System Change

Systemic change is generally understood to require adjustments or transformations in the policies, practices, power dynamics, social norms or mindsets that underlie the societal issue at stake. It often involves the collaboration of a diverse set of players and can take place on a local, national or global level.

Adam Zeiner and

From mythmaking to legal treaties to weaving to movement building, what knits these various examples together is their avoidance of single solutions to complex problems, instead enabling a pursuit of multiple different actions and wider systemic changes with long term, positive transformations

Anab Jain • Radical Design for a World in Crisis

Keely Adler

PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

(in increasing order of effectiveness)

Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).

The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.

The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).

The lengths of delays, relative to the

donellameadows.org • Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

Keely Adler

Burnout, then, is an outcome of an interaction between burnout producing environmental factors and individually susceptible workers.

Justin D. Henderson • Self-Care is Not the Solution for Burnout

Keely Adler

Exploring where impediments are hard, where they are soft and when they can be ignored is powerful.

Stephanie Dinkins • Afro-Now-Ism

Keely Adler

To understand exactly why this is the case, let’s consider Chesterton’s Fence, described by G. K. Chesterton himself as follows:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use

fs.blog • Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking - Farnam Street

SSam Liebeskind

Don’t remove a fence until you’ve understood why someone put it up in the first place

About XPLANE

xplane.com

Adam Zeiner

Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

donellameadows.org donellameadows.org

Tanuj and

When we seek to intervene in any system created by someone, it’s not enough to view their decisions and choices simply as the consequences of first-order thinking because we can inadvertently create serious problems. Before changing anything, we should wonder whether they were using second-order thinking. Their reasons for making certain choices... See more

fs.blog • Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking - Farnam Street

Sam Liebeskind

If you didn’t want to look closely at your own organizational practices, if you felt uncomfortable about what younger works were agitating for, if you feared changed or anything that usurped your understanding of “how business is done” — Quiet Quitting was the easy answer.

Anne Helen Petersen • Bed Rotting and Loud Quitting - by Anne Helen Petersen Bed Rotting and Loud Quitting

Keely Adler