To create transformation in the world, organisations also need to transform: An introduction to IIED's journey to embrace systems innovation
Emma Proud
Facilitation as a systems practice: creating spaces for people to practice doing things differently, for good | Systems innovation | Facilitation | Bioregional regeneration
It’s time for us to rethink how we work on complex problems.?
Inequality is growing. Nature loss is critical. Our chance to stay within 1.5° is slipping away.?
People inside organisations that have been working tirelessly on these issues are burning out.?
So, what can we do??
For IIED, the answer lies in systems innovation:?
IIED’s new Executive Director, Tom Mitchell, joined with a powerful vision to leverage systems innovation to transform impact (and turn around long term financial decline).
Working with fractals
In nature, fractals teach us that complex patterns are similar at different scales.
This means,
“What we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system” (adrienne maree brown)
So, what we practice inside our organisations sets the pattern for organisations show up in the world.
To create transformation in the world, we need first to transform our organisations.?
The transformation journey
I am accompanying IIED on their change journey to dream (imagine the emergent future), ground (understand current opportunities and challenges), focus (build a portfolio of interconnected probes), experiment (learn by doing) and connect (deepen and transform relationships).
It’s an unusual, and exciting transformation. The vision comes from Tom Mitchell (the Executive Director), and the design is emerging from the team.?
We’ve led cross-functional teams on design sprints to create prototypes for important features like what the organisation should focus on, values and governance.?
These Design Teams involved ? of the organisation, and started transforming relationships and ways of working. Teams experienced what the future could feel like, with deep collaboration across silos, and generating something for testing, fast.?
At the same time, we’re creating space to explore experiences of change (and nurture relationships)? across the organisation in new ways.?
The transformation is itself an innovation.?
Learning out loud
Often change processes are hidden.
They are cocooned, for all the messy stuff to happen in private. They emerge, fully formed, resplendent in shiny documents.
We’d like to do it differently.?
Our intention is to learn out loud, share what we’re trying, what’s working well (and what’s tripping us up), and how we’re iterating.
The next couple of pieces will share:
Let us know what resonates, what you’d like to hear more about, or if you’d like to chat about shifting organisations to be systems aware, adaptive and human.?
?? AVAILABLE | Interim Governance, SM&CR & Conduct Expert (Outside IR35)?? Bespoke GRC? | Board Advisory | Regulatory Remediation | Culture & Conduct | Author
1 年We are all acting into an unknowable future, we all need to be more aware of perceived boundaries and also think beyond …, Both and ???????
Passionate about addressing inequalities through better systems thinking with humans and politics at the centre.
1 年Enjoying reading about your journey Emma. You have described this as a bottom up process in a previous blog but, it seems to me, that leadership and management signaling/provision of an enabling environment for such journeys is important. Look forward to hearing more about how you balance this and what the implications are for different levels of an organization.
Evaluation and Learning Consultant | International Development
1 年This sounds like great work Emma. I wonder if by regularly linking complexity to problems the flip side is missed. In the wild complexity is usually the only solution. Perhaps problems need less to be overcome than balanced so that additional states can begin to root and flourish
student of learning @ IIED
1 年You've really captured our journey so far Emma ?? onwards through the messy middle!