The *how* of systems change

A few weeks ago, the Point People ran a one day workshop for Lankelly Chase and their Place Based Associates, talking through some of the thinking, methods and tools we use for designing systemically for change.

This is part of the Point People’s ongoing relationship with Lankelly Chase to help build the field of ‘systems change’ and especially the need that we all feel to “democratise” it. My colleague Ella Saltmarshe is writing a longer blog post about that, coming soon!

The idea of the day was that through us sharing *how* we do things, those that joined the session could go away and use some of tools in their own work — all of whom are involved in place-based systems change. Some of the participants included Collaborate, MEAM and Save The Children’s Local Systems Change team.

We tried to deliver the session in a way that made practical sense — when might the different tools and approaches be useful? How do you use them? And with whom?

The slides we created for the session are here. They show the different elements of the Systems Changers programme (Seeing the System, Finding Flex, Experimenting with Change), some of the tools and methods we use, and when we use them. We hope people find them useful.

After the session I reflected (and then tweeted) on how organisations doing “systems change” work need to get much better at describing, in detail, what they actually do. It was also one of the things that made our work for Agenda (#awomansplace) really challenging— when we were doing interviews with ‘systems change practitioners’ they seemed to find it incredibly hard to get down to detail.

I think there’s a lot of..

“Build coalitions and relationships across the system”

“Work with power”

“Build empathy and trust”

“Agree on shared outcomes”

“Demonstrate generous leadership” etc etc…

….but if people want these approaches to spread then what’s needed is a much more granular telling and showing of the *how* — hence my tweet.

Thank you to Ella Saltmarshe and Jennie McShannon, my co-designers and co-facilitators on the day.