Systems Gardening

Complexity science informs us that we cannot hope to know a priori what a complex adaptive system will do or know specifically how to achieve optimal outcomes never mind control. A design cannot be completed on paper and executed in an orderly and predictable fashion, past attempts to do this have rarely succeeded, as a new understanding of "management" is required. This alternative complexity-inspired approach is more akin to the job of the gardener rather than the manager of today.

Paul Plsek in his paper Redesigning Health Care with Insights from the Science of Complex Adaptive Systems outlines the nature of systems gardening well when he writes: "[when dealing with complex adaptive systems] it is more helpful to think like a farmer than an engineer or architect... Engineers and architects need to design every detail of a system. This approach is possible because the responses of the component parts are mechanical and, therefore, predictable. In contrast, the farmer knows that he or she can do only so much. The farmer uses knowledge and evidence from past experience and desires an optimum crop. However, in the end, the farmer simply creates the conditions under which a good crop is possible. The outcome is an emergent property of the natural system and cannot be predicted in detail."

The differences between mechanical and naturally adaptive systems are clear when looked at with consideration. We typically design and manage complex organizations as if the parts and interconnections were predictable in their behavior, although fundamentally, they are not, unfortunately, this is often overlooked. When the individuals do not act as predicted, we say that people are being “irrational” or “resistant to change.” Often we proceed by specifying behavior in even more detail with added rules. The implicit assumption seems to be that we should be aiming to make people act more like machines so that change can be engineered in the desirable fashion.[1]?

Context

Systems thinking is about looking at the context within which things exist when we translate this through to systems change we can see it as a strategy that aims to create environments or contexts that are conducive to the emergence of the new.

The management of complex systems uses oblique methods for altering a system via its environment or context to create the conditions for new, properties, elements and phenomena to emerge. As John Kania notes "we're thinking about systems change not as an issue or a person that needs to be fixed… it's the set of conditions that surround that individual. We need to work on shifting the conditions that hold the problem in place."[2]?

David Snowden illustrates the systems gardener approach well with his allegory of the children's party where he talks about how to organize a children's party based upon the principles of complexity theory/systems change.

We start by drawing a line in the sand that is a boundary or limit informing the children they are free within that boundary condition. One of the things you learn pretty fast as an adult is the value of flexible negotiable boundaries because rigid boundaries have a habit of becoming brittle and breaking catastrophically.?

We then introduce probes, safe to fail experiments, a football video, a barbecue, a computer game, we wait to see if a patent forms. If it does we call this an attractor, if it is beneficial other kids will get attracted to it, they will start to play. At this point, if it is productive we do not take resources away or we, in fact, give it resources, if it is negative this is where we need the fire hoses. David Snowden summarizes this approach when he says "we manage the emergence of beneficial coherence within attractors, within boundaries and that allows locally valid solutions to emerging."[3]?

He goes on to highlight the fact that in complex adaptive systems we can not just transpose a solution that worked in one place to another, each context is unique. This is why we need to look at and operate on the pattern level and not deal with the specific details. As he says "you've got to have that ability to actually see patterns and respond to positive or negative patterns, different things will work at different times." This is the general nature of complex systems they are always conditioned by their context or environment, meaning they change from one context to the next.

Snowden's takeaway point is "dispositional, not causal, that's the basic lesson of complex adaptive systems, you haven't got a system with linear cause, you can't say if I do this then

that will happen, you can say at the moment the system is disposed to evolve like this and it's not disposed to evolve like that, the minute you break that causal link everything becomes easier."

Pockets of the Future

"In an unstable complex system, small islands of coherence have the potential to change the whole system" - Ilya Prigogine

One approach to changing the paradigm is to first outline generally the attributes and qualities of the new paradigm and then look in the present for seeds that embody the values and qualities that may enable them to grow into creating that future. As William Gibson remarked, “the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.” We can use the "pockets of the future" that exist in the present as a way to tangibly demonstrate the new possibilities and help to give the new paradigm a sense of being realizable.

These pockets of the future can be defined as "an observable practice, idea, or thing that is rare and insignificant in the present moment but has the potential to become more prevalent and impactful. Pockets of the futures are important weak signals that have the potential to profoundly influence the organization’s core challenge."[4]?

These pockets of the future are important to our strategy in that they give something observable, demonstrable that people can go and examine, to see the expression of a different way of thinking or different set of values. Our strategy here as systems gardeners is to simply shine a light on the new and demonstrate the viability of the theory or paradigm in practice.

The systems gardener seeds transition by identifying, connecting, supporting, and spotlighting pioneers of the new system, by watering the seeds of new ideas and enabling change through emergence. This "emergence" happens when separate local efforts are connected to form communities of practice and once this happens systems-level change can actually be catalyzed. The connector creates connections and learning cycles between the different systems levels and geographic locations.?

Change starts with a small group of people who form what we might call a "creative integrity" who are willing to stand for something, maintain commitment and energy over the time that it grows. Our systems gardening strategy is to find these niches and "nourish" them with the resources they need. Like looking after plants you might have to give them water to grow, but you may also have to alter the broader context they exist in so that they get enough light or are not crowded out by other plants, maybe they have to be put in contact with other creatures to create synergies.?

As an example, we can look at the NGO Ashoka. Ashoka identifies and supports social entrepreneurs who have found an idea that is systems-changing. They not only work with these entrepreneurs by providing them with mentorship and resources but also by trying to remove the blockages to their development, for example, regulation or government policy that may be hindering their progress.

The key takeaway from this module is that a systems state is really an ecological state, it can not be designed at will, it can only be nourished, and this nourishing is the job of the systems gardener.

1. America (2012).?Redesigning Health Care with Insights from the Science of Complex Adaptive Systems. [online] Nih.gov. Available at:?https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222267/ ?[Accessed 16 Aug. 2021].

2. Collective Impact Forum (2019).?The Six Conditions of Systems Change.?YouTube. Available at:?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqo_s3OnngM&t=1259s ?[Accessed 16 Aug. 2021].

3. AcademiWales (2016).?Dave Snowden - How leaders change culture through small actions.?YouTube. Available at:?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsLmjoAp_Dg ?[Accessed 16 Aug. 2021].

4. Linkedin.com. (2021).?LinkedIn. [online] Available at:?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/what-pockets-future-greg-githens/ ?[Accessed 16 Aug. 2021].

The Systems Change introduction course teaches you how to use the ideas from systems thinking to tackle complex challenges and change systems. Sign up here:?https://bit.ly/3iJbXsB