Systems Change is an approach to social change with a systemic claim – established across the English-speaking field over the past decade, while methodologically it has so far found little foothold in the German-speaking one. What is meant is the active, not fully plannable transformation of a system. This page situates it within systemic impact orientation – as one of several approaches it draws on.
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
One step beyond impact
Impact is, in the prevailing impact logic, the highest rung – what stands at the top of the impact ladder, the point at which one's own work demonstrably has societal consequences. Whoever achieves and documents impact has, in the sense of today's German impact measurement, reached the goal.
Systemic impact orientation takes this ladder seriously – as a reliable framework for planning, monitoring and evaluation, which it extends systemically. And it asks a second question: How do many individual impacts mesh in such a way that, together, they bring about a phase shift in the field? How do impacts become complementary, coherent, connectable to one another – instead of running side by side, or unintentionally against one another? Systems Change, in the English-speaking field, has for a good decade gathered answers to exactly this question – in German-speaking consultancy, it has not yet arrived methodologically.
This is exactly where we work: at the point where individual impacts enter productive relation with one another – looking inward at the sustainability of one's own impact, thinking further together, connecting outward, and facilitating where actors are ready to align with each other.
Six Conditions
Six conditions on three layers of depth. The deeper, the more powerful, the more invisible. (after Kania, Kramer & Senge · 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 is where it is decided whether structural changes hold, or are rolled back. This is where our methodological and biographical focus lies – from systemic organisational development and from years of practice in 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 – even though the transformational level is rarely our direct field of work.
In practice
Out of this theory, we have shaped four perspectives – resonance, structure, coherence and cooperation. Where the work steps in depends on where an organisation's impact currently stands. These levels are detailed on the homepage, together with the three offerings in which we make them practically accessible.
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. This is how we work when we work with Systems Change: context-specific and power-aware, we place impact, meaning and purpose at the centre – with a breadth of methods around it that brings them to their full potential.
Jascha Rohr (Die große Kokreation) adds a dialogical dimension to this view: Systems Change work gains depth when it works in the second order – when resonance emerges in the field first and those involved clarify what they want together; the methods follow from that. For us, this includes mapping the field again and again – as an ongoing practice, because every shift of actors within the field is already change.
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.
Methodologically, we work with what carries the question at hand: systemic organisational development in the Milan/Heidelberg tradition with circular questioning, hypothesis-building, reflecting teams and constellations work; causal loop diagrams and impact models from the systems dynamics line; Nonviolent Communication, co-creation and action-research formats; and the methodological repertoire of peace work, dialogue, conflict transformation and dealing with the past. Which tool fits is decided by the subject at hand.
→ to the philosophy → to the perspectives → to the offerings
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