How systems transform
I am a teacher, writer, consultant and practitioner of deep change. I have devoted much of the last two decades in the pursuit of unlocking exponential change through relational work – understanding and shaping the way we engage with ourselves, each other and societal systems.
When I first started out on the journey towards enabling systems change, I leaned more towards changing policies and structures. Eventually, change outside would lead to change within. Over the years, however, it’s become clear to me that while change may flow outside-in eventually and in some capacity, true systems change comes from transforming inner and inter relationships, power dynamics and mental models of the people who make up those systems. People catalyse the system to become more connected, fluid and work in the favour of many rather than a few and more importantly, to sustain change.
In 2001 I helped launch FSG, one of a handful of non-profit consultancies started at that time to bring for-profit approaches and management practices to the non profit sector. Our assumption was that the wisdom of the for profit sector could significantly improve NGO and philanthropic efficiency and effectiveness. Some of the philosophies and practices we helped instill, such as the need for strategic focus, have been helpful to the sector. However, many of the assumptions about the salience of for profit thinking for social sector work have, with time, required reassessment.
Perhaps the largest difference I’ve seen between how the for profit sector works as compared to the non-profit sector is that businesses can often chart their course working independently of most others. Social sector success, on the other hand, most often requires collaboration with many other entities. In essence, it is significantly more the case with NGOs than with businesses that doing your job well requires engaging with your system.
Along the way, I have seen the way changing relationships can bring about exponential change – change that inspires deeper and broader shifts towards healing systems. I will share more deeply the way this has come alive for me and the beliefs we could embrace towards creating change that transforms and sustains.
Belief #1: Structural and technical changes are necessary but not sufficient to bring about change that transforms
Consider this: In a move to resolve decades of internal conflict, Colombia’s government established a Peace Accord in 2016 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). As a part of the Accord, 13,000 former combatants were demobilized and reintegrated into communities across Colombia, creating opportunities for their peaceful participation in the political process. This was principally a structural change put in place by the federal government with the aspirations of creating a more economically vibrant, equal, and stable region.
8 years after the establishment of the Peace Accord, there are mixed results. The structural changes the government established have yielded little improvement. However, alongside structural change, there is inspiring relational work taking place that is beginning to reshape the system. Many local and regional nonprofits are now weaving together more lasting community centered networks for peace. These involve bringing together people and communities in the circle of conflict to connect and heal. For example, a partner of ours at Collective Change Lab, Dunna, brings restorative practices and mind-body strategies to resourcing communities – combatants, victims of violence, government employees and outside supporters such as the UN – to work in an integrated way.
These relational practices have resulted in healing within and across individuals and organisations, enabling community participants to move forward together. These efforts are creating a powerful life force with the potential to bring about exponential change – transforming individuals and in turn, communities and the country at large.
Belief #2: A healed system is a transformed system
A majority of humanity experiences deep trauma at some point in their life. And, since systems are made of people, systems experience trauma. What’s more, in the “fight, flight or freeze” response to trauma experienced by systems, systems are not only traumatised, they also traumatise. In my opinion, unintegrated trauma is the biggest reason why many of our systems are stuck. If we overlay well-meaning programmes on top of traumatised systems they don’t achieve predicted or intended outcomes. We must begin systems change work with a trauma-informed lens and then learn how to engage in a process of healing collective trauma.
Glasswing International, has seen much success in their relational work and has helped 2 million people in 12 countries to heal, provided trauma psychoeducation training to more than 100,000 teachers, police, and health care workers. “Our methodology starts by helping public sector employees understand how trauma affects their body, mind, and behaviour,” says Glasswing CEO Celina de Sola. “Once they have an ‘a-ha’ moment about their own trauma responses, then they can see it in others and respond differently, and it ends up shifting their relational dynamic with others.” The healing power of relationships is perhaps the single greatest leverage point to re-wire a system’s behaviour and the outcomes it produces. As we do that, not only will we change systems, we can transform them.
Belief #3: The world isn’t linear, neither is systems change
Systems change is inherently a process of one step forward and two steps back. Why? Because systems very naturally resist change, particularly in the face of interventions designed to shift patterns and behaviours. This means that systems stretch towards a new equilibrium, only to return, with force, to their previous equilibrium when resistance is encountered.
– what I call ‘snap back’.
For example, in the US, efforts to legalise same-sex marriage through systems change led to the monumental decision by the Supreme Court in 2015 to make same-sex marriage the law of the land. Over the subsequent decade, however, there have been numerous ways in which the system has snapped back. For example, a significant number of new laws have been instigated at the state level targeting LGBTQIA+ rights in the workplace, health care, housing, schools, and other public accommodations. Hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ individuals are on the rise too.
While all systems experience some snap back, a focus on relational change and healing can build resilience that allows systems to bounce forward rather than revert to their original state. Bouncing forward to the new, better state is simultaneously the goal and the starting point of exponential change – How do we move to a state from where it will be undesirable for the majority of people to go back? How does this state unlock faster and more readily accepted solutions?
Belief #4: Transformation is a yin yang between the mind and the body
Shifting mental models is a critical step in systems transformation hence the focus of practitioners on “changing hearts and minds”. Science has now discovered that, in the firing of neurons carrying information between the body and the brain, more than 80% of the flow is from the body to the brain. In other words, in attempts to shift our world views, it’s more often the case that the body, and not the brain, is driving the bus. So, what is more powerful, in my experience, is to focus on shifting “embodied understanding,” – how our physical body interacts with our mind and how body and mind together interact with the environment.
In this context, I find 3 approaches successful in shifting mental models and supporting deeper shifts in embodied understanding:
- Introducing a new cognitive frame that replaces an old one. Consider this: the phrases “Global Warming” vs “Climate Change” How have people around the world, coming from different perspectives, reacted to these frames? Might another new cognitive frame serve humanity better at this point in time? Cognitive framing is about “the connections we choose to draw between ideas and that in turn influences the way we feel, think and are willing to do. For example, is a protest march against violence an exercise in freedom, or is it a threat to security?” The framing may change the reaction from different stakeholders.
- Helping people into a new relationship. Consider this: police and youth – two disparate groups – find themselves together in a healing circle that supports deep listening. After 2 hours of being in an intimate setting together, bodies side by side, and breath intermingling, both groups emerge with a new and almost shocking realisation that they are more alike than different. These individuals take this new insight into their respective communities and this influences broader change in how police and youth interact.
- Helping people into a new experience. Consider this: A doctor who is an expert diagnostician dismisses any need to treat their patients in a caring and compassionate way. Then they fall sick, wind up in the hospital and experience medical staff who are cold and uncaring. For the first time, they experience what it’s like to be treated without tenderness when sick and the effect this has on their own healing process. This experience changes the doctor’s own practice in ways that are compassionate and that recognise the humanness of their patients. Other physicians, working with this doctor see their changes in practice and begin to shift their own practices towards greater compassion and empathy.
These types of shifts in mental models and embodied understanding can lead to exponential systems change by creating a compounding effect in which individuals influence others, sparking a ripple effect of transformation.
Here’s a truism about systems that is rarely acknowledged: Technologies scale, Programmes can scale, but systems don’t scale, they transform. So, choosing the north star of “scaling systems” inherently deprioritises dynamics that enable a system to transform, such as energy, relationships, connections and momentum.
Consistent with how ecosystems and nature evolve, systems evolve through connection and resonance. One part of the system achieves a level of harmony and other parts resonate. So, instead of looking at systems change work solely from the lens of “scale” or small to large, it’s important to add the lens of “transforming ecosystem” or diffusion towards healthier relational dynamics.
Consider the ways in which social change movements work. First, a movement creates relational cohesion among a small set of committed activists. Then the movement seeks to radiate those relationships outward to other committed individuals. And finally, a movement strong in resonance can bring “unusual suspects” into their ecosystem.” . Transformation happens through a greater level of coherence and healing amongst different parts of a system.
It’s a different orientation in how to achieve exponential change – to see systems change as happening through diffusion, harmony and resonance and ultimately healing, and not just through scale.
So . . . what do all these beliefs add up to?
A wise man once said, “How much we can accomplish in this world depends on how much we can see.” In my efforts to support exponential change, I increasingly find that it’s the invisible parts of the work – the relational and healing parts – that are most critical for the transformation and sustainability of systems change. Building the capacity of our leaders to effectively engage in relational work, including building their own trauma and healing understanding, may just be the most critical work of our time.
Start your journey of relational healing today.
Rhythm Harmony Melody – The art of system orchestration 
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