Systems Change Mindsets

 

What do we mean when we use the term systems change?  In this essay we’ll explore some definitions of systems change currently in use among organizations fostering social change and identify three mindsets for systems change initiatives.  

In their publication, The Water of Systems Change, Kania, Kramer, and Senge note that the term systems change is increasingly used as a motivating approach to achieving impact, especially in the context of complex problems.  They explain that the first step to approaching systems change is beginning to see the water around us, that is to name the people, the relationships, the processes, and the structures that hold our problems in place.  They provide a framework for examining The Six Conditions of Systems Change that includes structural, relational, and transformative aspects of shifting system conditions.

Catalyst 2030 is a collaborative of social change agents working toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  They define systems change as a deliberate attempt to confront the “root causes of issues (rather than symptoms) by transforming structure, customs, mindsets, power dynamics and policies, by strengthening collective power through the active collaboration of diverse peoples and organizations.”  Let’s observe their clear naming of power, and by implication the nature of its distribution, as a mechanism for maintaining but also disrupting current issues.  They assert that strengthening collective power – that is redistributing power across diverse groups – through collaboration is the path forward to better systems.

Abercrombie, Harries, and Wharton complement the previous definitions by asserting that systems change is an “intentional process designed to alter the status quo by shifting the function or structure of an identified system with purposeful interventions.”  They go on to write that systems change, “is a journey which can require a radical change in people’s attitudes as well as in the ways people work. Systems change aims to bring about lasting change by altering underlying structures and supporting mechanisms which make the system operate in a particular way. These can include policies, routines, relationships, resources, power structures and values.”


From these three definitions of systems change we can distill three mindsets at work in systems change initiatives.  

1. Systems Mindsets: Taking on a Systems Mindset means reflecting on and demonstrating an understanding that we live, work, and develop in inter-connected systems.  These systems of systems include cultural, economic, governmental, community, organizational, and family systems comprised of inter-related parts that interact to produce observable phenomena and outcomes.  Taking time to make sense of the systems in which our work is entangled is part of the work of systems change.

2. Complexity Mindsets: As we begin to make sense of our current systems we will observe that root causes of situations can be difficult to identify due to situational entanglement across time and related systems. There can be multiple explanations – sometimes contradictory explanations - of our current challenges and their root causes, and little or no certainty within groups about promising approaches to improving conditions at a systemic level.  Rittel and Webber call this a wicked problem space.  Practicing a Complexity Mindset opens the door to using approaches, methods, and tools that work with (rather than obscure) the multiple perspectives, inter-relatedness, and limitations for knowing and prediction that characterize our systems change initiatives.  

3. Humanistic Mindsets:  We work in human systems, and the enablement of humans and human interactions through resources and relationships is foundational for systems change.  Systems change models that do not foreground the quality of human experiences and relationships are unlikely to produce the kinds of improvements that we want and need.  The Humanistic Mindset asks us to focus on the dynamic and relational nature of human groups where being human means having history, experience, capacities, ways of knowing, preferences, feelings, aspirations, values, and relationships, all of which are present (but not necessarily actively recognized and engaged) in a systems change initiative.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dancing with Systems

 The Donella Meadows Project   is a website dedicated to archiving and disseminating the transformational work of Dana Meadows.  Meadows was a scholar, activist, leader, and prolific writer who changed the international conversation on systems thinking especially in the area of environmental sustainability.   Meadows coined the phrase Dancing with Systems  to convey her emerging understanding of how to participate in systems change based on a well developed systems mindset.  She contrasted a true systems mindset for fostering change and improvement with a more industrial mindset that seeks to predict and control environments.  As we take on new ways of thinking, relating, and investigating with a systems mindset we might mistakenly apply systems vocabulary to the surface of traditional methods and approaches that seek to control and predict.  We might make that mistake repeatedly as we seek to change our worldview.  It’s worth taking a l...
Read more

Moral Injury in Complex Adaptive Human Systems

Image
  Dinner parties can be fertile ground for conversation and connection.  Last night amidst the friendly banter of a lively dinner party I listened carefully to an emergency health care provider discuss the highs and lows of his career.  He talked about feelings of love, intimacy, honor, frustration, and betrayal that accompany the care of patients within health bureaucracies.  At one point in the conversation I mentioned to him that an event he was describing sounded like a moral injury had occurred. He was not familiar with the term ‘moral injury’ and so we discussed the meaning. I first learned the term ‘moral injury’ when listening to an episode of Fresh Air broadcast on NPR in 2014.  During the broadcast Terry Gross interviewed military correspondent, David Wood, who said, “I think that almost everyone who returns from war has suffered some kind of moral injury…….and I do not mean by that that they have done something wrong, only that they have seen or expe...
Read more

Fire and Story

Image
   Fire is the observable light and heat we humans perceive from difficult-to-observe chemical reactions among fuel and oxidants known as combustion.  Combustion results from a sequential process where fuels (like wood, charcoal, or paper) interact with oxidants and heat to become gaseous, expand, and combust into the heat and light we perceive [1].   The simple system of combustion described above is an important part of a complex and adaptive Earth system in which naturally occurring and human-made fires influence and are influenced by climate, atmosphere, water composition, vegetation, topography, wildlife, and human experiences [2].  Indeed, a walk in any forest will reveal what fire has accomplished over eons.   As an essential aid in the evolution of human society within the Earth system, fire is both a necessary ingredient and a constant threat to human existence.  The study of fire - how it forms, spreads, and can be managed – require...
Read more