3.2 What is a system?
A system is an interconnected set of elements that interact with each other and change in response to different interventions. A society is a system, as is an economy.
A defining aspect of human systems is complexity. The sheer number of relationships within a human system means change cannot be reduced to simple cause and effect. Knowing a bit more about the systems around us, and how others view and interact with those same systems, can help us both understand the world a little better and think differently about how to change it. It’s important to recognise that if we influence or change one part of a system, we are likely to affect another part directly or indirectly as well.
How do systems change?
As we saw in the first two units of the course, the way societies or economies change is often a combination of widespread tides of change (such as the way the population is ageing in much of Europe, East Asia and North America, the growing youth population across much of Africa, urbanisation in most parts of the world, the advance of digital technologies, reducing public trust in formal politics and institutions more generally, or overall improvements in education or healthcare), and unforeseeable events, sudden shifts, or critical junctures (such as political scandals, economic crises, pandemics, disasters, the start or ending of armed conflict).
These critical junctures often disrupt social, political or economic power relations, creating an appetite for new ideas and opening the door to previously unimagined reforms. Understanding and responding to the windows of opportunity or threat created by critical junctures is a crucial part of being a changemaker.
Baking a cake is a simple straightforward process. All you need to do is find a recipe, buy the ingredients, make sure the oven is working, mix, bake, and there you have it, a cake! Some cakes are better than others but the basic approach is fixed, replicable, and reasonably reliable. Some may think that a change process is like this, that you can take a tried and tested formula (e.g. a demonstration or a social media campaign) that worked in one situation and apply it elsewhere.
But making change happen in complex systems requires an adaptive, collaborative, and flexible approach. The future is full of unpredictability, full of ‘known unknowns’, such as what will happen after a leader dies or is ousted, and of ‘unknown unknowns’, such as sudden financial crises or natural disasters. Just as what has worked in one situation will not work in every situation, what has happened in the past is not a blueprint for the future.
Adapting as you go
Changemakers need to adapt to this inherent unknowability about the future by becoming ‘reflectivists’ as well as activists, building in chances to learn, listen, reflect and adapt their actions. It’s right to analyse and plan but as you implement you need to not only be aware of what’s changing around you, but also what you are finding out about the system you are engaging with as you take action. How are you interacting and affecting the system? How will changes in the system affect your plans? How can you learn and adapt?
As Donella Meadows, the environmental scientist and systems thinker, says: ‘Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves. Learn its history. Ask people who’ve been around a long time to tell you what has happened… learn to dance with the system.’
3.1 Introduction to Unit 3: Taking a power and systems approach
