these unusual suspects be allies? An analysis of power
will not only illuminate what is holding a system in place but can also reveal key levers for
transforming power and igniting systems change – often through the most unexpected
collaborations."​30

Systemic change almost always involves changes in power dynamics, it reveals new forms
of power and challenges the status quo. In such a case conflict may be a sign of progress,
and should be expected.

Power can be defined in many ways, here we will simply define it as the ability to make
decisions that will be implemented. The question is who gets to make what decisions and
what are the rules of the game.

Nurturing an ecosystem requires a deep awareness of power: Who has it? What kind? Who
does not? And we need to understand the power distribution not just in the abstract but in
practice. We need to be clear about the context within which we are talking about power.
Someone who generally has a lot of power in the system may not have a lot when it comes
to a specific issue.

“Power mapping” refers to a set of tools and processes that help us analyze power
relationships to develop a strategy for creating change. It helps clarify leverage points and
relationships that can influence decision-makers. Likewise it will help us to understand what
coalitions building strategies we might need to build.

Power mapping is a visual tool used by social advocates to identify the best individuals to
target to promote social change. It reveals available avenues of influence and connections
between these influences.​31

The power mapping process entails the use of a visual tool to conceptualize the sphere of a
person or group's influence. Start by listing the different actors and creating categories for
them. To fill out a power map we want to create a sticky for each individual or organization
that has the influence to make decisions within the system of interest and possibly related
systems.

We need to identify the different members and how primary are they to the decision making
process. Primary targets, make a direct decision, secondary targets are those who influence
the people making decisions.

It is important to remember that within any given system there will be both formal and
informal structures of influence and power, the formal dimension is not the only one.
Incentives Mapping
Charlie Munger once said, “Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome” and this
remains as true today as ever. Understanding the structure of incentives in the system is key
to understanding how and why it operates the way it does and why it continues in the same
path, irrespective of what the stakeholders say.

We need to get an understanding for not just the points of possible collaboration but also the
points of competition and where that lie is largely a function of the structure of incentives.
incentives can be both positive and negative. Positive incentives are rewarding while
negative incentives are punishing. A positive incentive would be like a bonus payment for
doing something, while a negative would be for example a fine.

A subtle combination of positive and negative incentives are used by organizations to

influence us in different directions. For example, as part of environmental regulation, the
government will use a combination of negative incentives such as banning certain polluting
activities, but will also use positive incentives such as subsidies for certain activities that are
seen to be beneficial to the environment. If we want to change the system we need to be
aware of how those incentives are working to either resist change or as potential sources for
enabling it.

To dig further into this we can use game theory to gain a more rigorous analysis of the
structure of incentives that people find themselves under. Likewise, behavioral science can
be used to better understand how people really behave.

Game theory works by seeing the interactions and organizations we form part of as games.
A game tries to capture the dynamic where autonomous agents that have their own goals
are interdependent in affecting some joint outcomes. A game has three major elements:
players, strategies, and payoffs. A player is a decision-maker in a game. A strategy is a
specification of a decision for each possible situation in which a player may find themselves.
A payoff is a reward or loss that players experience when all the players follow their
respective strategies.

Games are played over some mutually desired resources, the resource is whatever is of
value to the people in the organization - the agents in the game. A key consideration shaping
the overall game dynamic is whether the total value distributed out to all agents remains
constant irrespective of their actions or can it grow or decrease depending on their capacity
to cooperate.

Constant-sum games are games in which the sum of the players’ payoffs add up to the
same number. This makes for games of pure competition, what one gains the other loses.
Zero-sum games are a special case of constant-sum games, in which choices by players
can neither increase nor decrease the available resources. In zero-sum games, the total
benefit to all players in the game, for every combination of strategies, always adds to zero.
One can see this in the game paper, rock, scissors or in most sporting events like basketball.
In zero-sum games, the relationship between the agents’ payoffs are negatively correlated,
which is called negative interdependence meaning individuals can only achieve their goal via
the failure of another agent and this creates an attractor towards competition. These games
are called strictly competitive because they are no incentives for cooperation. For example,
basketball is a strictly competitive dynamic between the teams because there is no
advantage to be gained for either side from cooperation.

Non-constant games or non-zero sum games are those in which the total value to be
distributed can increase or decrease depending on the degree of cooperation between
actors. For example, through the members of a business working together, they can create
more value than working separately, thus the whole payoff gets bigger. Equally, the total
payoff may get smaller through conflict, like in an arms race between two gangs in a city.

In non-zero sum games, the outcome for agents is positively correlated, if one gets more the
other will too if one gets less than the other will too. With non-zero sum games, we can get
positive interdependence between the agents, meaning members of a group come to share
common goals and perceive that working together is individually and collectively beneficial,
and success depends on the participation of all the members leading to cooperation.

A cooperative game is one in which there can be cooperation between the players and they
have the same cost. Thus cooperative games are an example of non-zero sum games. This
is because in cooperative games, either every player wins or loses.

Cooperation may be achieved through several different possibilities, it may be built into the
dynamics of the game as would be the case with a positive-sum game where payoffs are
positively correlated. In such a case the innate structure of the game creates an attractor
towards cooperation because it is both in the interest of the individuals and the whole
organization.

A good example of this is the mutually beneficial gains from trade in goods and services
between nations. If businesses or countries can find terms of trade in which both parties
benefit then specialization and trade can lead to an overall improvement in the economic
welfare of both countries, with both sides seeing it as in their interest to cooperate in this
organization, because of the extra value that is being generated.

Equally, cooperation may be achieved by external enforcement by some authoritative third

parties such as governments and contract law. Here we cooperate in a transaction because
the third party is ensuring that it is in our interests to do so by creating punishments or
rewards. Likewise, cooperation may be achieved through peer-to-peer interaction and
feedback mechanisms. For example rating systems on eBay work to ensure that the sellers
act in the interest of the buyers because they have the power to leave negative feedback if
they don't, which will affect their future sales.

A noncooperative game is one where an element of competition exists and there are limited
mechanisms for creating institutions for cooperation. This may be because of the inherent
nature of the game we are playing, that is to say, it is a zero-sum game that is strictly
competitive and thus cooperation will add no value; as is the case for example with the game
chess.

Noncooperation may be a function of isolation, lack of communication and interaction with

which to build up the trust that enables cooperation. We see this within modern societies, as
these societies have grown in size they have transited from communal cooperative systems
based on the frequent interaction of members to requiring formal third parties to ensure
cooperation because of the anonymity and lack of interaction between members of large
societies. Lastly, there may simply be a lack of formal institutions to support cooperation
between members, an example of this might be what we call a failed state where the
government’s authority is insufficiently strong to impose sanctions and thus can not work as
the supporting institutional framework for cooperation.

Incentive mapping is important because it lets us see the somewhat invisible fields of
incentives that are acting on all of us every day. It tells us about the underlying structure of
why and where conflict, competition, and cooperation arise and why. It also points us in the
direction of possible ways to alter those "games" to realize new outcomes.
Models and Value Mapping

Almost 50 years ago Robert Pirsig in his famous book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance had something important to add to our understanding of systems change when
he wrote: "If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then
that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a government, but
the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those
patterns will repeat themselves.”

Mental models and the values that shape them are at the foundations of how we see the
world and act upon it to create the environments we inhabit. To get a deep insight into the
workings of the system we wish to change we are going to have to map these out; visualize
the values and beliefs of the different actors in the system.

Each of us has a different set of ideas, aspirations, and perspectives on how to deal with the
world around us. Our mental models contain information accumulated through our lived
experiences; they determine our perception of new information and help us create new
knowledge. A mental model explains an individual’s reasoning, inferring, and
decision-making process that influences their perception.​32

Mental models reflect the beliefs, values, and assumptions that we hold and they underlie
our reasons for doing things the way we do. As Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline
notes mental models are “deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures of
images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.”

In any organization, there are many individuals with an interest in such systems - the
stakeholders - and each will hold a mental model of the system and its purpose depending
on their understanding, experience, values, and education.

Interventions into a complex adaptive system should be informed by an understanding of the

stakeholder's perspective, we need to be informed by a breadth of available experience, lack
of understanding to the different perspectives of the actors in the system can be one of the
major stumbling blocks on the road to changing systems.

Shared Language
Part of a change initiative will involve building a shared language around the problem,
languages express how we see the world, we can't build language without understanding a
bit about how people see things. When operating in ecosystems of actors it is important to
realize that everyone has their different heritage, their journey to the present and that
heritage frames and defines how they understand things and terminology. The same word
can mean very different things to two different people because of their backgrounds. Without
understanding the context within which a person uses a term, misunderstanding, and conflict
will arise. We need to understand where people are coming from before we can learn to
speak a common language. Unfortunately, we cannot simply look at other people and
discern their mental models we need to make them explicit by mapping them out, cognitive
mapping is one way of doing this.

Value Mapping
Values are like a compass that directs our lives, they guide what we move towards or away
from by defining what is of higher or lower value to us. Values rank what is good or bad,
better or worse, and in so doing they give structure to our world. These rankings then work
to motivate or demotivate us.

Values are, and probably always will be, a major course of conflict in the world. Even when
we may agree on a value there will nearly always be some disagreement on the conditions
that need to be met to fulfill the value. However, by learning how to elicit and work with
values we can begin to understand what is important to others and why they do what they
do, in doing so we can begin a process of mapping out the values of the people within the
organization.​33

Value mapping helps us answer, why do people do what they do, by enabling us to describe
the values which are embodied in our personal work and in a wider organization. These
values are probably more important than anything else in shaping what we do. Our values
might be something that we take for granted that we think is obvious, or that we’ve never
actually articulated or written down. Revealing these values, however, can be very useful
when trying to explain why things work the way they do. Once the values are mapped, they
can be shared and act as a common reference point that simplifies and speeds up decision
making.

One good illustration of value mapping is The World Values Survey, a global research
project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and how those
values affect their social and political reality.

The global cultural map shows where societies are located along two dimensions. Moving
upward on this map reflects the shift from Traditional values to Secular-rational while moving
rightward reflects the shift from Survival values to Self–expression values.​34

Values can be mapped in many ways, one of the most common is the hierarchy of needs
that structures values in terms of their abstraction. People pursuing basic needs of food,
security or economic welfare, will differ hugely in motivation and worldview to those pursuing
more abstract motivation such as self-realization. Understanding the mix of different values
and motives that drive and direct people's behavior is important to gaining a more
comprehensive view of the system we are dealing with.
Section 3: Envision

Section 3: Envision
So far we have looked at theories of change to get a basic understanding of existing models
that describe nonlinear processes of change within complex organizations.

We then went into systems mapping to get a coherent understanding of the current state of
the system and how the parts interrelate to create the existing regime and pattern of
behavior. This should give us a firm grounding in reality before we start to think about what
could be; to envision alternatives to what exists.

Systems change is about transitioning a system from where we are today to somewhere we
would prefer to be in the future. To do this we need some insight into how the system is
changing, where we might like to get to, as well as some story about how to get there. We
need to understand how the system is currently evolving given current trends and processes
of change and we need to have a vision of where we would like to be.

In this respect, futurists make a distinction between normative forecasting from exploratory
forecasting. Normative work is based on norms or values. Hence, normative forecasting
addresses the question: what future do we want? Exploratory forecasting explores what is
possible regardless of what is desirable.​35 However at the end of the day, our strategy will be
some combination of these two. To make a vision realistic it has to connect with current
trends and processes of change and where they are going in the future. The present is
occupied but the future is a place of possibilities, we aim to understand the trends that are
leading us to a future systems state so that we may have an influence.

To make it realistic the envisioning has to build upon existing trends but guide them in a way
that is productive to create a vision that is both aspirational but also realistic. One way to fail
in systems change is not to have a positive vision of what is possible and thus resort to
negative incentives to drive change which will inevitably create their own counter force of
resistance.

As Dr. Robert Costanza notes "The environmental movement has presented a very negative
vision of what we need to do, it's always the things that we have to stop doing, but I think the
other side of the coin is that we can really improve the quality of life if we do things
differently."

If we want to be at the same time aspirational, with a positive vision, but also realistic then
this will require a deep understanding of the existing process of change and the set of
possibilities, both positive and negative.

It is the gap between what is and what could be that creates the potential energy to drive
people and whole movements of people forward towards change. Without either realism or
aspiration there is no real creative tension and nothing to create a different system out of.
We create energy for change by increasing the gap between what is and what could be and
living with that tension. We can do this by either expanding the vision or gaining a clearer
perception of reality. The clearer we are about both the stronger the creative energy that will
drive our change process.

We need a vision that starts from the abstract where anything is possible and works through
to the reality of the situation that contains real constraints and limitations. Most of the time
we create organizational cultures that either blindly ignore the current reality or have no
articulation of a vision and thus lack the energy to realize large scale change. Successful
systems change is going to require us to integrate these dimensions, creating momentum to
fuel change.​36

In this section, we are going to start to talk about future possibilities for transformational
change. To change the system we need some vision about what is possible, some
alternative that is both realizable and better than what exists today.
Horizon Scanning

Horizon scanning is a method for identifying early signs of potentially significant

developments through a systematic examination of opportunities. It explores novel and
unexpected issues, including matters at the margins of current thinking that challenge past
assumptions.​37 It seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly
change. We are asking where is business as usual taking us, where do we want to go, what
are the trends taking us forwards and, how are or can those driving forces be harness to
take us in either direction.

The Three Horizons Framework is one example of this that we will explore here. Developed
in a book by Bill Sharpe it is a tool for thinking about transformation and how to bring it
about. It is a set of thinking tools that help us think collectively about the future in a way that
leads to more productive action, to aid thinking about current expectations, rising
developments, and possible and desired futures.

This framework posits that in the context of transformation there are always at least three
qualities of the future visible in the present, three horizons in the dynamic that offer insights
into possible alternative futures.
In this model, the Y-axis represents what is the dominant pattern of organization, while the
X-axis tracks time. The chart is not a prediction it is more a schema of possible futures that
can be achieved.

The line h1 represents business as usual, the dominant way of doing things today. However,
this was created and adapted to a world of yesterday and the current context is changing
which implies that it is not fit for the future and it contains the seeds of its own demise, thus
over time we predict that it will decline. The trajectory is managerial in nature, as it
represents a system in use, and managers who have to keep it running, it is the way that
things get done today. Typically it involves practicing incremental innovation using familiar
approaches to help improve the existing system.

However, there are always people who are trying something different other than the
dominant paradigm and they start to form a new pattern that is represented by a line h3. This
line represents the pockets of the future led by people who see the need to do something
different. They are the visionaries and by doing something different create pockets of the
future in the present. These are new actors, with new assumptions and new values; usually
done by visionary individuals gathering small groups of people around them to stand for
something different and try and bring it into reality. These can be seen as the future we want
and the seeds of that future are present and visible today. We want to see them grow until
they become the predominant way of doing things, essentially replacing and improving upon
the old h1.​38

Between these two lines is a line h2 an emerging pattern that represents the current
innovations, it is the arena of disruptive innovation. These disruptions can take many forms,
a natural disaster or climate change, a new technology, a new concept like sustainability, a
social movement, or cultural innovation like rock music in the mid-20th century.

Disruptions are likely to create innovations, new ways of doing or being as different actors
step in and innovate in the dynamic space of change between h1 and h3. The important
question is how disruptive innovations will affect the transformation between the two.

H2 Minus
H2 minus is innovation that works to keep going and make more efficient or faster the
existing pattern without questioning it. For example, we see plenty of this with digital
technologies that have the potential to fundamentally disrupt existing economic models but
often get co-opted by existing models. Take for example the sharing economy concept in the
early 2000s, over time commercial interest caught on to the concept and worked to
commercialize it with today's platforms like Airbnb or Upwork.

H2 Plus
H2 plus is new innovations that go to building the infrastructure for the emergence of new
kinds of organization represented by h3. A disruptive innovation that's been harnessed to
bring through the emerging future and so it helps to hasten the decline of h1. Wikipedia
might be an example of this where technology has been used to demonstrate a different
mode of production, i.e. peer-production.

Futuring
With a group of people, we can then draw the chart up on the wall and ask, what is business
as usual? How did we get to that? How fast is the current pattern declining and what aspects
of it might we want to see retained? We can likewise look at h3 and ask what is the future we
want to bring into reality? What does it look like or feel like to live in that world?

We can ask what in the present leads to that future, and where are the seedlings, what
history values and culture are embedded within them? We should be able to give specific
examples of this as they should already exist. We can ask how could they be scaled to
become more prevalent and give examples of people who are already working on that.

We can also look at the disruptive trends, what are they? we can start to analyze them so as
to understand them better, they should be multifaceted, political, environmental, economic,
technological. What would it look like for that trend to extend into the business as usual
world? What can be done to try and harness it, we can look at examples of both, cases
where the trend was usurped by the dominant paradigm and where it is being used to build
the new.

Inertia
There is a key consideration for our systems change strategy that emerges out of the three
horizons model, that is the question of how much do we work with the existing system,
introducing innovation that extends it into the new versus building something to disrupt the
old. Do we adopt strategies that are symbiotic with the existing system - ones that are
designed to take it into the new regime - or do we develop solutions that are largely mutually
exclusive with the current regime but likely easier to work with because they have none of
the "baggage" of the old?

In this respect, a lot of our system change strategy is relative to the inertia in the system. We
are working in between the old and the new pattern, we are trying to continue those patterns
in the old that need continuing and connecting them with the new, but at the same time we
are trying to discontinue those patterns in the old that need to be discontinued, that
discontinuation we could call disruption. Inertia - that takes the form of absolute resistance to
some change that needs to take place - needs to be met with this kind of disruption.

Thus the degree to which we work with or disrupt the existing system is relative to its level of
inertia which can be seen to represent the degree to which we should work with the new
model versus working with the old. Thinking this through is important as it will tell us where to
apply our resources, which battles to fight, which aspects of the system we leave to die and
which aspects we work with to regenerate. This is never an easy question and an ongoing
process of inquiry.
Subjective Change
“Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the
only thing that ever has.” This quote by the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead highlights
how change starts small with a few individuals and then grows outwards to become a
movement. Change does not happen by accident or spontaneously it is led by pioneering.

For sure systems change is about collaboration and the mobilization of whole ecosystems of
people and organizations, it is a hugely social endeavor, however, this process starts with an
individual or group of individuals separately feeling something is not right and going on a
personal journey of questioning and discovery. That journey inevitably means facing
challenges along the way as an individual. Initially, each individual has to face the fears of
letting go of the past and exploring the unknown future; systems change can not happen
without the subjective personal transformation of those who pioneer it.

Creating the New

In a metaphorical sense, someone has to pay the bills for the creation of this new world, at
the beginning, those are the leaders, the ones who step across the line, create a new space
and are prepared to resist the forces that will be inevitably directed at them for challenging
and threatening the existing system. Leaders illustrate how, what is, is not the only possible
way that things could be, this both inspires people but also threatens the existing regime.

Change requires creating some kind of a vision of a different world; a vision that does not yet
exist. This will have to be unique to the system changer, if not there would be no point in
starting a new change process, one may as well follow someone else that already has the
vision.

To lead this change the person is going to have to create the story of a different world and
that starts with the change agent cultivating and growing their own view of the desirable and
possible future. Change begins with us, as Geoffrey Betason said: "you can't change the
system without changing yourself."

System change is a deeply personal endeavor it is as much about the individual's subjective
transformation as it is about the objective transformation of the system itself; they are two
sides of the same coin, two dimensions of the same process.

If we are going to lead change we have to see the new, create it in our lives and live it. Doing
this requires that we separate ourselves from what is. Separate ourselves from what we
have grown up with and has probably supported us for most of our lives, it requires that we
as individuals make a journey of separation and rediscovery, this is an inherently personal
and subjective journey.

As Otto Scharmer, the creator of Theory U says, this is about finding “a way to break the
patterns of the past and tune into our highest future possibility—and to begin to operate from
that place.”​39 This is what is required of a systems leader to be the first to see and live the
future possibility. As Otto says “Leadership in its essence is the capacity to shift the inner
place from which we operate. Once they understand how, leaders can build the capacity of
their systems to operate differently and to release themselves from the exterior
determination of the outer circle.”​40

Values
Systems change is difficult, but a lot of the difficulty is not out there, it is in one's own
subjective journey that begins long before the objective endeavor of changing a system
begins. A Lot of the challenge in changing complex organizations is in finding the right
motivation and this requires a deep dive exploration into one's values.

Our values are central, we as change agents have to have the right values and act upon
them. If you aren't clear about your values and motives your actions will be just as
incoherent, and you will dissipate your time and energy going in all directions becoming
overloaded. You need to focus on yourself and this focus comes from being clear about what
is important and what is not; we come to this conclusion by clarifying our values. This is a
process of letting go of those things that are not of value and investing ourselves in those
things that are of value.

We are borne into a world that expresses a certain set of values, if we want to change it we
are going to have to figure out a better set of values and that means questioning what is of
value and what is not, to create a new value system.

The world we create will be an expression of the values that guided our action in creating
that world, if we want a different world then we are going to have to question and formulate a
different set of values and then act on those with coherence. The success of our actions as
change agents depends primarily not on what we do or how we do it but from the inner place
from which we operate.

Motivation
Our values are important because they define our motives which ultimately defines how far
we can go. Systems change is a creative process and a deeply personal one, people don't
change systems due to extrinsic motivations, they do it from deep intrinsic motivation. This
intrinsic motivation has to be very strong if they are going to sustain the long term endeavors
needed to move a complex organization. Changing a complex system can be a lifetime's
work and may well require a commitment on the part of the change-makers to outcomes
they will never even see in their lifetime. It takes a strong gritty kind of motivation that comes
from something intrinsically at the core of the change agent.

Being clear about your motives and continuously working to expand them is the pathway to
success. Being unclear about your motives and having a fixed limit is the road to failure.
Multiple failings are inevitable, this is why a critical reflection on motives is essential.
Temporary failure is good as it is the opportunity to learn, terminal failure - giving up - is not
good, the difference between the two is just motives. We fail terminally because we have
reached the limits of our motivation. There really is no such thing as failure when the motives
are aligned correctly because you are always prepared to revisit your motives and redefine
the scope of your engagement to overcome the current stumbling blocks that caused you to
fail.

The road to success is really about connecting with a context or environment that is of an
appropriate scale relative to the problems that you are trying to tackle. When you are
connected, inspired and motivated by that broader process and environment then you will be
able to overcome the stumbling blocks within it and have the motivation to stay failing and
learning until you succeed. Motivation is what gives us the capacity to go back to the
beginning and deconstruct our assumptions - values or motives that led us to the point of
failure - and then reconstruct them again so as to overcome the stumbling block.

As Forum for the future note in their systems change capabilities "System change is both
complex and uncertain, as we are trying to navigate into an unknown future. Underlining the
other capabilities is the need for individual change agents to be able to reflect, learn and
continually develop their skills and resolve to implement systems change. They need to
cultivate personal resilience to deal with the demands of the work and be able to act with
integrity and purpose."​41
Theory U
Theory U offers a set of principles and practices for letting go of the past and collectively
creating an emerging future. It is a method - for both individuals and organizations - that
attempts to sense and bring into the present one's highest future potential.

Theory U takes people through the transformational change needed to develop systems
leadership. It is a method that takes people that want to engage in a transformation from
"ego-system" to "eco-system" a view that is more embedded in a whole system perspective.

The author of the Theory U concept expresses it as a process or journey, which is also
described as Presencing a combination of sensing + presence. It is a method that involves a
number of concrete steps along the U diagram.​42

We move down one side of the U as we attempt to connect with a world that is outside of our
existing paradigm, to the bottom of the U, where we connect with the world that emerges
from within, and up the other side of the U, where we attempt to bring forth the new into the
world. Thus it can be seen as a transformative journey of letting go of the past, opening up
and creating the future.
Openings
The left-hand side of the U diagram is about letting go of the old way of operating and
opening up. In their book Leading from the Emerging Future, Otto Scharmer and Katrin
Kaufer describe three “openings” needed to transform systems: Open mind, removing your
old habits and looking afresh. Open heart means developing the capacity to look at a
problem not just from your angle but from that of the stakeholders. Open will, the capacity to
let go and let something new emerge. These three openings match commonly seen blind
spots of many change efforts.

Gate
At the bottom of the U, lies an inner gate that requires us to drop everything that isn't
essential. This process of letting-go, of our old ego and self, and letting-come, our highest
future possibility. The essence of presencing is that these two selves - our current self and
our best future self - meet at the bottom of the U and begin to listen and resonate with each
other.

Creating
Once a group crosses this threshold, nothing remains the same. Individual members and the
group as a whole begin to operate with a heightened level of energy and a sense of future
possibility. They often then start to function as an intentional vehicle for an emerging future.

The right-hand side of the diagram has also three stages, starting with "letting come" people
start to explore the values and guidelines they desire for the future?​43

"Enacting" is a stage for the crystallization of vision and intent, what do the new values and
guidelines mean for new functions and roles? How should the organization of the future be
visioned?

"Embodying" is about prototyping the new by linking head, heart and hand. How can
processes be developed in the future? What phenomena and facts will characterize the
organization of the future?

The outcome of this process should be that we can now perform by "operating from the
whole" with a renewed and more complete sense of connection to ourselves and why we are
doing what we are doing.

At the end of the day Theory U is trying to tap into the deeper sources of excellence - and
thus grow our leadership capacities. This has to do with the inner space that we operate
from, it is a method that takes us through a process to improve our quality of attention and
intention.
Systems Leadership
Because of its nature, the kind of leadership needed for systems change is quite different
from our traditional conception. We tend to think of leadership as a position at the top of an
organization that comes with the authority to make decisions and have those executed upon
by others. However, systems change is about leading across boundaries, meaning you will
be leading with very little authority.

As Banny Banerjee of Stanford Change Labs puts it "when you are addressing really
large-scale challenges, and you really are motivated by the big scale, and you want to make
a big difference, then what you need are methodologies that are significantly different from
current ones and even innovation methodologies that outperform the current innovation
methodologies, but also different mindsets, you need different organizational behavior and
above all you need a new kind of leadership and that type of leadership we are calling
systems leadership and it is significantly different from business as usual"

Leadership is not a position, it is a modality. Anyone can be a leader by showing leadership

qualities. This is particularly true with systems change because the leaders of the new
paradigm are unlikely to come from within the traditional positions of authority, as these are
the ones who are most invested in the past and thus least likely to be those to see and
create the future. In general, leaders are people who see the whole, the changes taking
place within that environment and have a sense that they can shape their future and that
others can also - they work to enable groups of people to shape their future.

Professor Banerjee goes on to outline the nature of leadership in a system change context
by putting it in a chronological contrast to past forms.​44 He posits that the first paradigm of
leadership, leadership 1.0, is marked by the ability to execute, as exemplified by the military
leader or the role of the chief executive officer. Leadership 2.0 requires understanding
humans and experiences to create pull rather than push. Leadership 3.0 is a different game
that asks the question, can you change the system itself? Can you create a next-generation
system? "The quest for us as systems leaders is simplicity not on this side of complexity but
on the other side."​45

He describes a key capacity of this leader as the ability to create a certain kind of innovation
capacity in the system that is currently lacking. It is about enabling others to deal with the
scale and complexity of challenges. In this context, the systems leaders' job is to make sure
that people are climbing up the ladder when it comes to accepting and dealing with
complexity, "learning how to be non-systems blind."

Wholism
Otto Scharmer sees leadership as being “about being better able to listen to the whole than
anyone else can.” This is a primary ability of a systems leader, the capacity to see the larger
system. In any complex setting people typically focus their attention on the parts of the
system most visible from their vantage point. This usually results in arguments about who
has the right perspective on the problem. Helping people see the larger system is essential
to building a shared understanding of complex problems and the job of the systems leader.​46

They have to not just see the whole but create a space; hold a space. The primary attribute
of a true leader is emptiness, which is the condition or space for the creation of something
new. Being is like an empty container its primary attribute is that it contains whatever is put
inside it. This is why retreats can be of value as a way to detach oneself and create a space
of nothingness. At the end of the day, our capacity to achieve emptiness or nothingness will
define the scope of our capacity to create systems change. As Otto Scharmer states “what
happens at the beginning of any creative process? Nothing! Creativity requires that we
create space and wait for something to emerge.”

When a successful leader of the telecom industry was asked what she considered to be the
essence of her leadership work. She responded, ‘I am facilitating the opening process so my
team can sense and seize emerging opportunities as they arise from the fast-paced
business environment we are operating in.'”​47

Creating space is about living with creative tension. Leaders resolve the contradictions and
conflicts that others shy away from and in so doing unblock pathways forward. As Frances
Westley notes "there is a long history in the anthropological literature that suggests when
you have these kinds of paradoxes and you're able to reconcile them… it actually motivates
people to move forward, there's some release of energy."​48

One example of this would be the person who sees the need to create a new space between
different communities, they have to then live with the tension of bridging different
communities that may have strongly contradictory views and opinions. Systems leaders
need the capacity to not only bridge disconnected groups but to ‘hold’ the shared vision that
gathers disparate partners together and fosters community.

Liminal Space
An extension of this is the idea that systems change involves liminal spaces. In general
liminal spaces are spaces lived in for a certain amount of time as one transitions from a
previous state to the next stage? A liminal space is a time between the 'what was' and the
'next.' It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where
transformation happens when we pause and let it shape us into a new form.​49

In systemschangers.com set of interviews with systems changers, they note "our

interviewees describe a ‘split-screen’ perspective – moving in and out of the current system
at the same time as creating the conditions for a new system to emerge. Liminal spaces
need to be carefully designed to hold unstable groups of people together in the collective
pursuit of change." Innovators need to be able to move in and out of the systems they are
trying to transform. Even when they are outside of the status quo, they can maintain a
dialogue with it.

Likewise to change the system you have to recognize that you are part of it and you are part
of the problem. So often our desires to change the system are rendered inert because we
separate ourselves from it, putting the problem over there. This is setting the conditions for
avoiding systems change, embracing it means embracing our place within the system and
our place as part of creating the problem and living with that cognitive dissonance and
contradiction within ourselves. We are not the "good guys" the "saviors" we like others are
part of the problem and part of working through trying to change the conditions. Real change
starts with recognizing that we are part of the systems we seek to change. The failures we
seek to remedy also exist within us, as do the fears, distrust, doubt, etc.​50

Part of living with the tension of liminal space is uncertainty. Systemic leaders are unafraid of
the unknown – in fact, they embrace uncertainty. They are able to recognize points of
intervention and function successfully in the face of complexity. They combine a will to
understand systems with a recognition that they will always have to take action without
complete knowledge.​51

Responsibility
Leadership in a systems change context is a lot about responsibility, it is taking on some
responsibility of trying to create a better system; stepping across the line and saying a better
solution is possible. As Peter Senge notes: "the verb to lead comes from an indo-european
root '​lædan'​ it literally means to step ahead to step across the threshold."​52

Leaders take responsibility by redirecting attention from seeing that problems “out there” are
“in here”. Systems leaders take on responsibility by trying to shift the collective focus from a
mode of resistance and reactive problem solving to change to co-creating the future.​53

Change often starts with undesirable conditions, but creative system leaders help people
move beyond just reacting to these problems to building positive visions for the future. This
typically happens gradually as leaders help people express their deeper aspirations and
build trust based on tangible accomplishments realized together.​54

Systems change is about changing the structure of a complex organization. This is difficult
for a number of reasons, firstly because they are multidimensional but also because they
have a deep technical structure that is required for their operations. Likewise, complex
adaptive systems will inherently resist large scale change processes. This is for good
reason, such a change risks the survival of the system.

To be a system changer is to say a better system can be created and you are going to take
on some of the responsibility for doing that. It requires an appreciation for the multiple
dimensions of the system, an appreciation for the technical complexity that is required to
make the system operate on its different levels. As always it is better to not change a system
if you don't understand it or have some appreciation for its technical operations. To lead the
change you need to be aware of the system on different levels - technical and nontechnical -
and to take some responsibility for making it work on those different levels.

We should only be changing a system if it is systemically dysfunctional and the system itself
is not dealing with that core contradiction. There is nothing wrong with a dysfunctional
system or one that has contradictions, our world is not perfect, all systems have failures and
contradictions, the question is whether they are working to resolve those issues and the
system's level of engagement with that.

Part of being responsible in our endeavors to change systems is to accept that the world is
not perfect, all systems have failings and those failings will result in inconvenience and
suffering for us or others, this is a good reason to try and improve the existing system but it
is not a good reason to change the system.

Changing systems is dangerous, risky and hugely demanding on resources, don't do it

unless it needs doing. The only valid reason to change a system is if it has deep
contradictions that the current regime is not capable or not willing to deal with. Important to
note here is that if that is the case then the system is inherently unsustainable and will lead
to its own downfall over time.
Narrative
Stories shape how we understand the world, our place in it, and our ability to change it, they
can make, prop up, and bring down systems. It is through language that we build our shared
understanding and culture evolves. It's the narratives that we tell ourselves and the
narratives that we tell each other that actually create the world we share. Most of what
shapes our lives are institutions, which are largely just stories that we share.

Humans have always used stories to give coherence to the complex world we find ourselves
in. With the rise of agrarian societies, we created myths that glorified the land and
highlighted the seasonal and daily rhythm of life.​55 When we started to settle, humans
created myths imbuing cities and buildings with new values. On a cultural level, the stories
we live in justifying the status quo, make institutions feel inevitable, legitimize certain kinds of
solutions, and make our world feel preordained, when in fact it is largely the story that adds
these attributes.

Our future is made up of the stories we tell today, thus we can change our future by simply
telling different stories. If we want to change a system, create a different world, we are going
to have to have a coherent story about the new possibilities. As such the output to a vision
should be a story that is both aspirational and realistic, which will engage and ignite change.

Charlotte Millar co-founder and strategist with the Finance Innovation Lab talks about the
need for stories as part of a system change process as such: “this work of authoring a
compelling story about yourself, your community, and the need for urgent action, is integral
to creating movements. Without a common story, movements lack a narrative about why
they exist and will fail to generate a sense of belonging amongst their members.”

Elements of Stories
For people to act with sustained coherence they need some culture that makes sense of
their world and gives it coherence - an ontology - they need some value system to tell them
which way is up and which way is down - an axiology - these values create a direction for
them to travel in to get to the things they value - a teleology.

In the article Using Story to Change Systems Ella Saltmarshe itemizes some of the key
attributes to stories - "Story has many different qualities that make it useful for the work of
systems change. It’s a direct route to our emotions, and therefore important to
decision-making. It creates meaning out of patterns. It coheres to communities. It engenders
empathy across difference. It enables the possibility to feel probable in ways our rational
minds can’t comprehend. When it comes to changing the values, mindsets, rules, and goals
of a system, the story is foundational."
Sense-Making
Sense-making is the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences. It
has been defined as "the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that
rationalize what people are doing."​56

In the 21st century with the rise of the Anthropocene we live in uncharted territory, where old
stories that served us well for so long are now appearing incomplete in a world of
complexity. We increasingly feel a sense of being overwhelmed and the world "falling apart"
because our stories of how the world works are no longer suffice and that lack of story
translates into a lack of direction. In this uncharted territory, we are looking for new ways to
make sense of complexity.

The formation of stories or narratives helps us make sense of the world around us within a
coherent overall narrative. They relax the constraints of itemizing details and strict
adherence to facts so that we can try to see and make sense of the whole.

Stories help us make sense of our world the past, present, and future, thus illuminating the
ways of change. They can, in a comprehensive way, illustrate future possibilities and gaps
with present reality to create the space for creative tension and energy.

As systems practitioner David Stroh said in an interview: “It’s like the story of the blind men
and the elephant. Everyone only sees their part of an elephant. They see the individual
stories they tell themselves about what’s true. Sharing these helps them create a more
expanded and accurate collective narrative. It enables them to develop a shared picture of
reality.”

Identity
Building a new identity for a network of members is required to engage people in change.
Identities can be created, and have always been created, with not much more than a story.
France, Japan, the United States are stories that were created when a group of people
started to connect due to innovations in communication, transport, political organization, and
cultural change. Identities are created when there is a fertile ground of connectivity and
shared experience, it is the story that builds upon that to give it coherence. This is illustrated
by Jean Monnet's statement back at the foundation of the European Union "Europe has
never existed. One must genuinely create Europe."​57

People are now connected in new ways and share experiences across old divides. The
global middle class is but one such group and new stories are now needed to help them see
their shared identity; to mobilize these groups in new ways to meet the challenges of today.
As Peter Senge notes: "organizations, it doesn’t matter how much money they make, it
doesn’t matter how much power and technology they have, they don’t last that long, but
there is a relatively small number that has lasted a very long time, and they found the first
defining feature of long-lived companies was a sense of identity. They had a sense of who
they were that transcended what they did. Therefore because they were secure in this core
identity they were more open and adaptive."

Systems change is about connecting across boundaries and between organizations and
individuals who would normally not recognize a commonality or shared intent. To create a
space that brings those people together we are going to have to create a new story and
identity that all feel a part of; to create empathy, coherence and enable people to connect
across differences.​58

The empathetic aspect of story is vital here, when bringing together groups, we need to
compose a picture of the world and the issues at hand, the possible solution that involves
the relevant parties illustrating how they need to be working together to get the desired
outcomes. Stories create the context within which very different people can discover their
shared values and connect. As such we have to be very careful in the creation of our
narrative to ensure that it does not exclude those that need to be a part of the change
process.

Narrative in its different forms can help to hold a mirror up to a group of people so that they
see themselves and understand their commonalities better. Otto Scharmer notes the
importance of this when he says: “The one thing that I have learned from all these projects is
that the key to transformative change is to make the system see itself. That’s why deep data
matters. It matters to the future of our institutions, our societies, and our planet.”​59

Stories Are Intangible

Stories use abstraction to remove the details and thus better reveals some overall pattern
over time. In this way they can cover a lot of ground, working to connect people with their
past, they can be used to dramatize the present situation and the need for change, to create
momentum and drive.

One of the major benefits to this abstract nature to stories is that they are largely intangible
and can thus be almost costless, and an incredibly powerful way to scale at near-zero cost.
A story that at its core is simple but engenders a creative and powerful idea can immediately
engage people and ignite them towards change.

In this respect, Graham Leicester of International Futures Forum notes: "What we see is it
takes a shift in mindset to start a transformative innovation, minimal finance. If you put up a
big innovation budget and invite applications you are not likely to get something
transformative. It doesn't really take money to get started it takes a shift in mindset."

Today in the era of global media and telecommunications storytelling is as powerful a vehicle
as ever, films, television shows, online videos and advertisements move people and engage
people like little else. With digital technologies and a global telecommunication infrastructure,
the tools we now have at our fingertips for telling stories and communicating a message to
possibly billions is quite profound and should be seen as one of our greatest resources and
potential to change systems.


Section 4: Strategy

Section 4: Strategy
Given the scale of the systems we are trying to influence and our lack of resources relative
to this, systems change has to be highly strategic in nature. However, we have to redefine
what we mean by the term "strategy" when dealing with complex organizations as here again
our old logic of change will fail and lead us down the wrong path.

With systems thinking we are shifting our perception of the system from parts to the network
of relations that interconnect them into the whole, in this context, strategy becomes about
influencing this pattern of connections.

In complex systems linear causality does not work so well, attempt to directly alter specific
parts and outcomes leads to unintended consequences because they do not take account of
the complex set of relationships and feedback loops that are affected by those interventions.

As such with systems change we do not aim to directly change the parts but instead try to
alter the connections, which alters the flow of resources, information and ideas. This works
to create a new context within which the parts interact and thus over time influence their
operations and the operations of the whole.

A key idea in changing systems is obliquity, that we take an indirect approach to influencing
the system; an oblique strategy that aims to enable rather than to create change. The idea is
that small, smart, low profile interventions actually provide other players in the system with
information and the opportunity to self-organize in new ways and this over time creates
much wider and indirect systemic impacts.

The strategy of the systems changer should be about making artful small interventions -
based upon our systems map - that work to connect or disconnect links within the system, to
dampen down or amplify certain aspects. This strategy should be working synergistically with
our storytelling, which worked to shine a light on some aspects while not others.

At the same time, we are always working with the system's' innate propensity for change, not
against it. The system is always changing and any change process involves both directions
of constructive and destructive change, we are trying to make the connections that will allow
resources to flow to the new system we are trying to see emerge. We do this by changing
the flow of resources, information and ideas, finding the missing links and connecting them,
the missing information flows, redirecting value flows, etc.
Leverage Points

The system we are trying to change will have vastly more resources with which to resist our
change than we can ever muster so we need to know what battles to fight; we have to
choose specific points in the system where we will influence and lead that will have the
greatest influence.

When you stand outside the system observing it we can at least try to see the whole but
when we go to make interventions we have to choose specific points in the system to
intervene.

There are countless places within a complex system to place yourself where what you will do
will have almost zero effect, worse than this the points that look like they have the highest
impact initially are often those with the lowest.

The manifest positions of power in the system, such as the position at the top of a hierarchy,
appear to have power and influence because of linear cause and effect, however, such
linear effects have little overall systems change capacity.

We need to place ourselves in the system and influence it at points where the least effort
and resources will create the largest long term influence. These points are called leverage
points. It is firstly important to know that leverage points are counter-intuitive. Leverage is not
found in the centralized points of the greatest manifest power in the system but is found
rather in abstraction.

The leverage points, first published in 1997 by Donnella Meadows, who worked in the field of
systems analysis, proposed a scale of places to intervene in a system. She started with the
insight that there are levers or places within a complex system where a "small shift in one
thing can produce big changes in everything." Donella meadows listed 12 of these, they
follow an ordering of increased abstraction and increased effectiveness, from the lowest to
highest they are listed as such.​60

12. Constants, parameters, numbers - such as products sold, number of employees, etc.
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
10. The structure of material stocks and flows - such as transport networks, population age
structures.
9. The length of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct
against.
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
6. The structure of information flows - who does and does not have access to information.
5. The rules of the system - such as incentives, punishments, constraints.
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
3. The goals of the system.
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system - its goals, structure, rules, delays,
parameters - arises.
1. The power to transcend paradigms.

Iceberg model
The iceberg model is another way of expressing these levels of abstraction that one needs
to understand and use to intervene on the right level and at the right places. The iceberg
model was developed by anthropologist Edward T. Hall in the 1970s, it tries to illustrate the
various levels of abstraction to a situation or organization, from the observable events to
underlying patterns that generate these, to the supporting structure and ultimately the mental
models used by an organization.

An iceberg is used as an analogy to represent the underlying structures generating

perceived events and issues, as it is known to have only 10 percent of its total mass above
the water while 90 percent of it is underwater. The phrase “tip of the iceberg” connotes that
what one can see is only a small part of a whole situation, i.e. there is much more below the
surface and what it looks like maybe surprising.

The Iceberg Model typically identifies four basic levels of situations. Events, which represent
the manifest components and actions observable to us. The patterns of behavior beneath
this describe trends over time. System structure describes how the parts are interrelated to
influence the patterns. Finally, the mental models that support everything else in the system
through a set of beliefs, values, and assumptions shaping people’s perception.​61

Events & Reaction: If we only look at events, the best we can do is react. Something
happens, and we fix it. This is typically our response the first time an event occurs. We do
not shift our thinking in any way; we just act swiftly to fix the immediate problem using
pre-existing solutions that have worked in the past. For some superficial circumstances, this
approach can work well, but will fail if an issue is more systemic as we are merely dealing
with the symptoms of the problem.

Pattern & Anticipation: When we start to notice a pattern of those events, we have more
options. We can anticipate what is going to happen, and we can prepare for it. When we
start noticing patterns, we can begin to consider what is allowing the same events to happen
over and over again.

Structure & Design: When we start to look at the underlying structures, we begin to see
where we can change what is happening. We are no longer at the mercy of the system. We
can begin to identify the thinking and the mental models that are resulting in those structures
taking the form they do.

Mental Model & Transform: Changing the model that an organization uses is the highest
leverage point, it can lead to real transformation, with the possibility to restructure the system
and overcome even the greatest of challenges.

Change in Quality
Systems change is about changing underlying structures, it is a qualitative change. The high
leverage points are really in the qualitative factors of the system, they are the things that are
not being measured or accounted for and thus they go largely unnoticed. However,
transformations are phase transitions that are known to be qualitative changes in a system
structure.

A reductionist analytical approach has led our cultures to place an overemphasis on quantity
and numbers, it gives us the sense that what we can measure is more important than what
we can not measure. In a systems normal state of operations, it may well be that quantity
matters most - because it is in a linear negative feedback regime - but it is quality that
creates transformation, nonlinear change is a qualitative change. If we look at the leverage
points we will see that those with higher systems changing potential - ie farther down the list
- are qualitative in nature.
Multi Level Perspective

As mentioned in a previous module to get a comprehensive understanding of a system we

have to look at it on different levels; the processes of change taking place on those different
levels and how structures inter-relate on those different scales.

One model for helping us to think about how change happens on these different levels is the
multi-level perspective(MLP) a prominent framework for describing transition processes in
complex socio-technical systems. This is also a theory of change as it tries to describe how
innovations can combine with macro-level change to disrupt the existing regime.​62

The MLP posits three levels on which processes interact and align to result in
socio-technical system transformation; the macro-level called the landscape, the meso-level
called the regime and micro-level called the niche.

Landscape
The landscape-level represents the overall environment within which the system exists. The
Landscape forms the ‘external structure or context for interactions of actors.’​63 For example,
the natural environment, the demographics of a society, the "technosphere", the
socio-political trends, as well as the cultural values. For example, the industrial age forms an
overall technological context, likewise, the Anthropocene forms an overall socio-ecological
context. From a systems theory perspective, the landscape is simply the environment within
which the system operates where macro-processes of change play out that typically change
over long periods of time.

Regime
The regimes are persistent configurations of markets, infrastructures, technology, policy and
so on that have settled into stable configurations. They are the shared rules within a set
community and describe the current pattern or structure of the status quo that typically
develops incrementally. The socio-technical regime is dynamically stable in the sense that
innovation still happens, though incrementally, and along a predictable trajectory.​64 From a
systems theory perspective, the regime would represent the overall structure of the system
within which elements find themselves, the way they are interrelated, the existing pattern to
the flow of resources, the rules, policies, and protocols that structure this.

Niche
The "niche" represents the home of innovations, new models, communities, or local
networks on the micro-level. The niche is defined as the “locus for radical innovations” where
dedicated actors nurture the development of technological novelties.​65 The niche fosters and
incubates innovations that differ fundamentally from the prevailing regime and usually
require landscape developments that open windows of opportunity at the regime level.​66
From a systems theory perspective these may be seen as the emerging new elements.

Change Process
In the original account by Geels, the stability of existing socio-technical systems results
through interaction between the physical dimension of the system, the rules, and regimes
that guide perceptions and actions, the organizations and actor-network. The path
dependence which locks in existing patterns is seen to occur at the meso-level. In general,
the MLP model attributes socio-technical transitions to the interaction of stabilizing forces at
the regime level with destabilizing forces from both the landscape and niche levels.​67

Transitions are seen to commence when: a prevailing socio-technical regime starts to

display stress for multiple dimensions; a key innovation occurs that will become a dominant
design, and early adoption of the new technology starts.

Example
An often given illustration of the MLP in action is in the analysis of the usage of personal
transport, e.g. the car. A key idea of MLP is that a technology like a car, comes to
prominence through its interdependencies and co-evolution with social-technical and
institutional factors, including the advent of mass production, the development of roads and
other infrastructure, regulation and culture creating a system called a socio-technological
regime that supports and sustains that particular innovation.

Over time these interdependencies in this pattern lock society into a particular regime. As a
technology like a car matures people working in the industry - the car designers, research
managers, engineers and so forth - tend to develop common assumptions knowledge beliefs
and habits about what is possible and legitimate as a transport solution.

This pattern will then work to resist change and throw up barriers to innovations that
challenge it. Economies of scale initially protect the incumbents and a network of third
parties that have formed around it will reinforce its workings, with little incentive to support
new alternatives. Lifestyles and attitudes co-evolved with the evolution of the car as the
dominant means of transport, reinforced by the media and popular culture as signs of
individual freedom and success, as well as public policies such as taxation and regulation
which the car evolved with often create an uneven playing field for other potential solutions.

Now innovations have to compete not just with the car, but with this whole system of social,
physical and institutional factors that have co-evolved with the car and this tends to lock
society into a particular trajectory even when it has become suboptimal.

Disruption
So how can change happen if the system is so locked into a particular solution? First, the
current system has to be disrupted in some way from the landscape level, a change in the
environment. This may include change in society's dominant values and beliefs, a major
event such as natural disasters, or concerns over climate change in the example of the car.
These landscape disruptions create windows of opportunity for new and radical innovations
to gain market share, for example, the electric car.​68

Even if niche-innovations have a competitive relationship with the existing regime and a
window of opportunity is available, the niche level will not always be able to avail of this
opportunity created by weaknesses in the regime to introduce a new socio-technical
paradigm.

The elements of the niche level need to be mature enough, become aligned and stabilize in
a dominant design. Even if there is pressure on the regime to change coming from the
sociotechnical landscape, if niche-innovations are not mature and structured sufficiently,
dominant actors may respond by modifying the direction of development paths and their
innovation activities without transforming the incumbent regime.​69

For example, electric or public transport may be subsumed into the existing regime as a
means of reducing the landscape pressure for example hybrid cars. This later adoption,
however, might over time push the incumbent regime trajectory in a new direction for
example further stimulating electric vehicle development. MLP illustrates that it's not just
market prices or R&D or subsidies which stimulate radical innovations but that an
interdependent network of physical, social and institutional factors shape innovation and
sustainability transitions.

As shown in the MLP model transitions occur at multiple levels, through the interplay of
processes at different levels and networks. When we develop a better understanding of how
social and technological change occurs we can stimulate new ideas to create systems
change through leveraging the change on different levels.​70
Systems Aikido

As discussed in previous modules, systems change themselves and it is our job to work with
that change rather than against it. This strategy is akin to the philosophy of aikido. Aikido is a
modern Japanese martial art, it is a way of defense or non-resistance, where we are learning
not how to fight, but how to not fight; we are trying to make use of the opponent's energy and
directing them in a particular direction.

Alex Penn of the University of Surrey adapted this philosophy to create "systems aikido"
which is an approach to systems change based upon the principles of aikido. She
recognizes that most of our current approaches involve putting lots of energy into changing
systems against their innate drive. A classic example being intensive monoculture "in which
every year we're plowing, we're digging, we're putting in fertilizers herbicides pesticides,
huge amounts of energy to make this system run… we're putting in energy to constantly
bring the system back, to hold the system... we're constantly pushing a rock up a hill only to
have it roll back down again."​71

She equates this approach to that of karate "in karate you put a lot of energy into forcing
your opponent to do something." She goes on to contrast this approach with that of aikido "in
aikido, you intervene when your opponent comes at you, and tip them using their own
momentum so that they fall. You're using very little energy, but it takes a lot more
understanding in order to intervene effectively."​72

Systems aikido can be seen as similar to the agricultural approach of permaculture. Bill
Mollison the "father of permaculture" described it as "a philosophy of working with, rather
than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and
thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than
treating any area as a single product system." With the aikido approach, we would have to
put in less work to sustain the system, because that is where the system is going anyway.

When you watch aikidoists practicing you don’t see a typical adversarial battle between
aggressor and defender. It appears more like a dance than combat, more like a physical
exchange between two people giving and receiving energy.​73 In life, the aikido metaphor is
realized when you transform challenges into opportunities and adapt to new circumstances
with ease, "going with the flow" instead of struggling against it. You are practicing aikido
whenever you listen with interest to an opposing view or search for mutual understanding.

Motives
It may be of value to note that the origins of these two approaches lie with our subjective
motives to change the system in the first place. A motive to change the system simply
because we don't like the current state of it will inevitably lead to us specifying a desired
state and putting a lot of energy into realizing that state that suits us better. In contrast, when
we are trying to enable the system to develop in a productive direction this opens us to a
different approach that works with its innate development rather than against it.

If your initial motive is to change the system because you don't like it those motives will
constrain your possible set of actions and you will not be successful. A valid reason to
undertake systems change is if the system does not work. If a system does not work it will
create negative externalities, those negative externalities will accumulate over time
rendering the system unsustainable. It is important to be aware of this dynamic because it
should be a central part of our strategy to change the system.

It is the very thing that we object to about the system - the negative externalities - that will
lead to its downfall and it is this core dynamic and pattern that we should be working with. It
is only when a system becomes destabilized that we will get the chance to have a large
scale impact on it through agile interventions. In its normal operating state and environment,
the system will have many strong negative feedback loops that will resist our influence, it is
only when the environment changes and it becomes destabilized that there is enough
positive feedback for our small interventions to work with that positive feedback and drive the
system into a new state.

As Alex Penn notes "When you have lots of oil or coal or chemicals, as we have done since
the Industrial Revolution, you'll have the energy and resources to keep karate-chopping your
systems into submission. But when fuel becomes scarce or expensive, or we want to reduce
CO2 emissions and pollution, the Systems Aikido philosophy comes into its own."

Trying to change a system when it is in a strong negative feedback regime is like doing
Karate, we have to wait and look for where the destabilizing positive feedback is and then
work with that - to do systems aikido.
Social Acupuncture
Benjamin Kumpf, Head Of Innovation at DFID, highlights well the nature of realizing change
in complex systems where linear cause and effect interventions are limited in capacities:
"There is no linear solution for a complex problem in a system, rather with partners you
identify what are blockages and bottlenecks in the system - including the political ones - and
where can you intervene to do something about them."

Professor of strategy and complexity at Regent University Orit Gal builds upon this when she
describes the essence of systems change through strategic interventions: "The manner in
which money, information, behavior, skills, ideas flow through a certain network will
ultimately determine its overall well-being. When we recognize really successful Ecologies,
that could be a peaceful community, a successful education system, or just a great city vibe,
what we actually recognize is a certain pattern it's a kind of just-right Goldilocks mix of
structures and flows and while these channels can't be engineered they can be actively
promoted."​74

Systems acupuncture draws insight from the ancient practice of acupuncture to provide a
strategy for systems change. In general, acupuncture is an age-old healing practice of
traditional Chinese medicine in which thin needles are placed at specific points in the body.
Acupuncture seeks to release the flow of the body's vital energy or "chi" by stimulating
multiple points along energy pathways, as such it sees the bodily system's health as a
network of flows and aims to intervene at certain points to release blockages, the ultimate
aim is to help the system flow back into balance.

But how does this work in the context of systems change? Orit Gal talks about systems
acupuncture as working by analyzing existing flows across a certain ecology, we then design
actions that make small accumulative interventions usually away from the core to strengthen
or disrupt a given pattern. The idea behind it is that over time the dominant paradigm we aim
to disrupt will be gradually undermined and subverted so that the system will gain the
needed momentum to tip into a new basin of attraction, a new equilibrium state of behavior.
The system is not directly restructured but is simply nudged to evolve in different directions.
The role of intervention is not to physically shift or push the system it is simply to add
information into the network, to alter routing logic. This is about signaling to the network how
to reconfigure dysfunctional relations and flows.

This approach analyzes dynamic flows rather than specific conditions, it then design sets of
low-intensity interventions whose sole aim is to strengthen or disrupt these very patterns.
The interventions themselves, in this case very thin needles, do not insert new resources
into the environment, they do not even take control over any key functions, they simply
temporarily provide the system with information to reorganize itself. In this sense when you
think about what is a healthy system or an overall state of well-being it is defined more in
terms of resilience, which is really an organism's ability to respond to emerging challenges
rather than a specific stable state of equilibrium.
Orit Gal gives the example of "Joe" who led a foundation promoting environmental issues in
Europe. Most European environmental policies are decided in Brussels and what she
noticed was the high barriers to entry into the decision-making networks there. So instead of
focusing expensive resources on traditional political lobbies, she instead helped the social
enterprise that provides ethical offices set up their first base in Brussels. Suddenly loads of
small NGOs who previously could not interact with the bureaucratic network had a base to
operate from and a whole swarm of environmentalists were now unleashed on the town and
this of course over time altered information, social and political exchanges.​75

The objective for intervention is two-fold, it can be aimed at either disrupting or enhancing
existing flows identified across the system's network, to divert them into new and hopefully
more productive configurations. The rationale of systems acupuncture is that effective
interventions can better be instigated upstream, where physical resistance is least, potential
propensities are at their foremost, and where the impact could resonate throughout the
system via indirect effects. This approach is reflective of the idea of the butterfly effect and
"sensitivity to initial conditions" where small changes in initial conditions can create highly
divergent outcomes in the long run.

Many of today’s most complex challenges can be better thought of as the emergent
outcomes of a complex adaptive system, patterns that are continuously recreated through
the ongoing decisions, behaviors, and interactions among numerous players operating
across thick global networks. Instead of our traditional linear approaches that are constantly
pushing against complexity, systems acupuncture reveals an approach that harnesses and
utilizes complexity to our advantage.​76
Systems Gardening
Complexity science informs us that we cannot hope to know a priori what a complex
adaptive system will do or know specifically how to achieve optimal outcomes never mind
control. A design cannot be completed on paper and executed in an orderly and predictable
fashion, past attempts to do this have rarely succeeded, as such a new understanding of
"management" is required. This alternative complexity inspired approach is more akin to the
job of the gardener rather than the manager of today.

Paul Plsek in his paper Redesigning Health Care with Insights from the Science of Complex
Adaptive Systems outlines the nature of systems gardening well when he writes: "[when
dealing with complex adaptive systems] it is more helpful to think like a farmer than an
engineer or architect... Engineers and architects need to design every detail of a system.
This approach is possible because the responses of the component parts are mechanical
and, therefore, predictable. In contrast, the farmer knows that he or she can do only so
much. The farmer uses knowledge and evidence from past experience and desires an
optimum crop. However, in the end, the farmer simply creates the conditions under which a
good crop is possible. The outcome is an emergent property of the natural system and
cannot be predicted in detail."

The differences between mechanical and naturally adaptive systems are clear when looked
at with consideration. We typically design and manage complex organizations as if the parts
and interconnections were predictable in their behavior, although fundamentally, they are
not, unfortunately this is often overlooked. When the individuals do not act as predicted, we
say that people are being “irrational” or “resistant to change.” Often we proceed by
specifying behavior in even more detail with added rules. The implicit assumption seems to
be that we should be aiming to make people act more like machines so that change can be
engineered in the desirable fashion.​77

Context
Systems thinking is about looking at the context within which things exist when we translate
this through to systems change we can see it as a strategy that aims to create environments
or contexts that are conducive to the emergence of the new.

The management of complex systems uses oblique methods for altering a system via its
environment or context to create the conditions for new, properties, elements and
phenomena to emerge. As John Kania notes "we're thinking about systems change not as
an issue or a person that needs to be fixed… it's the set of conditions that surround that
individual. We need to work on shifting the conditions that hold the problem in place."​78

David Snowden illustrates the systems gardener approach well with his allegory of the
children's party where he talks about how to organize a children's party based upon the
principles of complexity theory/systems change.
We start by drawing a line in the sand that is a boundary or limit informing the children they
are free within that boundary condition. One of the things you learn pretty fast as an adult is
the value of flexible negotiable boundaries because rigid boundaries have a habit of
becoming brittle and breaking catastrophically.

We then introduce probes, safe to fail experiments, a football video, a barbecue, a computer
game, we wait to see if a patent forms. If it does we call this an attractor, if it is beneficial
other kids will get attracted to it, they will start to play. At this point, if it is productive we do
not take resources away or we, in fact, give it resources, if it is negative this is where we
need the fire hoses. David Snowden summarizes this approach when he says "we manage
the emergence of beneficial coherence within attractors, within boundaries and that allows
locally valid solutions to emerge."​79

He goes on to highlight the fact that in complex adaptive systems we can not just transpose
a solution that worked in one place to another, each context is unique. This is why we need
to look at and operate on the pattern level and not deal with the specific details. As he says
"you've got to have that ability to actually see patterns and respond to positive or negative
patterns, different things will work at different times." This is the general nature of complex
systems they are always conditioned by their context or environment, meaning they change
from one context to the next.

Snowden's take away point is "dispositional, not causal, that's the basic lesson of complex
adaptive systems, you haven't got a system with linear cause, you can't say if I do this then
that will happen, you can say at the moment the system is disposed to evolve like this and
it's not disposed to evolve like that, the minute you break that causal link everything
becomes
easier."

Pockets of the Future

One approach to changing the paradigm is to first outline generally the attributes and
qualities of the new paradigm and then look in the present for seeds that embody the values
and qualities that may enable them to grow into creating that future. As William Gibson
remarked, “the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.” We can use the
"pockets of the future" that exist in the present as a way to tangibly demonstrate the new
possibilities and help to give the new paradigm a sense of being realizable.

These pockets of the future can be defined as "an observable practice, idea, or thing that is
rare and insignificant in the present moment but has the potential to become more prevalent
and impactful. Pockets of the futures are important weak signals that have the potential to
profoundly influence the organization’s core challenge."​80

These pockets of the future are important to our strategy in that they give something
observable, demonstrable that people can go and examine, to see the expression of a
different way of thinking or a different set of values. Our strategy here as systems gardeners
is to simply shine a light on the new and demonstrate the viability of the theory or paradigm
in practice.
The systems gardener seeds transitions by identifying, connecting, supporting and
spotlighting pioneers of the new system, by watering the seeds of new ideas and enabling
change through emergence. This "emergence" happens when separate local efforts are
connected to form communities of practice and once this happens systems-level change can
actually be catalyzed. The connector creates connections and learning cycles between the
different systems levels and geographic locations.

Change starts with a small group of people who form what we might call a "creative integrity"
who are willing to stand for something, maintain commitment and energy over the time that it
grows. Our systems gardening strategy is to find these niches and "nourish" them with the
resources they need. Like looking after plants you might have to give them water to grow,
but you may also have to alter the broader context they exist in so that they get enough light
or are not crowded out by other plants, maybe they have to be put in contact with other
creatures to create synergies.

As an example, we can look at the NGO Ashoka. Ashoka identify and support social
entrepreneurs who have found an idea that is systems-changing. They not only work with
these entrepreneurs by providing them with mentorship and resources but also by trying to
remove the blockages to their development, for example, regulation or government policy
that may be hindering their progress.

The key take away from this module is that a systems state is really an ecological state, it
can not be designed at will, it can only be nourished, and this nourishing is the job of the
systems gardener.
Systems Entrepreneur
"What is the most powerful force you can bring to bear? It is in a really big idea, but only if it
is in the hands of a really good entrepreneur, it is that combination that changes the world"-
Bill Drayton Ashoka

With a growing awareness that neither the public sector nor the traditional private enterprise
are designed for delivering systems-level innovation has come a new approach, something
of a hybrid, this new strategy seeks to use market methods to realize systems change, we
call these change agents "systems entrepreneurs."

A systems entrepreneur is a person or organization that works to enable a change to an

entire ecosystem by addressing and incorporating all the elements and actors required to
move the needle on a particular social, economic, technological or environmental issue.

Systems entrepreneurs bring together relevant stakeholders to share their resources,

knowledge, understanding, and capabilities with each other in pursuit of a common goal. In
their pursuit of influencing a system they must play multiple roles, they are networkers,
facilitators, innovators, and business developers. These are the actors that have to bring
things together and create momentum among the other actors.​81 Systems entrepreneurs
want to change the entire ecosystem and they must navigate the delicate balance of working
with and through others to achieve this.

Strategy
A business model is the strategy of the systems innovator. They aim to influence the system
and proceed by creating a platform that organizes people and resources in a productive way
to deliver value and in so doing make it possible for them to capture the required revenue to
support their initiative and grow. This makes them somewhat independent relative to other
organizations that are dependent upon funding from others, such as charities, NGOs or even
the public sector. This strategy taps into the possibilities of the market actors to stay growing
and delivering their service to more people as long as it is delivering value to them and able
to gain sufficient revenue to fund themselves.

Example
Geneva Global gives an example of their work as systems entrepreneurs when they worked
to reduce the incidence of human trafficking across the India-Nepal border on behalf of a
client.​82

They started by bringing potential implementing partners together for an in-country

conference to get their collective wisdom and understanding of the system. Here they
facilitated 28 different organizations working together in a coordinated, comprehensive
approach that tackled the issue along various dimensions.

"Some were focused on preventing Nepalese and Indian men, women, and children from
getting snared into trafficking. Others conducted rescue and rehabilitation interventions,
while other organizations worked with transport police, magistrates, and the legal systems in
both countries to provide more protection for vulnerable people exploited by organized
criminal networks."

By supporting these different organizations to see how they were part of the larger system,
increased cooperation and better coordination from those involved was realized.

This group of actors became so intergrated that they created their own formal network and
started a joint advocacy initiative against human trafficking, aimed at getting policy change
from the governments of the Bihar and Utter Pradesh state. In so doing they managed to
realize changes from the top-down that would reinforce the work being done at the local
level. By facilitating and coordinating the relevant stakeholders to apply bottom-up and
top-down influence, they were able to effectively improve a social issue on the systems
level.​83

Systems Investing
Talk of entrepreneurship inevitably leads to a question surrounding systems-level investment
strategies; what it takes to move from venture investment to system investment. In general,
venture investing is about narrowing down to a small set of high growth ventures. In contrast,
systems change investing is about widening the field of collaborators from different parts of
the system to amplify change.

The effects produced when the traditional venture investment approach is applied are those
of “elimination” produced by selection. It ultimately creates a competitive landscape, where
prioritization and individual case value result in a reduction in the initial state of complexity,
similar to weeding a garden so that we keep only those plants that will be of high value to
us.​84

As the authors of the paper Funnelling Vs Layering note "In the end, the effect of a funneling
interaction is a significant reduction of complexity and the determination of a simple object
for action and commitment of resources."​85 The problem is that the “business case” rationale
is only valid at the level of the individual instance, there is no measurement for the value
delivered to the system and often the same goes vice versa; the negative externalities are
not accounted for.

Systems change investing is about widening the field of collaborators from different parts of
the system to amplify change. We invert the funnel so it amplifies outwards. We start with a
small core organized around a common challenge with a shared vision of the future and then
we try to widen the field of collaborators involved in developing new ideas, policies,
businesses, and social movements.
Funding
We are certainly still on a journey when it comes to trying to transition from venture
investment to system investment. However, we can say one thing for sure, it takes more
than money to solve big issues. Indeed many elements are more important than money,
effective collaborations, hope or imagination, which are often in shorter supply but far more
important to success.​86

We should not forget that with systems change we are changing patterns, not "things" as
such it should not require a large amount of resources or capital. In fact, counter to our
traditional thinking, it could be argued the fewer resources the better.

As Orit Gal puts it "acupuncture needles are inexpensive and in abundance, we simply need
to change the way we analyze systems the way we define our goals and the way we design
our actions to make best use of them."

When we have the resources we are inclined to use them to change the system. A
corporation with millions of dollars to invest in innovation will inevitably create a flashy
innovation lab and hire people with all sorts of PhDs paying them lots of money. The
problem with this is that systems change requires high levels of intrinsic motivation - and at
the inception probably only a few people - while extrinsic motivators are often
counterproductive to this. As the New Scientist article of 9th April 2011 notes "The facts are
absolutely clear. There is no question that in virtually all circumstances in which people are
doing things in order to get rewards, extrinsic tangible rewards undermine intrinsic
motivation."

Pitching
Another cornerstone of many social innovation and entrepreneurship programs is a social
venture business plan competition. Many of these competitions, like most traditional
business plan competitions, invite entrepreneurs to pitch in front of an audience of judges,
and sometimes offer grants or social investment funding as a prize.

As Daniela Papi-Thornton in her talk "From Social Entrepreneurs to Systems Change

Leaders" notes many of these competitions provide training on business model development
and pitching but are not often designed around a systems orientation, nor do these
competitions often provide systems tools and training.​87

Many times questions asked in applications for these competitions are similar to those asked
in traditional business plan competitions such as “Who are your competitors and how is your
offering unique?” This is an extension of the traditional entrepreneurial model that is focused
on competition to "win" while system change is about the system "winning" which requires
different vetting processes.

As Daniela remarks a more appropriate model for funding applications would be to ask
questions like: “How is your offering building upon the successes and failures of other efforts
working on the same issue, and how will your work improve the impact potential of other
elements in the system?” Ideally, these competitions should be asking applicants to describe
or map the systems in which they work and illustrate how their offering contributes to shifting
or improving the system by contributing to the impact of the collective?​88

Organizations which recognize that systems change is about building synergies rather than
silver bullets are redesigning their business plan competitions to incentivize systems
understanding before solution pitching.
Section 5: Develop

Section 5: Develop
One could easily argue that there is no such thing as a "solution" when it comes to wicked
problems, many of them are open-ended. Inequality, financial crisis, the challenges of
providing homes and health care will always be with us. What can change though is our
capacity to respond to those challenges, what can change is the resilience or "health" of our
systems and their capacity to work together towards responding to complex challenges.
Rather than "solving" problems, the job of system change is to change the structure of
systems so that they are better set up to respond to those challenges.

We are moving from a world where one organization could drive changes to a world where
that is no longer possible because of the complexity; shifting the paradigm starts with the
organization recognizing this. This is about building the awareness of the system of itself and
the collaborations between different domains that allow for the emergence of the networks
required for the system to adapt and respond appropriately. Collective impact is a whole
different modality of change. This is about building the collective intelligence of the group
and importantly the collective agency of the group, the focus is on aligning the actors in the
system to share goals.

As no one organization can change a system the aim of the system changer is to build
Ecosystems and this means making connections that facilitate the redirection of flows of
resources and collaborations into patterns of organization that are capable of responding
successfully to the challenge at hand. It is about building new forms of ecosystems of actors
that have the diversity, capabilities and cooperative structures to function as
superorganisms, beyond what the organizations of today are capable of. We are trying to
build an adaptive scalable, sustainable ecosystem of actors and at the heart of this is the
idea of collaboration. In this section we are going to explore these key aspects required to
change systems; collaboration, ecosystem building and how we scale and sustain them over
time.
Collaboration

Many of the complex challenges we face today are largely a function of our fractured ways of
looking at the world and the fractured ways of operating that follow from this. For example,
we can ask why do we fail to provide adequate services to people with multiple
disadvantages? Because service providers, from many different areas, are not able to
effectively coordinate around their needs, the result being that we deliver fractured services.
Likewise, our lack of capacity to effectively coordinate politically is often identified as being at
the core of our failures to respond to the demand of a changing climate. Overfishing, the
water crisis, the development of sustainable cities, all of these have at their heart the need
for new forms of networked collaboration and this is at the center of what we are trying to
realize when doing system change in many different contexts.

As Otto Scharmer notes, it is about moving from a fragmented ego-system to an integrated

ecosystem approach. In his words: "We need a new model, a new coordination mechanism,
that does not revolve around special interest and organized interest groups, but that revolves
around seeing and acting from the whole, that revolves around the systemic capacity of key
actors to pull together around commons, rather than pursuing abstract groups interests that
are in conflict with each other on the macro level… What we need is a new systemic
collective innovation capacity that innovates the system, at the scale of the whole and not
just in small pockets of the system."​89

Collaborating to develop vital ecosystems that support innovation for systems change
requires a radical change in both mindset and behavior, not only at the organizational level
but also at the personal level. It requires working across sectors and cultures, against the
odds, managing for the fractures and alignments between people. To build broad, wide,
deep networks of people around a systemic problem requires scanning the whole system,
getting inside of the lives of the people within it, understanding their position and seeing both
the gaps and needs that are inhibiting collaboration.

Our current predominant behavior within organizations is to create predetermined solutions

which we then push out when what is needed is almost the complete opposite, for
large-scale change we need more to deal with rules of interaction. Think about our cities,
neighborhood interactions are like feedback loops, the question is how can we enable those
interactions to happen and allow solutions to emerge. What we are looking for is a more
collaborative approach to change which is focused not on creating solutions or organizations
but simply looking where the potential for synergies - i.e. collaboration - lies in the system
and then working with those to create something organic.

Unusual Suspects
Systems change shifts our problem-solving approach from the creation and growth of
long-life projects and organizations with ever-growing staff and budgets to instead identifying
the individuals already working on a problem, and helping them join forces to achieve their
common goals. At its heart this is about making connections, creating synergies between
existing actors to try and realize the emergence of functional ecosystems.

As Jeffrey C. Walker remarks in his article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review "the
message is clear: Our focus should be more on solving problems through creative
collaboration, and less on the establishment and perpetuation of new institutions. Besides,
we need to develop and employ system entrepreneurs who are skilled in coordinating
systematic approaches to addressing the complex, large-scale problems of our time."​90

To get emergence in any kind of a system, it is required that there be both diversity and
coordination between the constituent parts. The greater the diversity and the coordination
the greater the complexity and the greater the emergence. If we want to tackle really
complex problems we are going to need some really capable emergent organization which
implies high levels of both diversity and coordination.

This means we need everyone, not just the most important people or the smartest, richest or
most powerful, we need all the different competencies. Even the person who knows nothing,
and has nothing, knows something about their own condition and their own view of the
system and this is needed to get something comprehensive. Collaboration is about building
on human competence, not on our failings, if we can do that - both personally and as a
group - we can start to unlock and discover what is already there but hidden in some other
part of the organization which we did not know of because of our bias and the
preconceptions that divide us. Multidimensional collaboration is not about harmony it is
about navigating differences to realize the progress that is, in the end, better for all.

The aim is to create structures that enable people to recognize others, their difference, to
dialogue in a way that helps us listen to each other, that helps us to understand the different
perspectives of where they are coming from and that helps us to acknowledge difference
even if we do not agree, this is a crucial cornerstone. Collaboration starts with the question
of how do we meet each other and how do we connect with a larger story.

Collaborative leadership helps people identify their roles, we have to create processes to
help them to do this. We have to design systems and processes that can take a large group
of people and lead them through a process that both brings out their unique knowledge,
perspective, and resources, but also integrate that into a whole. A process that can work to
turn conflict and dissonance into consensus and coherence over time. In the process, the
different actors interact and form new identities within that context, new roles as part of the
whole.

Innovation has the aspect of creativity and the question is how do we bring in a different
quality of interaction that enables that creativity, rather than the more traditional kinds of
managerial interaction that we see within many organizations of today.
Overcoming Divides
Collaboration is part of the sense-making process, we have to make sense of each other
and how to work together given the differences that divide us. The moment people can see a
story behind a difficult to understand behavior of others, why people insisted on a certain
position and how this position actually developed in their history - the moment they can see
the human being with fears and anxieties and with interests, with their human capacity and
their human failures - the moment that happens, the climate between people can change
and the capacity to connect successfully can accelerate.

Humanity in the collaboration process is a very strong competence. To be able to step into
the shoes of somebody else and to look at the world from somebody else's perspective is
key. This is not magic it can be organized, with the right understanding and process people
can see each other as people. This can be formalized in the way we collaborate, the way we
meet with each other, in our ability to listen to each other's perspectives and to listen to the
stories that have emerged and that have made people the way they are. At the end of the
day, this is about progressing and processing these differences into better solutions and the
emergence of some form of collective Intelligence.

Kerry Graham of Collaboration for Impact identifies some of the key dynamics involved here
when she notes: "you have to understand how to design processes for human beings ones
that do hearts, minds, and hands but you also need to facilitate... Everyone arrives in a
collaborative process basically saying, I'm here to understand what I can get out of this for
my part of the system, and you have to create a process strong enough to move them from
what is actually very isolated self-interest to shared purpose, and I don't think we talk about
this stuff enough."​91

Collaboration
A key challenge we have in realizing systems change is in understanding and creating
collaborations, why people do and or do not come together and what determines if those
partnerships are of value and sustainable. It is quite apparent that we need to shift the
paradigm when it comes to putting ourselves and our organizations secondary to whatever
forms of collaboration that are needed to realize the systems change that we want to see in
the world.

The realization of a truly circular economy would be one such example. At present different
organizations know that they have to collaborate, to work across the circular economy and
there are different organizations in that space but they can not quite find the right route to
sharing the skill base that they have and their capabilities.

Many of these organizations are currently incentivized in the wrong way. For example, in the
world of NGOs, often we find that organizations are competing for funding, Here the
business models, the funding and the flow of money that drives these organizations works to
maintain the current system without the incentives to collaborate in the ways needed.​92
It is quite apparent that changing these kinds of incentives and mastering the somewhat
mysterious art of collaboration will be at the heart of building new functional ecosystems for
system change. This is both an art and a science, it requires a deep understanding of
humans and what makes them tick but also it is about good processes that can guide them
through a journey of growing systems awareness and ways for them to work together
productively.

Collective Impact
Finally, as a concrete take away, we can take a look at Collective Impact's list of elements
for collaboration first described in the 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review. There 5
conditions for collective impact are as follows.​93

- Common Agenda: Common understanding of the problem and a shared vision for
change

- Shared Measurements: Collecting data and measuring results focus on performance

management shared accountability

- Mutually reinforcing activities: Differentiated approaches coordinated through a joint

plan of action

- Continuous Communications: Consistent and open communication focus on building

trust

- Backbone Support: Separate organization(s) with staff. Resources and skills to

convene and coordinate participating organizations
Ecosystems

Systems change is about a recognition that given a complex challenge there are no simple
solutions and no one individual or organization can get the results they desire without
working collaboratively with others, as such systems change is about building these
collaborative ecosystems.

This change in paradigm is nicely illustrated by John Cawley of the J.W. McConnell Family
Foundation when he says “we realized after spending millions over the years that we were
not having the systems impact we needed, and wanted, due to the complexity and size of
the issues… So we redefined our role; we are curators or stewards of the ecosystem around
an issue … We can be the connective tissue between parts of the ecosystem.”​94

Ecological thinking has for some time formed a key part of the systems change approach as
it provides robust ways of thinking about the formation of complex and diverse
collaborations. This re-imagining of the conditions of systems change as an ‘ecosystem’
offers both a valuable narrative and an analytical framework. The analogy of the ‘ecosystem’
captures our imagination and stimulates us to think differently about what we are trying to
create as an open and dynamic network of people and organizations that may give rise to
the higher-level emergent capabilities that we are hoping to realize.​95

With ecosystems thinking the question shifts from what is the solution to a more subtle one
of, how do we facilitate these interactions that lead to more successful higher-level
outcomes? It is not just that organizations see that they have to work together but it is also
about the organizations being able to give up the idea of there being a simple solution and
their desire to control everything.

Context
Context is king here, and as a systems changer it is our job to create the context. Petra
Kuenkel, founder and director of the Collective Leadership Institute, notes this when she
says: "I have also discovered that people shift into a collaborative space when they are able
to look beyond their limited world view, the moment they feel they are operating in a context
suddenly their willingness to find ways together or their internal attitude shifts and they
become more willing to contribute rather than be in competition."

Relations are formed because there is a context for them to form within - communities are
built out of context. I don't start talking to the person right next to me on the metro in the
morning, but I do start to talk to the person next to me at the conference, the difference is
nothing but context. To create ecosystems is to create connections, but to create
connections we have to create context. If we want a robust and strong community we are
going to have to work with and develop the context within which those connections can form.
This context can take many forms, for example, geographic proximity is a context that we
can use. Context creates a "space" that gets people to recognize each other and creates the
potential for them to connect.
Many of the contexts that we create and inhabit are based upon assumptions of zero-sum
games that context then feeds back to condition the types of relationships we create which
end up being zero-sum also. To break this cycle you have to take people outside of their
normal environment and create a context that engenders different principles.

Holistic View
We need to take a holistic view so that we can see the whole field of operation, to place our
actions in the context of the actions of other people, other institutions, other actors in the
field. This is about trying to understand the whole field and that we think about how this field
creates a joint impact rather than isolated islands of success.

Wholeness means our ability to look at the larger context and constantly cross-check in what
context are we actually operating in. This is difficult and in reality even those of us who claim
to be systems thinkers often fail in this. We take a partial few of the whole and align
ourselves with that while ignoring other aspects that do not fit so well with our view of the
world.

But creating ecosystems is about this holistic vision, seeing the risks and opportunities to the
whole and then translating that into a language and narrative that is intelligible to others, so
that they can see there interdependence in working towards the goals they individually wish
to achieve.

Taking a holistic perspective also means taking a multi-dimensional perspective. While an

ecosystem may grow to address an entrenched problem, the focus is on multiple points of
intervention over time to tip the system, avoiding the technical trappings of any one solution,
multiple domains, multiple scales, multiple geographies, cultures, etc.

Ecosystems are more than just about cooperation and collaboration they are also about
building collective intelligence. Flexibility and accelerated co-learning are important potential
advantages relative to vertically integrated structures. To have an ecosystem we have to ask
is there a collective intelligence process? Are we listening to each other? Are we contributing
to a larger story?

Keystones
While systems change is about distributed capabilities it is also clear there are ‘keystone’
players who play critical roles in the success of initiatives. These actors are critical
conveners and creators of connections and relationships that enable transformative
collaboration. Keystone does not mean that they are at the center or have all the power, it
means that they have network power through linking.​96

These keystone actors may be variously termed: Systems Entrepreneurs or Intrapreneurs,

Systems Changers, Social Curators, Partnership Brokers, Ecosystem Builders. “Systems
entrepreneurs” refer to social innovators who are intentionally adopting systems change
strategies in their efforts. Systems change is qualitatively different from providing products
and services, it involves a departure from growing the work of a single organization to
coordinating and influencing the work of multiple actors in the creation of ecosystems.

In the paper Building Ecosystems For Systems Change, they summarized three distinct
keystone traits as "Integrative: human bridges connecting people to a larger contiguous
system; Influential: focusing others on long-term interests and time horizons through appeal
and establishing new cultural norms, and; Impactful: making things happen and fostering
real economic transactions that create a systemic effect, not just get a few people excited for
a short time."

Key Elements
If we are successful the outcome will be a powerful ecosystem of diverse actors that are
aligned in channeling capabilities and resources in the right way at the right challenge,
however, it takes a long time to get there, we start on the journey by building connections,
one at a time, it is a manual process.

Indy Johar identifies several key aspects to building these ecosystems for system change,
these are: recognized, coordinate, collaborate and synthesize.​97 Ecosystems start by
members first recognizing each other as part of the solution, they connect and coordinate,
then collaborate and we see the emergent synthesis that can change things. This formation
process is what we would call self-organization.

Collaborative change requires building shared understanding, shared language and

ultimately some form of collective intelligence. It is critical to remember that systems change
will be thwarted if we do things to people, or for them, rather than with them; ecosystem
building is fundamentally a co-creative process.
Scaling
Systems change is about changing what are often large complex systems and given their
magnitude a key consideration for many involved in systems change is that of scale - how do
we get from small initiatives to changing whole systems? How do we get from influencing
parts to changing the whole?

Traditionally we approach this scaling issue by simply producing more, that is to say,
creating some viable product and then duplicating that to scale outwards. In this respect, the
model used by many research organizations is one of discovery, proof of concept, piloting,
and scaling.​98

In a paper entitled "Scaling – from 'reaching many' to sustainable systems change at scale"
the authors start by noting: "countless development projects have piloted solutions that could
make a difference if only applied at scale. The reality is that these pilot projects hardly ever
reach the intended scale to contribute significantly."​99

They go on to identify several common pitfalls in our current scaling approaches. First, pilot
projects are usually set up and managed in very controlled environments that result in it
being very difficult to transition to the real world at scale. Second, limited conceptual and
methodological clarity on what scaling is and how it can be best achieved often results in a
narrow focus on reaching numbers.

The authors recommend a broader view and approach towards scaling one which "involves
complementing and reinforcing existing initiatives in the same domain and stimulating
supportive interventions that help build a bigger dynamic towards systems change."

Scaling system change is not about numbers but about changing the structure of the system.
Thus instead of creating more projects or pilots, what is needed is to think about the
protocols that interrelate existing solutions. It is connections that create the potential for
nonlinear paradigm shifts, as when parts become interconnected in new ways suddenly a
new pattern emerges and a new flow starts to happen; it is this emergence of new structures
that creates a paradigm shift that we are looking for as systems changers.

More Is Different
Scaling is a process that has to happen in parallel fashion across many dimensions and
levels of a system; simply reproducing the same solution to scale without changing the
supporting conditions, institutional frameworks, cultural and social habits, etc. will result in
inevitable blockages. This is illustrated by the rise of today's digital platforms which have
scaled to have a huge impact on societies and economies with little of the needed parallel
changes taking place to accommodate that; the result is an inevitable mismatch creating
frictions and tensions like we see with Airbnb or Upwork without the true systems changing
potential of those innovations being realized.
Jordan Kassalow, Founder of VisionSpring, highlights some of the issues here when he
remarks: “It became obvious to me that we could grow 50% or even 100% a year for many
years to come and still never be up to the challenge of solving this problem. It became
stressful for me to think about scaling from 2 million to 3 million to 5 million – huge numbers
for any social entrepreneur – but still, just a drop in the bucket compared to the 2.5 billion
people who need this simple product. And the reason I launched a multistakeholder alliance
is because the barriers to solving this problem, like cultural issues, custom duties, and
supply chain problems, cannot be solved at an enterprise level.”

Treating scaling as a transformation process helps deal with the necessary coevolution of
organizational and institutional arrangements, along with the innovations in technology or
practice. In complex systems more is not the same it is different and we need to be thinking
that through as we go along not in hindsight. The essence of this is captured in the title of
the famous research paper on emergence called "more is different." If we look at how many
companies scale it is largely a "more is the same" approach which often leads to problems
as they fail to recognize that as things get to a certain size they start to change the
environment they operate in and this feeds back to change the context and conditions of the
innovation.

Successful scaling is not necessarily quantitative, and bigger is not always better. Qualitative
indicators such as sustainability, satisfaction, and quality of life are also key metrics for
success. We need to shift from “maximum potential scale” for a few organizations - as is the
traditional venture capital model that allows for a few unicorns - to “optimal, or responsible
scale” for many that allows for many organizations to work synergistically towards the
emergence of the new pattern or systems structure.

Pattern Scaling
The social entrepreneur Jeroo Billimoria talks about this scaling issue as such: “Very often,
scale is looked at as scaling an organization or enterprise as opposed to scaling a concept.
Looking beyond scaling a particular organization requires a major mindset shift. We must
determine how we can collaboratively scale action around a particular problem through the
engagement of all the stakeholders affected by the issue. Only then will we make meaningful
changes in how complex social problems are taken on.”​100

Rather than duplication of parts systems change scales through abstraction, the way to
achieve large scale systems change is not through more things but to change patterns, to
duplicate patterns, to scale patterns. The aim should be to start with a small group of people
who form what we call "a creative integrity" who are willing to stand for something and
maintain commitment and energy over the time that it grows, to create a self-reinforcing
pattern.
Movements
Traditional thinking is that it just takes a few smart people to come up with some good ideas
and then everyone else to duplicate them to get scale. Instead, systems change should be
seen more as being about unlocking the collective genius of everyone and this is why the
best systems innovations should be seen as movements.

As Charles Leadbeater remarks "Innovation really takes off when it becomes a movement,
when you get this movement of ideas, technology, organization, a culture which leads to a
kind of momentum that creates its own kind of scale and finds its own flow of resources to
push it through.”

Successful systems innovation is invariably part of a larger story of social change which
embraces consumers, innovators, business and policy; movements make markets, change
norms and flip systems.

Movements have to not only engage people but also move people. They have to have not
only good logic and a compelling narrative but also an emotional drive. As Petra Kuenkel
says "the answer to urgency [of sustainability challenges] is tapping into the potential of the
human heart.”

Movements don't last forever, like startups are to businesses, movements are to social
change or system change, you can't stay a startup forever, nor a social movement, either
you scale up and become some established pattern of organization or some other pattern
will occupy that space.

In the next section, we will discuss platforms as an organizational form for structuring these
movements and turning them into the powerful "institutions" needed to sustain lasting
change.
Platforms
As previously discussed the aim of systems change is not to create an organization or an
institution, but instead to create an ecosystem of actors working synergistically to adapt,
innovate and respond effectively to the challenges they face. These ecosystems need some
kind of supporting infrastructure to make them work, what Collaborative Impact calls a
"Backbone Support". As they remark: "Creating and managing collective impact requires a
separate organization and staff with a very specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for
the entire initiative. The expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting
infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails."​101

The backbone organization is an independent entity different from the participating

organizations that can support and organize the initiative through ongoing communications
support, facilitation, technology, data collection, and managing the many logistical and
organizational details needed for the initiative to function well. In an age of information
technology and the rise of the internet this common infrastructure may be best called a
platform.

As Banny Banerjee of Stanford ChangeLab puts it "The first thing is to create platforms that
are around causes rather than going forward with your technology or your offering. If you can
create a forum around a larger issue, around the cause you create a platform, even if a
single organization starts leading the endeavor the attempt is to attract the other players
around that cause."

Collaborative Platforms
Collaboration has become a new vibrant word over the past few decades, in the face of ever
more complex challenges the call for collaboration grows. But the kind of collaboration that is
needed is of a different kind and order to the one we have known in the past; a form that was
ad-hoc, and always pushing against larger systemic structures that were driving towards
competition and individuality. For systems change to be successful we need to build shared
infrastructure, networks that have cooperation as a default, inbuilt, across a large system of
people who may not even know each other.

With the rise of information technology, the cooperation vs competition equation is changing.
As John Hagel of Deloitte's Center for the Edge notes: "The ability at cost to coordinate
activity within a single institution is much less than trying to coordinate activity across
multiple independent institutions. That was a very compelling and accurate description of the
institutions that emerged during the twentieth century, scalable efficiency drove the success
of those institutions. I would like to suggest that that rationale is diminishing in its impact
today largely as a result of the digital technology infrastructure available to us the ability to
coordinate activity across massive independent entities is decreasing at an ever rapid rate."
This ability to coordinate activity across independent entities should be seen as a new and
vital resource for realizing sustainable collaborative ecosystems.
Institutions
Successful system change creates movements for change, however, movements are
transitory processes of change. At some point, our movement or ecosystem needs to solidify
into something coherent and sustainable. Movements inevitably turn into institutions over
time or else they die out. The development of a new pattern of organization - a movement -
requires significant resources and energy that can't be sustained forever, a new structure
has to solidify to support it. In short, movements change or become institutions.

Institutions are simply established patterns of organization within society and economy that
regulate and coordinate human activity and interaction. Such institutions can take many
forms, from legal systems to customs, to dress codes or even whole cultures. When we hear
the term institution we are inclined to think of some large building with a bureaucracy inside
it. Today, however, given the advent of digital communications we have available to us new
ways to interact and create organizations. Platforms are a new kind of institution that
harnesses the power of digital technology and connectivity to enable the functional
coordination of large disparate groups of individuals or organizations.

The key aspect of the platform is that it removes the bureaucratic structure found at the
center of most industrial age organizations and it instead replaces it with a piece of software
that does the coordination automatically, while using the internet as a way to interconnect
people and things so that they can connect and coordinate in the production and exchange
of value.

Digital platforms are needed to create innovation ecosystems because they remove the
need for a large cumbersome bureaucratic structure to coordinate activities among a large
and diverse group of actors. They are also critical in that they can automate basic
procedures and operations so that time and energy and resources can be shifted to the
realm of innovation rather than being spent on routine predictable and standardized
procedures.

Like all organizations platforms engender a key dynamic between top-down and bottom-up
organizations. As Petra Kuenkel remarks: "Transformations take place in complex adaptive
systems and thrive best in an appropriate mix between collective stewardship and
self-organization." Unlike the traditional bureaucratic centralized organization that attempts
to specify desired outcomes in a top-down fashion, platforms do not specify outcomes, but
set the rules and protocols for the interaction and thus influence the outcomes and workings
of the whole system.

Modularity
One reason why initiatives can fail is that they create an overall vision but are not able to
integrate people into that effectively. Everyone has their own agenda and motives, few are
likely to give up their vision and adopt yours wholeheartedly, what is needed is a platform
that is flexible enough for people to contribute to it in different ways on different levels; a
platform that is modular rather than monolithic in its design.
We need to analyze the structure of the initiative, asking is it monolithic or modular.
Monolithic often means that value is only derived to the project as a whole. Monolithic
processes are often linear, one thing follows another leading to the outcome and all is
gained or lost if the outcome works, likewise everyone has to believe in the outcome,
meaning there can be high barriers to success.

In contrast, the modular approach means that many parts are coming together to compose a
whole, it is as such nonlinear. Modularity is a key design principle of complex systems as
they involve many diverse parts that are loosely coupled. Imposing a strong design pattern
that constrains a complex organization within a fixed overall pattern typically does not work
or is unsustainable.

The same is true of complex projects that involve many stakeholders with their own agenda
and motives, we need something that is nonlinear and loosely coupled. Likewise in order to
get the engagement of diverse parties - some of whom may not even be aware of your
overall vision - the project needs to be designed in a modular way that delivers increments of
value to those who are involved.

This is not to say that the overall process is incremental. It is your job to avoid
incrementalism by designing a system where all these little parts start to work synergistically
to sum up to something greater than their increments alone; that they at a certain point come
together to create a new and coherent pattern at which stage the members start to recognize
themselves as part of something greater and now see the value in the initiative - because it
new works.

It is difficult to sell things and get buying from people with only a vision, the way around this
is to get small engagements from members that directly deliver value to them without them
having to make the big leap of faith into your overall vision and project.

Thus the platform has to deliver value not just as a whole project but also in a discrete
modular way for those individuals and organizations that want to engage with it on an
individual level. Realizing large scale change is best done by creating something open,
whose value proposition is clear and makes sense, it delivers immediate modular units of
value to the diversity of actors that you need to engage.

Two-Sided Markets
Platforms remove the centralized component and work by providing people with the tools to
connect and exchange value peer-to-peer. This makes it possible to scale these networks
like it is not possible when there is a centralized entity providing services. The combination
of removing bureaucratic procedures and services while also leveraging the power of
automation and connectivity makes it possible for platforms to scale at very low cost to very
large numbers while at the same time remaining agile enough to make large scale systems
innovation possible.
This model has the added advantage of creating network effects, where the system
endogenously and organically draws in more users growing exponentially. The key to scaling
platforms is not only to deliver discrete and identifiable units of value but also to harness the
power of connectivity and networks to grow.

Network effects are the incremental benefit gained by an existing user for each new user
that joins the network. The telephone is one such example, the phone is only useful if other
people also have a phone. If only one person owns a phone, the value of the phone network
is zero, because they cannot connect to anyone with it. If a second person owns a phone,
then the first person can call the second person, a third etc. every new user joining the
network adds value for everyone else.

When a platform attains a critical mass of users, the cost of joining the platform is
outweighed by the value of joining, with most of that value being derived from the power of
the network. This creates an attractor that organically draws people in without the need for
advertising or special effort from the creator of the platform. Thus platforms grow not by
acquiring more assets, but by acquiring more users, which has a near-zero cost. Here again,
we can see that we can build powerful engines for system change at virtually no cost.
Systems are patterns of organization changing them is about changing patterns and
information technology allows us to do that at near-zero cost.
Conclusion
The aim of systems change is to create sustainable social, economic, technological and
socio-ecological systems. This means changing the linear fractured systems of today that
inherently create negative externalities to systems that create positive externalities which
work to build and sustain the distributed resources in the system.

To realize sustainable results is to build structures that will reinforce the behavior and the
outcomes of positive externalities, and ensure that the people in the system want to buy into
those structures and buy into those outcomes. In this respect, we have realized systems
change when we have created a sufficient number of relations, synergies, and dynamics
such that the system that once perpetuated a “problem” now instead perpetuates a
solution.​102 ​We can say it is sustainable when we have created a "game" that people want to
engage in - as it is the attractor in the system - and it creates positive externalities that
replenish the system's infrastructure and environment over time.

Vitality
There are no solutions in complex systems, wicked problems are never really solved. Many
of these wicked problems are inherent to the system, such as inequality, inequality will
always be with us, however, there is healthy and unhealthy inequality. The measure of
success is not quantitative, it is qualitative, as captured by the sense of the people that the
system is "alive" or not.

Generally speaking, we can say that at the core of systems change is the aim of creating
vitality in systems, we are trying to create systems that are in a sense "alive". This is not to
fall into an overly simplifying assumption that life is "good" and death is "bad", both are
necessary, however, what we are trying to do is create regenerative systems.

Systems thinking and change is nonlinear, we are not focusing on one specific thing but
instead the distributed resources within the system. It is out of these distributed resources
that new capabilities and the things we value can emerge. The capacity for the system to
regenerate and sustain, itself over time is there in those distributed resources, that is the
measurement of success it is the measurement of the "health" of the whole system, not one
part or one metric. As Petra Kuenkel says "the degree of life in a particular system is created
by the mutually supportive living centers this system contains."

Adaptive Learning
This emergent process of organization formation requires rapid feedback loops to enable
experimenting your way into doing what works and away from what doesn't. These feedback
loops need to be operating on various levels. When we look at what sustains ecosystems
and enables them to maintain balance and develop over time it is a multiplicity of feedback
loops on different levels.
Single loop learning corrects and refines existing routines so they operate more effectively.
Double-loop learning reframes or reforms assumptions and strategies guiding interventions
and governance processes. Triple loop learning challenges and changes the established
ways of doing things, changes the accepted paradigm and reframes values.

An action learning approach is needed, which is an approach to solving real problems that
involve taking action and reflecting upon the results, working to improve the problem-solving
process over time. Donella Meadows's famous saying "dancing with systems" highlights the
need for an ongoing adaptive evolutionary approach to systems change. There is no silver
bullet, there is no one intervention or one point in time when you "solve" a wicked problem it
is an ongoing process of action and learning.
A Systems Innovation Publication
info@systemsinnovation.io
Curated By Joss Colchester
Nov 2019

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