The Path to a Preferable Future: Investing in System Innovation
Featured: Working Paper on Investment
Critical to the prospects for change in many other systems is the system of finance itself. Finance is an enabler of change through investment in the real world of new systems, technologies and business models. But finance is not just a tool, it is also a frame. It frames how we think about change: who calls the shots, what their goals are, how we should think about the outcomes we seek. We cannot hope to shift other systems unless we shift the system which controls our investment in and capacity to bring the future to life. Too often the financial tail wags the much larger real world dog.
Working draft
November, 2022
Authors
Charles Leadbeater
Jennie Winhall
Shawn Smith
The Path to a Preferable Future:
Investing in System Innovation
Critical to the prospects for change in many other systems is the system of finance itself. Finance is an enabler of change through investment in the real world of new systems, technologies and business models. But finance is not just a tool, it is also a frame. It frames how we think about change: who calls the shots, what their goals are, how we should think about the outcomes we seek. We cannot hope to shift other systems unless we shift the system which controls our investment in and capacity to bring the future to life. Too often the financial tail wags the much larger real world dog.
Working Paper
November, 2022
The Four Keys series: Resources
Resourcing Systems Innovation
The nature of the system takes its cue from the kinds of resources that are critical to it, whether they are found fixed in the ground and extracted from it, or created fluidly in culture and grow through innovation. Different kinds of resources - whether they are extracted or created - lend themselves to different kinds of systems.
Publication
November 28th, 2022
The Four Keys series: Relationships
The Patterns of Possibility
This article focuses on how systems innovators can change the relational architecture of a system by adapting and combining a set of basic patterns of hierarchy, markets and communities to create new patterns. And we look at the who, where and when of how the relational structure of systems can change fundamentally.
Publication
February 28th, 2022
The Four Keys series: Purpose
System Innovation on Purpose
The most powerful lever to shift a system is to change what it is for, the purpose it serves. Creating a new system invariably involves establishing a new sense of purpose. It is easier said than done. This article introduces a framework for intentional emergence as a way of working with purpose in complex systems.
Publication
December 7th, 2021
The Four Keys series: Power
The Power to Shift a System
This article explores how we can think and act on power in systems to bring about a system shift. It is based on four critical distinctions about how power works. These four perspectives should help system innovators see where power lies and how it can be redirected, and where power can be mobilised in the name of creating better, different systems: The Powerful and the Powerless, “Power over” and “Power With”, Resistance and Initiative and finally Hard and Soft power.
Publication
November 15th, 2021
Building Better Systems
A Green Paper on System Innovation
In this foundational paper, innovation experts Charlie Leadbeater and Jennie Winhall set out a series of frameworks to help people take the first steps in creating the kinds of systems we need to meet shared, public challenges.
Publication
October, 2020