Systemic Impact Orientation
Systemic impact orientation holds two ideas: systemic impact and systemic orientation. What do we want to orient ourselves by? By systemic impact. How do we want to work with impact? We orient it systemically. We want both. We aim for systemic impact: we want to change society as a whole, lastingly, and we draw on a range of methods that set out to achieve this with sound approaches. This is very close to the thought that also shaped our name, Impact Up. Within a project, planning, monitoring or evaluation serves the orientation towards impact. We are convinced that this orientation succeeds far better with a systemic stance. The larger the cooperation that needs orientation and wants to bring forth something shared, the more likely systemic impact becomes – and the more important the shared systemic elements of the orientation become.
The What
Systemic impact: transformation of society.
The what of our work is systemic impact. Impact that changes the system itself. Cooperation across society as the basis of its transformation. We pursue this path through more networking, more exchange, more coordination, so that many individual impacts can become a cooperative impact in the field – coherent, complementary, compatible with one another. Tools along this path we see in approaches such as Systems Change or co-creation.
Systemic impact comes from working at the system – in Donella Meadows's sense, at the leverage points where reinforcing and balancing feedback loops converge and small shifts can move great things. An approach that, with good systems maps, can bring forth good ideas with strong effects.
Many impacts can also spoil things – just as, proverbially, too many cooks do. Only when they stand coherent and complementary, somehow compatible with one another, can they move society together. This runs non-linearly and circularly: results feed back onto their own preconditions, small shifts can amplify – effects the systems-thinking tradition in monitoring and evaluation has described for some time. Precisely for this it takes methods for reflection, developmental evaluation or at least action research. Shaping systemic impacts calls for complexity on the one hand and practical entry points on the other. One foundation is regular reflective loops.
The How
Systemic orientation: working with stance and craft.
Systemic orientation begins with a stance: curiosity instead of judgement, interest instead of diagnosis, appreciation towards everyone involved and those not involved as well. We always assume that solutions to a concern are already present within the system itself – as resources, experiences and ideas that often stay invisible in everyday life; consulting activates this potential. Whoever accompanies from the outside holds multi-partiality in the process: equal distance to all perspectives and decisions. This outside perspective – second-order observation – makes visible what often lies in the system's own blind spot: recurring patterns in the interplay, not just individual content. Listening and resonance come first – only once a system feels heard does it become open to a new view of itself.
Impact orientation is established practice in the non-profit sector and speaks many languages: Theory of Change, Outcome Mapping, the impact logic based on the IOOI model, and – in peace work – Reflecting on Peace Practice. We use them as craft tools – which logic fits is decided by the initiative, and is often already given. Our approach is to build on yours. Systemic consulting lives only through the system itself, co-creation lives from those involved, Systems Change from the Primary Actors. The important content comes from the collaboration; the theory builds on it.
Planning, monitoring and evaluation are umbrella terms for countless, very different activities. With them we shape content – and the way we do it makes the difference: circular rather than only linear, with feedback loops, with second-order observation, with impact knowledge that emerges together with those involved. Our process stance begins where your organisation observes and interprets its own impact. The existing impact logic that an initiative brings with it remains usable – we extend it with exactly this process stance.
Impact reflection
An example of how we reflect on impact with you.
Here you see a simple aid from Williams and Hummelbrunner that we could use to look at your impacts.
This is how we ask about the Boundaries of impact: Where does your impact end? What might you no longer want? What can you no longer manage? Would it be good if there were others? And already we're at Interrelationships: Who else is out there doing something like this? How well do you know each other? How often do you meet? And do your impacts really fit together well? And do they see it the same way? And already we're at Perspectives: How do they see your impact? And a third party who knows you both – how do they see it? Who among you appreciates the others' perspective? And why? This way, a simple aid quickly covers a lot.
The Umbrella Term
Many methods, one orientation.
Systemic impact orientation is, for us, a broad umbrella term under which we want to gather many of these methods. As far as we know, we are coining this term. We think it is good and important, while of course staying open to other things. Especially for society's big concerns we naturally also want to work on the basis of other ideas, and so we have given Systems Change its own page.
Sources
What we draw on.
- PHINEO: Kursbuch Wirkung (IOOI-Logik). phineo.org Established impact logic: Input–Output–Outcome–Impact.
- DGSF: Systemische Organisationsberatung und Organisationsentwicklung. dgsf.org A stance of respect, multi-partiality and appreciation; resources and potential for change are activated within the system itself, not supplied from outside.
- von Schlippe, A. & Schweitzer, J.: Lehrbuch der systemischen Therapie und Beratung. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. vr-elibrary.de Foundational work on multi-partiality, resource orientation and second-order observation in systemic consulting.
- Meadows, D.: Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Chelsea Green, 2008. donellameadows.org Foundations of systems thinking: stocks, flows, reinforcing and balancing feedback loops – and the leverage points: places in a system where small shifts carry great change.
- Williams, B. & Hummelbrunner, R.: Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit. Stanford University Press, 2010. bobwilliams.co.nz Three core systems concepts: Interrelationships, Perspectives, Boundaries – the basis of the three lenses.
- Patton, M. Q.: Developmental Evaluation. Guilford Press, 2010. betterevaluation.org Ongoing, adaptive impact reflection in dynamic systems; non-linearity and emergence as the normal case.
- Rayner, C. & Bonnici, F.: The Systems Work of Social Change. Oxford University Press, 2021. global.oup.com Context, Connection, Power as relational levels of practice; bridge to the Systems Change page.
- Seliger, R.: Systemische Beratung der Gesellschaft. Carl-Auer, 2022. carl-auer.de Systemic logic for societal change: constructivism, crisis conditions between ecology, economy and democracy; change succeeds from within the system – above all through organisations.
- Rohr, J.: Die große Kokreation. Murmann, 2023. murmann-verlag.de Field process theory with the phases resonance – transformation – co-creation (emergence) – cultivation; co-creative mapping of the field as change work.