Systems Change
Systems Change is an approach to social change with a systemic claim; it has become broadly established over the past decade. What is meant is the active, not fully plannable transformation of a system – with a focus on networks and shifts in power. Changing society in the long term requires a shift in our societal paradigms. Methods of Systems Change can achieve this – just as methods of systemic consulting or co-creation can.
The Framing
What Systems Change is – and what we want with it.
Systems Change is the active, not fully plannable transformation of a system – with a focus on networks and shifts in power. Changing society in the long term requires a shift in our societal paradigms.
Impact Up takes every individual impact in small projects seriously and values it in principle, but at the same time immediately asks the follow-up question: how do many individual impacts mesh so that, together, they become a shared impact in a field – or in society as a whole? How do they become complementary, coherent, connectable to one another, instead of unintentionally running side by side or against each other? Systems Change approaches the work differently: by way of systemic conditions that enable everyone to bring about the desired impact themselves. Both matter and complement each other: focus in the larger direction, and diversity in the individual solutions.
Systems Change works with the Primary Actors who know their field inside out – each individual develops solutions here, adapted to the context-specific problem and their own resources, because this is where one knows best. Systems Change is therefore not plannable; all that is possible is to create the conditions that make Systems Change more likely. This is where our idea of a systemic stance meets the work on impact. In Systems Change one builds networks, and collective identities create trust among the Primary Actors. This opens the possibility of exchange, of learning from one another – from people one trusts, entirely in the sense of one's own project and one's own problems: through observation, listening, experience, and many questions.
Systems Change needs three things: context knowledge through the Primary Actors, connection through trust and networks – and ultimately these networks are also the basis for the third element, the shift in power. That remains the greatest challenge.
Definitions of Systems Change
A systems-change approach is one in which decision-makers take the entire system into view – including all its interconnected parts – along with its effects on inaction and inequalities.
It rests on the conviction that a change in one part of the system can (sometimes unpredictably) affect what happens elsewhere.
It argues for tackling the complexity of inequalities and inaction together – as a whole system – rather than having individual parts of the system attempt this in isolation.
leadingthemovement.org
We understand Systems Change as the reconfiguration of a system – including its constituent parts and the interactions between them – such that a new system emerges that behaves in a qualitatively different way.
systemschangelab.org
Six Conditions of Systems Change
Where Systems Change takes hold.
Six conditions on three layers of depth. The deeper, the more powerful, the more invisible. (after Kania, Kramer & Senge, The Water of Systems Change · FSG 2018)
Structural – what becomes visible when we look at an organisation or a field: which policies apply, which practices are established, where the resources flow. This is where consultancy often steps in – with mixed results, because changes at this level remain reversible as long as the layers underneath don't move with them.
Relational – the half-visible depth: in which relationships actors stand, who has power where, whose impact can connect to whose. This middle level – relationships and power – is where we start. This is where it is decided whether structural changes hold, or are rolled back. This is where we can bring in a great deal from the methodology of peacebuilding, where relationships, power and conflict dynamics are the central working layer.
Transformational – the most invisible, slowest layer: the mental models with which actors interpret reality. They rarely change directly. They shift when experiences on the upper layers call them into question. We orient our work so that it remains connectable to such mental shifts – and with systemic methods, we also try to initiate change more directly.
In practice
What this looks like in our work.
We have given ourselves four perspectives as practical entry points – resonance, structure, coherence and cooperation. The terms grew out of many theories, but Systems Change played a part too. Where exactly we begin in the work, we decide together.
In their book The Systems Work of Social Change, Rayner and Bonnici condense the relational middle layer into three terms: Context, Connection, Power – through them, the patterns of a system change. Whoever takes Systems Change seriously works with what is actually happening in the given context, changes relationships, and shifts power. Context-specific and power-aware is what we always want to be, placing impact, meaning, purpose at the centre – with a breadth of methods around it that lets us make much of its potential together.
Such a breadth is, for example, gathered by the School of System Change in practices such as: making systems visible, working at multiple levels, recognising connections and interactions, including diverse perspectives, working with activating and resisting forces, thinking in time scales, recognising patterns, embracing complexity, questioning assumptions.
We want to develop our own impact in the same way: thinking further together with others, trying things out, connecting outward – and facilitating where organisational actors are ready to exchange, to align with one another, and to take on the challenges together. Theory offers ideas for the conditions we want to create – the important content stays with you; it comes from collaboration with the people closest to their own concern.
Sources
What we draw on.
- Kania, J., Kramer, M. & Senge, P.: The Water of Systems Change. FSG, 2018. fsg.org Origin of the Six Conditions of Systems Change: six conditions on three levels – structural, relational, transformative – where systems change takes hold.
- Rayner, C. & Bonnici, F.: The Systems Work of Social Change. Oxford University Press, 2021. global.oup.com Context, Connection, Power as the relational level of practice where systems change becomes tangible.
- School of System Change: Basecamp. schoolofsystemchange.org Learning and methods space of systems change practice; shapes the field and community in the English-speaking world.