From the Great Pause to our climate-focused renewal: design for system transformation
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
— Heraclitus
Global warming, like a global health pandemic, reminds us that we are all deeply interconnected — to each other and other life systems. Yet many of our bedrock institutions, such as policy-making, energy and education, are stuck in 20th century structures and mindsets — disconnecting us from each other and the living Earth.
During this time of the Great Pause, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a generational opportunity to shape our recovery towards regenerative futures. There are always people who will try stop us rocking the boat. But the reality of climate science is clear: the boat will either be subject to the wild whims of increasingly chaotic climate extremes, or we can calm the storm and steady our sail. But we can’t continue sailing blindly under the guise of business as usual.
Our collective prosperity depends on doing things differently — on system transformation. So how can we, such as designers, policy makers and educators, design new systems for a regenerative future?
I write this with many hats on. One hat is as a soon-to-be parent who cares about future generations in the face of global warming. Second hat is as an education innovator: I work on design for education and learning: and global warming is the number one priority of our young Australians. Third, a student in the Master of Design Futures at RMIT, asking the question: how can future design leadership contribute to this conversation about system change?
Wearing the third hat: I recently spoke with five design leaders: Josina Vink, Associate Professor at Institute of Design, Oslo School of Architecture and Design; Brenton Caffin, CEO of States of Change; Sarah McArthur, Head of Innovation Practice, City Lab, City of Melbourne; Richard Owens, Director of Learning, Woodleigh Institute; and Mark Strom, dry stone waller turned CEO of Second Road — to ask for their reflections on system change. A few of these leaders will join us for a public conversation in collaboration with States of Change on Monday 18 October at 5pm — 6pm AEDT, sign up here. I share a few insights from my practice-based research on design for system transformation below.
See things whole
The work of transforming systems starts with seeing things whole: seeing the interconnections between our complex living systems. For example, I’m currently working in early education and care and learnt that 90 percent of our brain develops in the first 5 years. So, if we continue to defund public early education and care, we continue to permit children to miss meaningful moments that build brains. Eventually, society pays the price of emotional, social and cognitive impacts later down the line. There are many examples within global warming, too: continue to burn coal and eventually the great barrier reef dies, the tourism industry collapses, and we pay “Peter” (coal company) to steal from “Paul” (reef tour operator).
A more positive scenario cam be sketched if we imagine buying sustainable, healthy fibres, rather than fast fashion and join a local transition town movement, which then connects us to networks and ideas, which reinforces our optimism and vision for our future. By shifting our awareness, actions and connections, we can help shift the system
Creative framing and reflexivity are core capabilities for system change
Design for systemic change is a new paradigm of design. Dorst (2018) says that this type of design should be understood as a creative framing process, rather than problem solving. This is because complex, open living systems, such as social systems, have properties of self-organising groups, interconnected networks, learning and evolution. So, designing for system change is less about making an artefact — i.e., “make a better process” — to fix a problem and more about a creative framing that facilitates collective intelligence, dialogue and creative processes to generate new ways of seeing, acting and thinking. Essentially, a learning process for innovation.
And because our way of seeing the world (i.e, worldview) is a core part of what we are wanting to change, reflexivity — the relationship between our beliefs and our actions — is a core competency. For example, if our belief is that we measure our societal prosperity by GDP, we create blindspots about more important metrics, such as human wellbeing. So, transforming our belief about what we value, how we act and what we are aiming for is an essential part of this work.
But changing our beliefs is uncomfortable. It often means uncovering what lies beneath the conscious level of thinking. A good way to start this process, says Vink, is through visceral experience. So, if we want to change inequality of education, we might take a policy maker to see people living with intergenerational disadvantage and get them to sit in a classroom with our young citizens. Empathy and sensory experience can unlock new ways of relating to people.
Evolving practices and Dark Matter
Innovation and change-making is difficult, experimental and evolving. Brenton Caffin, Executive Director of States of Change, says they have continually experimented with what works, moving beyond teaching individuals to teaching teams; moving from process and method to mindsets and movements; and from being blocked by skeptics to inspiring through story telling. McArthur spoke about the evolution of design-led innovation team. ‘We are currently in City Lab 4.0, and I’ve been through three of those phase steps.’ Owens spoke about working with a network of schools over many years to shift the mindset of leadership towards wellbeing and networks of local innovation. Long term thinking, commitment and evolution of practice is a common theme.
McArthur says that working for planetary scale design means thinking about ‘how we build towards cathedral thinking or intergenerational thinking.’ We have the masonry skills to build cathedrals, the barriers to creating these structures are insurance and finance schemes that incentivise short cyclic thinking. So, system change often requires reviewing structures and rules (what Dan Hill calls “Dark Matter”) too.
Human system design
Historically, design was focused on designing symbols, interactions, experiences or environments (Buchan’s four orders of design). But as we experience accelerating change, designers, as change practitioners, are increasingly focused on social system transformation, such as changing an organisation, policy or networks. Despite our changing focus, Strom reminds us that we must never lose sight of the people we a redesigning for: we are acting on behalf of others and this carries ethical responsibility. In the context of climate projects, these people include future generations.
One approach to this systemic work is asking grounded questions and generating stories. This is the recipe to change relationships and generate hope. Another important approach is participatory processes, such as citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting and collaborative inquiry. Participatory design shares an outlook with all these practices — engage people in work about their future and give life and agency to human systems — the process itself is transformational.
Conclusion
The dominant media and policy narratives to address climate change are often based in a technological way: engineer the problem away. Yes, there is a lot of engineering to do, but we can’t leave humans (i.e., living, changing, social, psychological, complex animals) out of the picture: if we don’t change mindsets and behaviour we won’t change the the root cause of the problem. We need to embrace the living world, including human culture, social systems and our inter-dependence with nature. The scale of our challenge invites the greatest opportunity for societal renewal in history. As we consider next steps, we would be wise to listen to David Attenborough, who says: “nature is our biggest ally, and our greatest inspiration.”
Author: Kim Shore is a practicing Strategic Designer in Melbourne | Castlemaine, Victoria; and student in the Master of Design Futures at RMIT, Melbourne, a practice-based post-graduate degree. This article is written as part of Future Design Leadership course.
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