From Thinking to Doing Systems Change
Recognizing that time won’t stop for me to master systems thinking, I adopted a mindset of curiosity, leaned in to exploration, and focused on normalizing the practice.
How am I turning the knowledge gained from the School of System Change into practical application in climate work in Kansas? I’m rolling up my sleeves and getting right to work with daily practice, rapid integration, leadership development, grounded inspiration, and accepting change.
Daily Practice. Each morning, while my mind is fresh, I pick a systems tool and apply it to a current challenge. I have a list of tools to choose from, and I spend about ten minutes working out the system. This daily practice has helped demystify systems thinking tools, build my own confidence in application, and broaden my perspective on the usefulness of some of the tools. The rich picture, for instance, used to be one of my least favorite tools, but now I find myself turning to it whenever I’m stuck or find myself in circular, self-reinforcing thoughts.
Rapid, Full Integration. From staff meetings and board meetings to high profile partnerships and regional collaborations, systems thinking tools offer a fresh approach to wicked problems and stagnant frameworks. Each time I take the plunge to facilitate a systems thinking exercise with a group, my anxiety level is really high. I’m used to offering facts, well lined out, presented in a clear trajectory. Facilitating a systems thinking exercise turns my well-established comfort zone as an “expert” on its head. What if they don’t understand? What if they think it’s a waste of time? What if I look silly? All of these stop when I think: what happens if we don’t look at things from a systems perspective? What is lost? Who suffers most? We don’t have time for mastery, we must embrace curiosity and experimentation, while working towards understanding.
Build Capacity & Leadership. Integrating systems thinking into daily practice helps me learn, but more importantly, it helps others see the benefits of this fresh approach. Two points help with this, I try to: 1) see myself in the system, and 2) see what happens to the system if I am no longer there. If things are going to improve, we need a lot more leaders working for change in our communities. At the Climate + Energy Project, we’ve been investing in the leadership capacity of our peers to foster a stronger network of collaboration on environmental issues in Kansas. This summer, we hosted the first-annual Kansas Environmental Leadership Summit at the Kansas Leadership Center, convening almost 50 Kansans for an intensive leadership development training. I’m sharpening my grant-writing pencil and dreaming up ways to host the next summit with a focus on systems thinking. Let the people have the power to change the systems!
Take inspiration from THE system, our ecosystem. We are surrounded by complexity. Working on things that matter is exhausting, and working on things that matter in draining environments is even worse! During our second in-person Basecamp convening in California, I recognized a notable spike in my productivity and ability to understand content when we moved to a nature-based retreat center. As our time together progressed I noticed that many others commented on this marked increase of productivity. This experience helped solidify my commitment to nature and living systems as the primary way forward. My systems practice centers on rooting in nature, focusing on living systems, sharing leadership, and looking for opportunities that balance connections with movement, vulnerability with strength, me with we, history and hope.
Understand that it’s a process: things change! Living systems are dynamic. My approach to systems thinking must be flexible, dynamic, and open to new perspectives. As more people come into my life, as I explore new concepts and learn new things, as I share leadership and build power with my peers, the system will change. Things will rotate, get bigger or smaller, background concepts may come to the fore. Much like a collection of images on a powerpoint slide, there are leverage points, rotating controls, and layers that aren’t always visible in a system. Exercising our systems thinking muscles helps see problems these points of interaction in new and refreshing ways. Either way, the only constant is change, and we must learn to embrace it.
