“The way we are trying to change the world is not going to work, and it’s never going to work”
This is the bold statement Deborah Frieze offers as she opens her TEDx talk.
In this wonderful video, Deborah offers us a new map for navigating the potential for transformative change in big systems like health care, education and business.
Two loops: How systems change
Deborah’s research suggests that all dominant systems rise to their peak before turbulence starts to show and then move into decline. When this happens, the dominant system will try to innovate and remain resilient. But as Deborah suggests, you can’t fundamentally fix or transform big systems. You can only walk out of them and wisely walk onto emerging alternatives.
When systems start to decline and signs of turbulent show, new alternatives appear. Initially these new alternatives are created by a diverse group of trailblazers who have the courage to experiment with the future today.
Over time these communities name the common change they are working towards, connect with each other, self-organise to nourish their collective efforts and illuminate their stories so others can find them.
New transformative paradigms are created, not by changing the existing system, but by creating communities of practise who courageously walk out of their limiting beliefs and language to take control of their own future.
“You’ll never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete” — Buckminster Fuller
This trailblazing work can be challenging, because as new alternatives emerge the powerful within the dominant system tend to ignore or crush them in the interests of self-preservation. But if the alternatives band together in well organised communities of practise and exchange information, they can disrupt the declining system by co-creating a healthier new system.
To read the rest of this article, please visit: Films for Action
