Easier INC

A Reflection On System Change

 

As we enter 2021 it seems more obvious than ever that there is a need for genuine system change; the sort of change that really shifts the dial and doesn't just play at the edges.

Achieving this won't be for the faint hearted. It will require us to explore areas we often keep at arms length. As I discussed in my recent newsletter and in this podcast, it will require us to confront deep ethical qustions about what role we think it is legitimate for anyone - or any institution - to play in the lives of people. This applies to the world of work but it's bigger than that too. It applies to the world, period.

In this blog, I want to reflect a little on one of the practical reasons for why seeing system change as an ethical question is necessary; namely that ethically-neutral attempts have repeatedly fallen short, lacking the compelling force necessary to achieve escape velocity from the status quo.

In essence, until and unless there is a deep, heartfelt and sufficiently widespread belief that the system MUST change, it won't.

So...

• What does it take to achieve system change; and
• What role can we each play within this?

An exploration

We’ve all seen attempts at change fail and we’re all pretty smart about the reasons why. Many of us will have fine tuned strategies for how we can do it all better next time…

• We can talk about how change is both a social and a technical process; like the difference between predicting where a bird will land when we throw it vs where a brick will land.
• We can talk about how coercion is a tactic but not a strategy; use it sparingly or expect repercussions.
• And we can talk about how rational approaches to change, that aim to convince people of a better way, only tend to polarise opinion and heighten resistance.

In all this wisdom, we can then talk about how change requires co-production if it’s to be owned and sustained, and we can lament that coproduction needs system change to succeed because until and unless power and control are shared, the good stuff that we know is possible will remain at the margins.

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But now things are circular. We are in the doom-loop of needing system change in order to achieve system change. In effect, we are locked in stasis, unable to change anything without everything having to change first.

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Faced with no way out, perhaps we tell ourselves that if we just keep coming up with enough examples of different and better then ‘the system’ will listen?

But who is ‘the system’? Does it have ears? Does it even exist, and to whatever extent that it does, will doing ‘more good stuff’ work?

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I have my doubts.

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On one hand, I’ve seen too many examples of good things being:

• Subsumed back into the status quo.
• Put aside as ‘one less thing to worry about while we get on with the current priorities/crisis’.
• Dismissed as ‘great stuff that won’t work here’.
• Characterised as ‘a brilliant example, if only we had a million [insert name of person who drove the change here]’.

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On the other hand, I’ve seen well intended, well resourced and (initially) well supported attempts at change fumble and falter under the weight of methodological ‘solutions’ and status quo evaluation approaches that mean, when first-blush enthusiasm wanes so does the commitment to seeing things through.

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But there is a third way.

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Going this route, I’ve seen people who are resolute; not changing something because it CAN be improved but because it MUST be improved.

To these people, change is a heartfelt responsibility and in their eyes, the status quo isn’t just suboptimal or inefficient but somehow UNACCEPTABLE.

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In fact it goes further than that. The deep internal commitment that these people feel reaches beyond the necessity of change to embrace the necessity of changing themselves.

These people recognise that the change they seek in the world ‘out there’, exists as a domino effect of changes that happen ‘in here’. They recognise that ‘the system’ exists in the behaviour that they feed it with (as well as in the behaviour that they starve it of).

They understand that changing ‘the system’ therefore means changing themselves.

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It’s when I meet these people that I know - usually from very early on - that great things are going to happen because they have already crossed a rubicon; now their focus is on building a bridge with others.

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So here’s what I’ve learned about the circumstances in which system change starts to feel possible:

1. Those involved are clear that the status quo is unacceptable; they feel MUST not COULD.
2. They are able to connect this feeling of MUST to the underlying action strategies that produce the outcomes they find unacceptable. These action strategies become what is unacceptable; the outcomes are just the outcomes.
3. They understand how they themselves have adopted or been complicit in these action strategies. This means that they don’t treat what’s unacceptable as a matter of blame but as a matter of fact and a focus for re-approaching their own action strategies; their emphasis is not ‘why did you’ but ‘how can I’ and ‘how might we’.
4. When they seek to influence others, they do so by helping them to identify their own sense of what’s unacceptable. They don’t do this by telling them what they ‘should’ feel but by helping them to stop, listen, look and reflect until they discover what they do feel (and why).
5. They don’t treat this support to others as a trap - an attempt to ‘fix’ their perspective, behaviour, thinking or values. They treat it as a heartfelt exploration of what really matters to that person and how that extends from something fundamental, human and shared; something ethical.

And finally…

6. They don’t feign agreement or pretend. They are clear about what they find unacceptable and why. They mix passion with compassion. They take their own perspective seriously enough to be candid about it. At the same time, they work diligently to understand the needs that sit behind the perspectives of others. They take those needs seriously but without nodding along in tacit agreement to what (for them) is unacceptable. 

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This is what I think it takes to make system change possible. It requires a willingness to stand up and be counted. It needs people who are prepared to diligently explore the art of the unreasonable, resisting the urge to dominate and direct while recognising that to change norms it is necessary to be abnormal.

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As we do this work, in 2021 and beyond, it WILL feel relentless. We WON’T ever get there because ‘there’ won’t look or feel anything like the panacea of our imaginations.

BUT…

If we connnect deeply to our sense of what MUST change, and if we act with passion and compassion, we’ll look around one day and realise that the place we are NOW in and the people we are NOW with are where we’re meant to be and who we’re meant to be with.

BECAUSE…

In doing this work we will have connected to - perhaps even created - a wider world of people who see what we see, feel what we feel, and are ready to work with us to open a whole new horizon for change. We will have found or founded a movement - a force that can’t be ignored and that will shape a new and positive future for us all.

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SO...

Here's to the year(s) ahead and to the extraordinary change we MUST - and therefore WILL - make together.

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NB If you would like to explore this topic with me in more detail then please join me for this EXPLORING ALOUD workshop in early February.

Thanks for reading!

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