Scale what works ≠ What works at scale – Sanjay Purohit on his book Think Scale

Over the last 8 years at Societal Thinking, we have travelled with more than 500 change leaders across 30 countries to explore the question: How to enable social impact at scale, with speed, sustainably? It is a question that binds us, drives us and sometimes, perplexes us. As we go along the many pathways change leaders are taking to answer this question, we abstract all that we learn as open knowledge – accessible for anyone to use, remix and build upon.?

Last year, Sanjay Purohit , Naveen Varshan and I set out on an adventure. We took up the task of organising the knowledge we have co-created and curated. It has been a humbling endeavour, one that’s come alive as a set of 3 books – Think Scale, Think Speed and Think Sustain. The first book in the series, Think Scale, was recently launched by Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies , at our Ecosystem Meetup.?

This month, it is this labour of love that I want to share with you! And, to give you a glimpse of what Think Scale is all about, here are Sanjay's musings:?

“If the Milky Way, our galaxy, was 5 million miles in diameter, then Earth, the only place we can live for now, would be equal to a grain of salt. Human biomass is about 0.01% of this grain of salt. However, even after 500 years of intense technological and economic advancements, we still find it hard to grasp and visualise the scale of our social problems and improve the lives of all people on our grain.?

This brings up a few important questions about scale. Is it that we don’t have a good framework to perceive the scale of our problems? Is it that we don’t have tested methods to scale over steep challenges? Is it that we don’t have a relevant scale to measure and monitor our progress? Considering many such daunting questions, we need to think about scale in more ways than we do today and not allow it to be buried under the comfort of what is considered pragmatic.?

Think Scale is designed as an opportunity to, well, think. It is a curation of ideas and prompts to provoke reimagination. It does not provide answers, nor could it. You may want to pick it up while designing for scale, or while navigating a difficult uncertainty, or just to imagine possibilities.?

Before we begin the journey, let us visualise a few other scenarios where this book could be useful. A healthy debate on trade-offs? A workshop to rethink strategy? Conversation starters? A collective reading session? A team game or a collage-making experience? We get infinite possibilities when we combine thinking with reimagination.?

I believe that in the midst of the uncertainties unfolding around us, we need to pause for a moment, reimagine what will work at scale, explore alternatives, and raise the aspiration to move forward on a journey of exponential change.”

Download the Creative Commons version of Think Scale and / or order it in print here.

Happy reading and see you next month,

Anjali Hans