5.1 Systemic impact

Why it is important to understand systems?

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Dave Snowden is one of the most influential systems thinkers. In his TEDx talk, he described how we’re accustomed to solving problems by treating the world as though it were a machine. We break things down into parts, take the parts out of context and try to find quick, rational solutions. We impose order on everything, and while that can be useful, it also limits freedom and creativity, says Snowden. But the other problem is that it doesn’t actually work with real-life systems, whcih are complex and dynamic. 

The way described above can make operations seem efficient, but without a systemic approach, our solutions often also produce negative consequences and don’t fix the underlying problem. For example, the agriculture that provides food in one place causes excess nutrients to flow into waterways, which damages ecosystems and kills fish which serve as food elsewhere.

Another example is social media. At first, many people saw it was a wonderful solution that connected people. Over time, its side effects became apparent and people realized that it often separates rather than connecting us.

In 2023, the World Economic Forum warned in its annual Global Risks report that the world was on the brink of a polycrisis; interconnected crises in several areas, including climate change and biodiversity loss, the erosion of social cohesion, large scale involuntary migration and the spread of infectious diseases. The most severe long-term global risks are connected to the escalating ecological crisis. This calls for radical creatives to adopt a planetary mindset and rethink humanity’s relationship with the more-than-human world.

Systems thinkers (see sub-chapter 4.3, Systems thinking and sensing) are calling for challenging the existing assumptions and perspectives on what works well and what needs to be changed. For radical creativity to really change the world, it needs to work on a systemic level. Systemic change also calls for radically creative transformation of many things, including ourselves, our ways of thinking and of relating to each other.

We’ll first discuss what systemic impact is and then we’ll introduce a framework of essential elements for changing how we think about what’s normal in our lives and how to gradually enable systemic change.

Networks of transformation

Creativity is a team sport

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The systems that we’re talking about aren’t stable; they’re always changing. They are largely invisible because they are embedded in the way people think, the values they hold and how they perceive the world.They are also in many ways  unknown—think of the human body, which still isn’t completely understood. That’s why systemic change progresses through experimentation and by learning from real-life situations. It’s often impossible to determine in advance what will ultimately result in change and what success will look like. Essential to systemic work is the idea that there is always a certain amount of disorder and chaos in the system.

Systemic change can happen through art, as it creates new ways of experiencing, can change us deeply and can spread new ideas—think of the music of the 1960s peace movements, for example. Business ideas and innovative products and social innovations can also create change, as can activism.

An important tool for systems change is creating a supportive environment—or ‘holding space’—where people with different perspectives can come together. This is about how we interact as a group, balancing shared rules with the behaviors of individuals and the community.

Increasingly, achieving systemic impact is about relying on and facilitating the interaction of social networks. Collective inspiration based on alternative futures that can be imagined and started here and now, anticipating those futures, is also at the heart of radical creativity.

Leverage points

What are the most powerful ways to impact the whole system?

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The concept of leverage points, developed by Donella Meadows (1999, 2008), is useful to describe how a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.  

Leverage points are ways to change a system. Shallow leverage points relate to material aspects of systems, such as incentives and resource flows. Deep leverage points are the way the system is organized, its rules and structures, such as laws. At the deepest level, leverage points are the fundamental beliefs, values, ideologies and world views behind the systems. 

Changing the rules and structures of a system is important, but changing the deeper mindsets behind those rules can lead to even greater and more meaningful change. Currently, in efforts to create change, the emphasis is often on the less impactful, shallow leverage points (Woiwode ym. 2021).

Meadows identified 12 leverage points to change a system. Here they are, from least to most efficient :

12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards)
11. Size of buffers and other stabilizing stocks (such as inventories and financial savings)
10. Structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures)
9. The lengths of delays (for example how long it takes to build a new energy plant)
8. The strength of negative feedback loops (for example a thermostat that keeps a room temperature stable, or market prices that stabilize demand and supply)
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops (for example interest that increases the more money there is)
6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints)
4. The power to add, change, evolve or self-organize system structure (such as nature or a rich and dynamic cultural scene)
3. The goals of the system (such as GDP growth)
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system—its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters—arises (including beliefs, values, ideologies, world views)
1. The power to transcend paradigms (Let go into not knowing or into what the Buddhists call enlightenment)

Systemic impact

How to predict systemic impact?

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Systemic intervention may have unintended widespread effects on the initial beneficiaries and players outside the immediate ecosystem. It’s nearly impossible to understand the complexity of the consequences of a radically creative idea. Yet, to some degree, its systemic impact can be anticipated from three perspectives: the interconnectedness of the parts of the immediate system, the spread of change, and the resilience and adaptability of the affected systems (Schmidt-Abbey et al., 2022, Janssen et al., 2022, Reynolds et al., 2016).

First, interconnectedness assumes that the direct users and stakeholders of radically creative outcomes do not exist in isolation. Rather, they interact with and influence other parts of the system. Evaluating the systemic impact at the individual-to-individual level of interconnectedness is about finding ways to understand how the first adopters of a radically creative outcome in one part of the system could influence other participants in the same system.

Second, the systemic impact of a radically creative outcome can be observed at a larger scale when we acknowledge the existence of a systems hierarchy. Entrepreneurial and innovative products are parts of economic systems, which are parts of societal systems, and all societies exist in the ecological system of planet Earth (Midgley & Lindhult, 2017).

Thus, to anticipate the potential for widespread change, we might want to start by examining the interdependencies between directly connected systems and gradually move to links with remote systems, such as distant communities, industries and even systems across countries. For instance, assuming you work in an organization where you and your team have come up with a radically creative solution for a sustainable future, the directly connected system may be the communications department. A more remote system would be another individual from your network who works and lives in another country and who is inspired by your actions to kick-start their radically creative initiative.

Third and last, understanding systemic impact involves assessing how systems might respond and adapt to radically creative outcomes. This observation of systemic resilience and adaptability includes examining whether radical change reflected in activism, entrepreneurship or innovation enhances the resilience of systems or introduces vulnerabilities.

References

Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a psychology of human agency. Perspectives on psychological science, 1(2), 164-180.

Engeström, Y. (2007). Enriching the theory of expansive learning: Lessons from journeys toward coconfiguration. Mind, culture, and activity, 14(1-2), 23-39.

Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A. (2017). Studies of expansive learning: Foundations, findings and future challenges. Introduction to Vygotsky, 100-146.

Kerosuo, H. (2017). Transformative agency and the development of knotworking in building design. Agency at work: An agentic perspective on professional learning and development, 331-349.

Janssen, M. J., Bergek, A., & Wesseling, J. H. (2022). Evaluating systemic innovation and transition programmes: Towards a culture of learning. PLoS sustainability and transformation, 1(3), e0000008.

Midgley, G., & Lindhult, E. (2017). What is systemic innovation?. Center for Systems Studies, Research Memorandum 99, pp. 1-39.

Reynolds, M., Gates, E., Hummelbrunner, R., Marra, M., & Williams, B. (2016). Towards systemic evaluation. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 33(5), 662-673.

Schmidt-Abbey, B., Reynolds, M., & Ison, R. (2020). Towards systemic evaluation in turbulent times–Second-order practice shift. Evaluation, 26(2), 205-226.

Schwartz Cowen, R., (1985). More Work for Mother. Basic Books.