ThinkWork

So here are my reflections on the issue of systems change from three perspectives:

As a neophyte systems thinker

As a long-time visual thinker and communicator

And as a believer in the ability of participatory foresight to change mindsets (more on that later)

Systems Thinking

The two guest speakers and many of the other change makers in the room talked about changing systems. Monica described a long term project she is working on to improve the systems that support well being for children under 5 in the province of Alberta. Joeri put forth a model of what is required to get innovations and changes to scale up to a systems level (or put another way, what is required to 'flip' a system from one state to another). 

However, there wasn't much discussion about what it really means to work at a systems level—and what makes it qualitatively different than trying to make change at other levels. As someone who has been learning (and trying to apply) concepts and methods from the domain of systems thinking for the last three years, I wondered how many of the people in the room were aware of this discipline and use it explicitly in their work?

One of the biggest challenges I've found in trying to focus on the system level is just understanding the system you're attempting to intervene in. So here's an initial set of questions to reflect on:

How can we create a map or model to understand the system, both during the beginning (problem finding) phase of a project, and as an ongoing activity?

How will we ensure that time is spent to continually update our model of the system as we learn and develop ideas throughout the project?

Understanding Leverage Points

A topic that came up a lot during the discussion was the idea of 'leverage points'; those areas of high leverage that have the power to really change a system. This is a concept from systems thinking that is very attractive ('Hey, we just have to pull this lever—problem solved!'), but is often glossed over or given lip service. In project work, I've found it to be one of the most difficult concepts to understand and act upon.

For anyone interested in learning more about leverage points, I would recommend this primer from Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System. Here is a simple list of her 12 types of leverage points in order of ascending impact, but if you really want to understand what they are (and why she ranks them this way), take a few minutes and read the article.

12. Numbers 11. Buffers 10. Stock-and-Flow Structures 9. Delays 8. Balancing Feedback Loops 7. Reinforcing Feedback Loops 6. Information Flows 5. Rules 4. Self-Organization 3. Goals 2. Paradigms (aka Mindsets) 1. Transcending Paradigms

Once you've read the article, I'd encourage you to reflect on the type of change-making you're involved in, and ask yourself the following 3 questions:

Do I actually know what the leverage points are in the system?

Which of these 12 types of leverage points am I most often focused on in my work? And are those really the ones I should be focusing on?

Based on Meadows' perspective, am I trying to push the levers in the wrong direction?

Visual Thinking and Visual 'Doing'

My undergraduate training and the first decade of my working life were in the domain of graphic design and visual communication. So the second perspective I bring to this topic is that of a visual thinker and communicator. I believe strongly in the power of visuals to help understand complex processes, concepts, or systems. These 'visuals' could be diagrams, maps, models, storyboards, or just simple napkin sketches. And I'm not just talking about explaining something using visuals after it is already 'understood'. I think there is real untapped potential in using visual thinking to actually explore and understand a complex system. There are two main attributes of visual approaches that support understanding complexity:

Unlike the more linear nature of verbal and written thinking, visuals can show the whole system at once, including the relationships between the parts.

By even attempting to create these visual 'models', it forces groups of people to make their thinking, assumptions, and ideas explicit by capturing them visually.

In other words, visuals are more holistic and more collaborative (especially if the visuals are purposefully created as 'shared artifacts').

While not everyone prefers to think visually, there is huge potential to apply these benefits of visual thinking and doing, especially to some of the challenges mentioned earlier—understanding the system initially, and continually updating that 'map' of the system throughout the course of a project. One related approach is GIGA-Mapping, as put forward by Birger Sevaldson at the Oslo School of Architecture.

Consider how the following questions might apply to the change-making work you're doing right now:

Do we have a visual map of the system that represents a shared conception of everyone involved in the project?

How can we translate interview transcripts, verbal exchanges, literature reviews, statistics, and other textual data into a more visual and more holistic picture of the system? Do we have the right skills on the team to help with this translation?

Participatory Foresight

Monica mentioned the term participatory social innovation as something that sets her work apart from other social innovation efforts. The third perspective I'd like to offer up comes from my recent experience as a graduate student in the Strategic Foresight and Innovation Masters of Design program at OCAD University. The flavour of foresight that we learned and practiced is 'participatory' in the sense that it aims to involve stakeholders in the process of understanding change in a given domain, imagining the multiple futures that those changes could lead to, and changing their thinking and planning in the present to better prepare for those possible futures.

We sometimes say that the true outcome of these participatory foresight exercises is not the future-oreinted strategies they generate, but rather the changes in individual mindsets and collective understanding that they enable in the present.

If you're interested in making systems level change, foresight methods can help a group of people to think about multiple possible futures, and especially a preferred future among those possibilities. It can also be a powerful way to shift mindsets through the process. This relates back to the #2 most effective leverage point from Meadows' list: Paradigms or Mindsets. Last year I heard Peter Padbury, a foresight practitioner at Policy Horizons Canada, speak about how his team explicitly tries to surface mental models at the beginning of a project, and revisit them at the end to see if they've changed. [As an aside, Policy Horizons also has a tonne of great foresight and research work that is publicly available, a really great resource].

So to borrow from Padbury's approach, I will end with a final question: