THE WATER OF SYSTEMS CHANGE
The paper explores systems change, emphasizing the interdependent conditions affecting social issues and advocating for foundations and social institutions to address both internal and external factors for lasting impact.
collectiveimpactforum.orgSystemic challenges — The loops and patters that the interaction of these transition factors point you to are the systemic challenges. These are the places where the system is deeply “stuck”. They are deep-rooted, persistent and interconnected. They are critical for capital holders to address in order to support system transformation. And critical
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By its nature, systems thinking points out interdependencies and the need for collaboration.
YOU’VE FOUND A HIGH-LEVERAGE INTERVENTION WHEN YOU can see the long-term pattern of behavior shift qualitatively in a system: when, for example, stagnation gives way to growth, or oscillations dampen dramatically. This kind of breakthrough happens most readily when you can make alterations in the structure you’ve mapped out. You either add new elem
... See moreTime matters in human systems. The patterns we can observe today were shaped by the initial starting conditions of the system and many years of evolutionary change. This means that while complex systems are inherently unpredictable and non-causal, they have dispositional states i.e., they are predisposed towards certain behaviors. If we understand
... See moreA brief backgrounder on transition mapping
In practical terms, this type of mapping — instead of representing the current state of the system, as most system maps do — highlights the underlying drivers and blockers of change of any system transition, enabling us to more effectively pinpoint the strategic intervention areas which can support that tra
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