A little bit about why Unstitution came to be.
The origins of Unstitution go back a few decades and are rooted in a realization that the systems operating within business, government and civil society are profoundly dysfunctional and broken in and of themselves. They no longer serve the best interests of society and citizens — if, in fact, they ever did. Until recent years, the word citizen* was not fully recognized, understood or realized. We have been subjects and, more recently, consumers, for much of human history — accustomed to following those who lead.
The modern systems (of the last 500 years) were created by leaders to ensure subjugation or, at best, compliance. Keeping society in check required that the subjects and/or consumers maintained faith with leadership in government and more recently, business.
The civil society has not existed as a defined construct, except at tribal, community and local levels for much of human history. The rise of a systemic civil society is fairly recent and originated as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution from c1780. Civil society as a vibrant influence has lagged far behind, mostly being reactive rather than a compelling driver for Business and Government evolution or societal change.
This is beginning to shift.
Since the Industrial Age, with the emphasis on organized financial profit-making and unrelenting extraction, exploitation and the globalization of people and planetary impacts — the resultant corruption and greed and many other overlapping issues has had deleterious domino effects. Business, government and civil society have become seriously out-of-balance. They have grown dysfunctional by design and neglect. Corporate multinational big business power and influence are disproportionately high, steered by capitalist interests. Government is bureaucratic, self-serving, driven by big business, slow to respond and out of step with the magnitude of needs and challenges. Some would argue that both business and government have been morally and systemically bankrupt for decades.
There are too many forces that gave rise to the imbalance within society to address here. The Industrial Age, which amplified the issues, ensnared us in a consumerist story that:
🔹 Urged growth for the sake of growth
🔹 Idolized accumulation of stuff that became bankrupt of real purpose
🔹 Produced a vicious circle that feeds a voracious addictive economic model based on financial gain at any cost
As world citizens become more aware of the damaging imbalances described here, much of civil society feels powerless and even apathetic. Ordinary people are increasingly realizing that they have either lost or never had true agency. They/we/you want to (re)gain agency, through diligent and inspired engagement— contributing to re-balancing society as active participants, with a felt sense of responsibility and deep concern.
There are many amazing people trying to effect change, who are trapped and limited by the systems in which they live and work. The growing sense of frustration is palpable.
Worse still, because the systems that operate within business, government and civil society are profoundly dysfunctional, those that extend and operate between these critical societal systems are broken too. To effectively re-balance society, catalyzing essential change at these intersections — is fundamental.
The tensions that exist in these broken interrelationships are the deeper flaws of our current societal challenges because the checks and balances have failed and/or are missing. These are failing citizens — and that’s all of us — at a pivotal time when citizenship is becoming the driving impetus for societal change — replacing the passive subject or consumer status in ordinary people’s hearts and minds.
Who and where are the citizens?
Anyone recognized as a resident of a country or nation anywhere in the world is a citizen of civil society. In effect, that means roughly 8 billion people are citizens. Integral to our collaborative communities, initiatives and coalition work, is the fact that whether people work within government, business or civil society or none of these — our common denominator is that we are all citizens. Indeed there are many who have slipped through the cracks and have been forgotten or marginalized. And so we extend that definition to include anyone on planet earth — perhaps better described as denizens, inhabiting a vast pluriverse.
Citizens are collectively, increasingly finding their voice in ways they never have before — born out of growing access to information and the ability to learn and communicate. Citizens are more aware that the fundamentally unchanged mainstays of societal leadership for 300+ years, are failing — widening the chasm of distrust. This is compounded by the global nature of modern society and the presence of mounting worldwide challenges that truly affect all of us — namely the pandemic, climate change, ecological destabilization, social injustice, colonization, economic shocks and geo-political conflict etc.
The plot thickens.
There is a profound need and opportunity to bring people together from across all sectors and divides — to help reconstitute the commons into the living fabric of society. The untapped power of binding collaborative coalitions can (over time) help to cut through and forge some new pathways toward rebalancing society by rebooting its operating system, for the benefit of humanity and the planet. It is society’s operating system that sets the context for human behaviour, which in turn has myriad downstream consequences for all people and the very planet we inhabit.
If we are to support transformative change (versus incremental tinkering) we must bring wide and deep (trans)contextual systemic, strategic perspectives, enabling conditions and activation to the task.
Unstitution’s primary approach as a collaborative commons working from the space between, is to address the dysfunctional systems that exist between business, government and civil society — the barriers we’ve defined as monsters, with new monsters emerging every day. Real breakthroughs will enable ordinary people and communities to lead and support cross-sector change within and across their own organizations in business, government and/or their communities.
To be clear, we are not against or anti-institutions. A healthy society requires institutions and structures that function well, purposefully fulfilling and working in concert with dynamic social, environmental and economic needs and serving people and planet.
While we do not reject institutions, systems or social structures, there is a need to reframe and reimagine them so that they are fit-for-purpose. By developing and reconfiguring interconnected ways of defining, activating and conducting society and its systems — we can potentially live into a life-affirming future — now.
We do not summarily reject any of the current thinking about how this may be achieved. We are concerned, however, that:
🔹 Fractured, conflicting alternative (world) views and methodologies increasingly in competition with each other and often in dysfunctional binary debate are failing to make meaningful, timely progress and…
🔹 There is very limited meaningful and sustainable engagement with the vast majority of world citizens who must gain agency over their lives, families, communities and futures — and thereby help to rebalance society
This needs to change.
We are also concerned that most people are either thinking and functioning in macro, global ways or micro, grassroots local ways. For all kinds of reasons, there are not enough integrated, coherent, iterative mutually supportive transcontextual ways that combine, span and apply both global and local perspectives. There is a need to hold a wider frame — honouring context-based place-sourced requirements, knowledge, lived experience, approaches and outcomes that can be extrapolated and adapted for wider and deeper learning, scale and application.
Unstitution does reject a world driven by dysfunctional competition and insular protectionist and siloed thinking and operation — the heartland of the monsters. Our framing and navigation is predominantly aiming to address or minimize these and their causes. In essence, a productive collaborative co-creative ethos can and must replace the unhealthy competitive losing zero sum game.
While this is hard to do, these are the emergent and strategic pathways we are forging. Thankfully there is growing convergence. We are many…
Unstitution was birthed and patterned as a collective commons. Our modus operandi is seriously collaborative — inviting and/or joining with individuals and organizations across business, government and civil society to live into the shift from broadly competitive Game A to Game Be ways of being, thinking and operating. We are encouraged by the expanding numbers of people who are (more) ready, eager and searching for the pathways to support and advance this shift. There is no single, simple blueprint or roadmap. Elusive silver bullets don’t exist. The ways and means are many and varied.
We invite you to drill down into our suite of articles here on Medium to fill in some gaps. You will encounter messy humanness, our Evolutionary Navigation System, ‘aha’ moments, regenerative progress and much more. The collaborative creative pathways and patterns involve all of us in ways that can get things substantively unstuck and moving forward purposefully and joyfully, where joyfulness is an act of resilience.
We would be delighted to dance together, because it is your dance too, as we choreograph our way forward — organically and by design.
You can follow Unstitution and engage with us on LinkedIn.
This article was updated December 2023, reflecting additional perspectives and ongoing action research, as we continue to observe, listen and adapt — a humbling learning journey for us all.
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