The Four Keys
A brief introduction

In pur green paper Building Better Systems, published in November 2020, we introduced four keys to unlock systems innovation: purpose and power, relationships and resource flows. These four keys make up a set. Systems are often hard to change because power, relationships, and resources are locked together in a reinforcing pattern to serve the system’s current purpose. Those with power in the system use it to shape the purpose which serves their interest and view of the world. Systems start to change fundamentally when this pattern is disrupted and opened up. A new configuration can emerge, which serves a new purpose, but only if there are new patterns of relationships, a new flow of resources and a new distribution of power.