Are we bringing about the change we need, or are we part of the problem?
“You can be in a situation where you are literally being paid, by the system that’s causing the problem, to do enough of a job at ameliorating the problem, that the problem can carry on.”
This was one of the reasons that Polly Neate, the CEO of Shelter and one of my guests last week (the recording is here), gave as to why all mission-led organisations need to be at least consciously thinking about the systems in which they work.
Irrespective of whether they’re explicitly setting out to change those systems or not.
Because very often what seems obviously the right thing to do in the short term, can inadvertently perpetuate or create things, that are just as obviously wrong in the long term – things that increase the problems we’ll be dealing with in the future.
That case, of counterproductive consequences, been made many times in many different places. From prison sentencing to international aid, from drug prohibition to competitive commissioning.
And it’s been made a great deal about the UK’s decade of austerity through many different lenses.
From the perspective of education, health, and social care, it gives us a story of how cuts drove a steady reduction in resource for just about everything that wasn’t a crisis. Which led to more cases becoming crises, more resources being required, and even less headroom to do anything else.
Polly’s observation though, was about how often we can unwittingly become complicit in that cycle; how we can become part of the problem itself.
A standard set of “coaching” questions I offer to leaders who want to move away from trying to solve their team’s problems for them, goes a bit like this: What’s the issue? How have you contributed to the issue? What steps do you want to take? What do you need from me?
Sure, it’s a bit formulaic, but it’s the second question that really makes the difference: how have you contributed to the issue?
Most people want to tell you what they’ve tried, and maybe why it hasn’t worked. It sometimes takes a while to get them to think about what you’re really asking.
But when they do, it’s like a light bulb that illuminates a whole new set of potential solutions. Because this is not question about blame, or about victimhood. It’s a question about agency.
It’s the same kind of moment that the most effective social conveners are often looking out for. The moment when a group transitions from talking about the problems “out there”, how the system needs to change, how others need to change; to talking about their own ways of working.
It is a shift that recognises “we are part of the system, so we are also part of the problem”. If we want to change the system, to exert our own agency, we have to change how we engage with it and with each other. And by extension, be open to changing how our own organisations work.
That final cognitive leap is most often the reason, in my own experience, that some nonprofits can end up stepping away from system change work. Everyone wants change, but not everyone wants to change. Even fewer want to be the first to change.
This is understandable. And going back to Polly’s observation, it’s especially the case when the flow of money incentivises us to keep things as they are.
Money can be one of the biggest barriers to systems change. But it can also be one of the biggest drivers in making it happen.
So, in my last two conversations before the Christmas break, I’ll be speaking with leaders who can help shed some light on how, together, we can shift it from being a barrier to being an enabler.
The first is in just two weeks’ time, with Neil Heslop and Richard Hawkes, the CEOs of two different organisations, one responsible for distributing over £1bn of funding a year, the other for pioneering new forms of funding to drive large-scale social change. [The recording of this session is available here]
And then in December, I’ll be talking with Naomi Hulston and Irene Sobowale, the CEOs of two major charities, both of which operate almost entirely as social businesses, looking at how their commercial focus and entrepreneurial approach can support work around systems change.
All of these sessions are online and free to attend, and all you need to do to join them, is follow the links on the events page to register, or just drop me an email. Either way, I hope to see you there.