Systems Change learning and experiments — what we are up to in 2017
The Lab exists to experiment and learn about cutting edge system change practice.
We were set up over five years ago when at Forum for the Future we evolved our strategy to system innovation. We recognised that as an organisation we needed to build our capacity in this approach, stay innovative and help us drive impact in systems change.
Over the years, we have incubated and experimented with a number of approaches — Six Steps to Significant Change, Scaling up impact, Value Networks, Collaborative project processes — that have been applied to a wide number of projects and have been widely used by other organisations. We have also sought to evolve our practice from working with mainstream business to wider stakeholders such as foundations, civil society and public sector — as well as new emerging communities such as citizen innovators. We have sought to understand the role of disruption in change — for example the digital revolution — and how we might create concepts that exemplify a new reality.
So what are we up to in 2017? We are currently incubating and exploring:
School of System Change (1)
How might we equip and build the capacity of change agents for system change and build a thriving learning system to support the wider field?
At the end of last year we launched the school. It has been a two year journey developing and testing the concept, exploring how we might help accelerate the impact required to address the complex challenges of our times.
The School’s vision is to equip people with the capabilities needed to lead system change initiatives, through flexible access to learning experiences, curation of resources, whilst also building the global community of system change practitioners into a purposeful learning system.
In 2017 we are moving from concept to prototypes, for example Basecamp #1, as well as looking at how we might take it into other geographies, such as India and North America. We’re developing concepts and experiments around a wider learning system that is required to support the multiple learners and the community to come together, including how we curate resources and how the school can be in service of coalescing the field of systems change.
The Next Wave (2)
How might we accelerate the next wave — the paradigm shift required to evolve people’s mindsets, behaviours, and societal structures — so that we create the systemic change required for society to sustain itself?
We are interested in the emerging dialogue and observations about issues such as post-capitalism, beyond consumerism, new governance models, the future of work (I could go on). We see these as emerging trends and a growing body of research and wisdom which shows that societal development has evolved through waves. The Next Wave is therefore the (possible) paradigm shift that is emerging in people’s mindsets, behaviours, and societal structures that might have the potential to address the complex challenges of our time.
It is also the systemic impact that might be required in the world — #theBIGshift — the fundamental changes in our economic models, societal norms and ways of operating towards a society that has the ability to sustain itself, where we see ourselves as part of our living systems.
We are working on a flagship project — The Future of Civil Society — where we are taking a participatory action approach to understand: What is the role of civil society in the next wave? We’re looking at how this can be joined with other action inquiry streams to make up a programmatic area of work to help amplify and accelerate #theBIGshift.
Watch this space for what we are seeking to explore… such as shifts in the public services, the future economy and how we learn, fund, communicate and organise in society.
Engaging for Systems Change (3)
How might we communicate system change so it engages and allows greater access to the approaches and field?
This in essence could be a sub-set of either of the above but we want to call it out as we feel it is critical element. Without engagement and an opening up of access to systems change approaches and as well as concepts (such as paradigm change!) we will remain in our echo chamber. In 2016 we started to explore how we could use games and other media and campaigns to reach out to different audiences in different ways. We are hoping to find ways (and resources) to do more in 2017.
New ways of working (4)
How might we innovate our own working practices?
Being change agents means we need to live the change we want to see in the work at all levels. That is why we are experimenting and learning how to operate differently. We started in earnest last year as a team and continue to look at what self-organisation practices (Teal) mean in practice. This year we are continuing, both as a team and by looking at how the relationships we have need to develop and evolve across our work to support the difficult work of systems change.
We are also making more explicit this year how the idea of living systems (5) — as a worldview and therefore way of operating — underpins both the new paradigm/ Next Wave, the development of learning systems and at the microcosm of our working practices.
Finally, this renewed focus for 2017 means that we are changing our name from the System Innovation Lab to Systems Change Lab. It might feel like semantics but it is important to signify the evolution of our work at Forum for the Future and as a Lab. (More on definitions here.)
If you share any of these questions, or feel you could become a co-adventurer, do get in touch. Lastly, happy New Year, it feels like it will be a good one!
(I have taken the fact that Chinese new year happened last week and that I was laid out with appendicitis at the beginning of January as my excuse to why this blog has gone up a month late!)
