Two Loops Model — Systems Innovation Week 18
This is a 25 weeks series from Systems Innovation Network where different topics within Systems Innovation is explored. I am learning about systems innovation and I want to explore environment-animal-human connection to enable wellbeing for all life on the planet. Let’s go!
The two loops model is a tool for structuring the change from an old system to a new one. It lets you see the growing and decline of one way of doing things, and how the emergent new pattern can look like, and those two interconnectedness. When doing systems change an understanding of this process is useful, both for communicating with others and understanding your own position in the change.
The two loops are inspired by ecological systems where nothing stays alive forever, there is always change of life where one declines while another emerges. It can be seen in the seasonal transitions during a year, in the life of individual plants and animals, and in generational transitions within families and societies.
There is no incremental change where the same thing changes and continues on forever, there is rather discontinuous change that presents an structure shift. This means there is one thing that dies at the same time as something new starts to live.
We need to look as much on the new emerging system as we much handle and take care of the old system, making the decline more smooth and with less resistance and crisis.
Invested stakeholders
The stakeholders in the old system will want to hold on to that. That is because they normally have built their whole career and lives around one way of doing things and it has shaped their world view of that is the way of how to do things. They have a lot of stakes in the system, maybe resources as well as identity. For an old person, eating habits can be precious for them, not wanting to change to plant based because the news says that is better for the environment. But also large organizations are built upon one business idea and the people working there wants to continue having their jobs.
Inclusive change — Those invested stakeholders needs to be in the change as well. They need to have a place to smoothen the transitions and have less resistance. Those invested stakeholders often have a lot of valuable knowledge and expertise as well in their own field, resources that might be very valuable for a new system as well. Within food production system I’m thinking of farmers doing conventional farming vs permaculture farmers.
Holding on and resisting — Even right before a collapse there are many who are holding on the belief of the old system. That is true in financial collapses as well as in personal relationships. You ignore the early signs of unsustainability and doesn’t change according to them. Those are left to being forced to change when the old system have collapsed. They might feel as they have their dignity in the old system. It is a representation of some human defense mechanisms like denial.
First Loop
The first loop shows the growth, peak and decline of the current which will become the old system. There is different needs within these phases, like hospicing the old system.
Second Loop
To create systems change, there needs to be alternative in doing things differently than the current way. Otherwise there is no system change that is going to happen. Some people say that protesters such as Greta Thunberg is creating a lot of resistance to the current way but is producing too little alternatives. But there is of course a need for all different types of capacities. The protesters are making the unsustainable practices in the old system more broadly spread and accepted to the general public, and there there might be innovators who acting upon that possibility to create something new. So then the actors have had different roles in a transition, all needed.
Communities of practices are the more mature versions of networks, which is a way of stabilizing a new way of doing things. That can be an infrastructure, new practices can be incorporated into policies or in other structures of a system.
Supporting the new
The alternatives will have to be supported for them to be able to grow and challenge the regime system.
Naming — Identification and naming a practice can make it get an identity and be able to be recognized. The concepts of sustainability or animal welfare can be those. It creates a way of communicating around this new practice or concept.
Connect — Connect the new initiatives so they can support and learn from each other, and become stronger.
Nourishing — Most networks are quite transitory and fade away over time, but some times if we continue to nourish a network then we may get something more; a community of practice. That is something that is more stable than any of the actors themselves, a structure that is stabalizing.
Illuminate — The aim now is to illuminate the new paradigm so that people can move to it as early and as quickly as possible. A system of influence is a system you participate in without even thinking about it, it is the new paradigm. That can for example be like the default choice in restaurant menus are plant based meals, or more information about where the food is coming from.
Key activities in connecting the old with the new
Key roles in the transition
There needs to be people working in different parts of both the old and the new system. Is is easy to only think about the old system and ignore a change, and it is easy to only think about the new system and ignore the old. But there is a need for a holistic understanding for making the systems change, and an understanding of different roles in the transition.
A useful canvas for applying the two loops model to specific challenge:
A lot of interesting content this week! Make sure to check out Systems Innovation Network to connect with us learning about these concepts.
My mind goes to where I am in the system. I am now trying to understand the whole picture of the old system as well as the new emerging. I am seeing myself as becoming a bridge builder in the transition to a society where we care about animals. One obvious system about that is the food system. But there is so much information to use, especially about new initiatives and new ways of doing things. I get all overloaded in this information age.
What I also think about is where the peers in the same age group as I am are. Because I know in my education system we are not taught to think in systems like this, so those going in university now are still learning the new way of thinking, that technology will be the fixes of our problems. But that is what I have realized is not the case, and that feeling I have always had, that is why I looked for these kinds of thinking and am very happy I found Systems Innovations network.
But more and more young people are at least seeing that the old system is insufficient for our global challenges, and more and more will hopefully look for other ways of thinking which is not provided by today’s universities. And there we need to be many actors working with the old system and the new system working towards a change.