Where it started
It’s said that each life cycle takes seven years to complete. In 2017 we held our first School of System Change Basecamp, a deep dive into the foundations of systems change practice, designed to stimulate five capabilities for systems change. These capabilities were developed through a collective inquiry into the capacities needed to cultivate systems change, and research into the frameworks and methods being used in the field.
We’ve learnt a lot over the past seven years.
Our programmes have grown in number and welcomed over 500 participants. We’ve collaborated with a wide variety of organisations and initiatives through our Learning and Practice Partnerships. We’ve found allies in over 60 contributors with broad fields of experience, all the while continuing to map and interpret how systems change practitioners are understanding their practice.
We continue to feel into the edges of the field: asking what is missing, what might be needed, and where. This inquiry has evolved our offerings — introducing learning journeys like Spark, our five week facilitation and leadership intensive, Constellating Change and our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) series’. In changing landscapes, we’ve been paying attention to the different contours of systemic practice, and leaning into learning with others, for example our weaving work with Illuminate.
Living by our principles of emergence and aliveness — it’s time for a refresh and to update the basis of our curriculum informed by all that we’ve learnt.
Evolving our curriculum
Reworking the capabilities has posed some interesting questions. We felt a tension between the language we commonly use to articulate change processes — strategy, innovation, leadership, learning, collaboration — and the more dynamic, relational and qualitative ways of being and doing. We wanted the renewed capabilities to express how change work is not just about what is out there in the world, but how it also involves inner work, leadership from within, the underlying role of engaging and facilitating others, and the often deprioritised work of how we constellate — the way we come together to create change, how we organise and govern this work that is so much about people.
There were other important themes to infuse, such as worldviews — the set of beliefs and perspectives that form our ways of thinking, knowing and being — and how practice and application are the roots of learning as change. Here, we noticed a gap around how we were encouraging participants to relate to learning itself. This led to us to define four foundational learning outcomes alongside the capabilities, understandings that we want participants to go into the world with. They are shared below.
It has also felt ripe to bring in areas where we want to support people further, such as how we spot patterns, weave together learning and narratives, and tell stories of and for systems change.
Our new learning outcomes and system change capabilities
After several months of mapping, sharing, reflecting and honing — we are delighted to share our evolved approach to systems change learning, formed of four foundational learning outcomes and seven capabilities for systems change.
So here they are…
Our four foundational learning outcomes
At the School, we seek to stimulate the following four foundational learning outcomes for those who engage with us on developing their learning and practice and as we design and deliver a variety of different learning journeys.
1. Opening up to systemic worldviews
Throughout all our systems change learning, we invite facilitators to create the ground for people to foster systemic worldviews — meaning, they come to know and experience our world as alive, interconnected, nested and emergent.
The learning outcomes are:
- opening up to and holding systemic, relational and living worldviews
- questioning assumptions and mindsets
2. Working at multiple levels
All our learning and practice development seeks to work at multiple levels, recognising the nested and fractal nature of the world. We work at the individual, relational/collective and systems levels (I, we, world), meaning we are inviting people into their ability to learn and inquire into self (first person), inquire in participation with others and for collective action (second person), and inquire within the context of the wider practice, field and systems they are working in (third person).
The learning outcomes are:
- practicing and applying the learning and work at the levels of self, collective and world/system
- engaging in inner, relational and outer work
- seeing systems change work as a practice
3. Integrating an action inquiry approach to learning and life
Action inquiry is a fundamental organising principle at the School. We see learning as a life-long systemic practice in which we learn and change. Our learning journeys encourage people to move through dynamic processes of action, reflection, learning and change, through learning in practice and application.
The learning outcomes are:
- building an ability to learn and inquire through action, reflection and change
- recognising learning as a life-long journey of change
- building systems change learning and practice through action inquiry
4. Navigating multiple methods
We believe that there is no one way to do systems change. Across the rich and diverse fields of systems change practice, many methods are being used and developed that are appropriate to different contexts. Throughout our learning and practice development, we introduce multiple methods, including approaches, frameworks, tools and theories, arising from practices ranging from systems dynamics, futures, complexity practice, regenerative development, deep equity and more. We support people to navigate these, apply the methods that are most relevant to their work, be agile with multiple and diverse methods, and develop their confidence to influence change in different contexts.
The learning outcomes are:
- navigating multiple methods in systems change work
- being able to adapt to different contexts with multiple methods
- gaining new approaches to and perspectives on how to embrace and navigate complexity and create intentional change
Seven systems change capabilities
We sometimes refer to the capabilities as “entry points” because participants often arrive at our learning journeys with inquiries and objectives related to specific capabilities. Participants may want to understand how to map systems and see systems dynamics, or they may want to learn how to be better leaders in systems change work. These are entry points into strengthening the interconnected capabilities we believe are needed for systems change practice.
Our capabilities for systems practice intend to enable practitioners to understand areas they may need or want to develop practically in tangible ways so they can grow their capacity in their projects, organisations, systems change initiatives and organising work.
Seeing systems dynamics
The learning outcomes are:
- understanding how change happens and the change dynamics and conditions through using methods for diagnosis, mapping and synthesis
- spotting patterns, making connections and seeing how change happens over time
Strategising and making choices
The learning outcomes are:
- strategising for systems change
- understanding the purpose and function of the system so that systems change can be understood as an outcome
- setting ambitious goals for systemic change work
- identifying system boundaries in order to choose where to contribute to change within wider wholes
- working at multiple levels and finding potential, leverage points and one’s role in systems change
Leading from within
The learning outcomes are:
- tending to self-reflection and inner work as leaders for change in a complex changing world
- finding agency, power and responsibility to self-author and influence change
- understanding the self as a system to work on to be a systems change leader in wider systems
Experimenting and innovating
The learning outcomes are:
- building confidence in probing the system, experimenting and taking an emergent and adaptive approach
- designing transformative innovations and cultivating portfolios of interventions in a continuous learning process
Engaging and facilitating
The learning outcomes are:
- engaging and holding multiple perspectives and ways of learning and knowing
- working with difference and group dynamics (tensions, polarities, activating and resisting forces)
- designing sessions and processes that hold space for inquiry towards transformation
Constellating for change
The learning outcomes are:
- designing and delivering collaborations, from coalitions and movements to all systemic forms of organising and governance
- working relationally to create organising structures and processes that are required to lead transformation
- understanding decision-making, distributing resources, embracing a variety of roles and having healthy value exchanges while being able to navigate power dynamics in a healthy way
- being relational in our everydayness of change work, having the structures and processes to enable us to connect, learn and work together
Learning and weaving narratives
The learning outcomes are:
- learning how to learn through action inquiry
- using multiple, relational, participatory and collective methods for monitoring, evaluation and learning towards questions of outcome, change, contribution and impact
- being able to spot patterns, weave together learning and tell stories and communicate through multiple creative modes (visual, written, audio) towards shared narratives (at multiple levels and for the whole)
Continuing to learn
This constellation of learning outcomes and capabilities is by no means definitive. As our learnings and the ground we stand on will continue to move and evolve over the next seven years, we will try to stay tuned into the aliveness of what is possible. We also continue to curate resources for engaging practically in systems change. We are interested in continuing to work and learn with you to discover what might be required in the world. So if you are interested partnering and inquiring with us then get in touch.
Appreciation
Thank you to all we have inquired and practised with over the years, all of this has been core to our learnings. Special mention goes to Sean Andrew, Rachel Phillips, Saskia Rysenbry, Katie Slee and Rachel Taylor who worked through the sense-making, writing and editing process for our revised Systems Change Learning Handbook, for which these outcomes and capabilities were revised, as well as Laura Winn, Payam Yuce Isik, Corina Angheloiu and Louise Armstrong who contributed to different versions and deepening of different capabilities and understandings.
