Social Innovation Learning Program JUNE 14 – 17TH, 2015
The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
Social Innovation:
Changing the system dynamics that created the problem in the first place
A social innovation is any initiative, product, process, program or design that challenges and, over time, changes, the defining routines, resource and authority flows or beliefs of the broader social system in which it is introduced. Successful social innovations have durability, scale and transformative impact.
Agenda: Self, Relationships, System
Identity, self-change, leadership
Relationships, self-mastery, collaboration
Systemic impact
Systems Entrepreneurship – Social Change Agency in Complex Systems
“Farmers don’t grow crops. They create the conditions for crops to grow.”
- Gareth Morgan
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Case: Social Innovation in B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest
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THE GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST
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Ecological Context: Original Extent of the World’s Forests
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Remaining “Frontier Forests” D. Bryant, et al., The Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies on the Edge. (World Resources Institute:
Washington, DC, 1997)
“Short of a miraculous transformation in the attitude of people and governments, the Earth’s remaining closed canopy forests and their associated biodiversity are destined to disappear in the coming decades.” - Klaus Toepfler, ED, UNEP, 2001, p.1
COASTAL TEMPERATE RAINFOREST
Climate Change, carbon storage, and need for large intact ecosystems
25% of world’s Coastal Temperate Rainforest
Spirit bears, grizzlies, wolves20%+ of world’s wild salmonRichest bio-mass on earth100+ unlogged valleys (none in US)Cultural, economic and social significance:
competing claims
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COMPETING CLAIMS
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Competing Claims over the Forest:
• Decline in coastal Forest Industry – Softwood Lumber, limited supply of wood, expensive access, changes in global economy, restructuring and employment decline
• Important source of employment in some regions• 70-90% unemployment in coastal First Nations
communities, traditional ecological knowledge, loss of language and culture
• Court cases supporting aboriginal rights and title• Mass protest, blockades “war in the woods”• Global controversy, market campaigns, boycotts• Govt. establishes consensus-based land use planning
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Protest and Boycotts
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New Vehicles for Collaboration• Rainforest Solutions Project (Environmental Orgs)• Turning Point (First Nations)• Coastal Forest Conservation Initiative (Companies)• Joint Solutions Project (Companies and ENGOs)• Coast Incentives and Investment Initiative: US foundations,
ENGOs, Fed/Prov gov.• Everybody’s solution (Rural mayors, First Nations, Province,
Companies)
FINAL AGREEMENTS• Permanent protection – 5 million acres
• New parks - 3.3 million acres
• Previous parks - 1 million acres
• New no-logging zones - 736,000 acres
• EBM – 21 million acres
• $120 Million for conservation economy
• First Nations approve all plans
• International Marketplace shift
Great Bear Rainforest Through the Adaptive Cycle:1. Base System: Forest a timber resource exploited by forestry industry based on tenures allocated by province providing jobs for forest workers. Gvt &Industry leads
2. Disturbances: ENGO protests, mass arrests, disrupting provincial legitimacy; First Nations win court claims to rights and title over province; ENGOs launch market campaign which leads to boycotts by IKEA, Staples etc…
3. Province responds by launching land use planning process, FN and ENGOs boycott process
4. ENGO’s satellite mapping of GBR, “virtual blockades”, $300 million in contracts cancelled
5.LOVE STRATEGY Industry representatives losing sales approach ENGOs for a negotiation
6. First Nations groups coalesce to form Turning Point, Industry and ENGOs begin direct negotiations
7. Industry and ENGOs make standstill agreement to halt logging and suspend campaigns: Gvt. not involved
8. Industry and ENGOs form Joint Solutions Project to generate shared solutions to GBR problems, science panel, pilot development
9. ENGO leader Merran Smith realises economic aspect of GBR problem, pursues conservation finance, science panel, pilot development
10. FNs enter negotiations with industry and ENGOS, advance Ecosystem Based Management for GBR , Foundations commit $$$
11. Government makes announcement of package of solutions for GBR including EBM, parks, conservation financing
12. Federal Govt matches funding
14. ENGOs and Provincial dispute over implementation of EBM ongoing till 2009 at which point new K-phase may be reached
13. FN and Province engage in gvt to gvt negotiations shutting out ENGOs and industry from decisionmaking
WWF award
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A change in conversation A change in routine A change in resource commitment or influence
Institutional levelA change in culture Change in law or policy A change in resource distribution/availability
Organizational levelA change in strategies A change in procedures A change in resource distribution/availability
Individual level A change of heart A change of habits A change of ambition
Network or group level
Provincial levelNegotiations mandatedNew First Nations PowerLogging MoratoriaShift in policy
Global levelShift market away from “endangered forests”New arena for influence: Forest Certification
Individual levelStaying centered and owning the shadow keeps negotiations from falling into rigidity trap
Cross Scale Interactions
OWNING THE SHADOW:
• Forest workers: “Capuccino-sucking urban enviros”• First Nations: “Eco-colonialists”• Forest Companies: “they’re trying to destroy us and the
province we care about,” dueling scientists• Government: “Irresponsible” and “Enemies of BC”• Other environmentalists: “Corporate sell-outs”
Grains of truth…seeds of transformation
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Whole Systems Engagement
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TRANSFORMING PERSISTENT SOCIAL PROBLEMS
• HOW• WHAT________________
• WHO?• WHY???
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Transforming the Self = Changing System
• Skills, Strategy, Learning & Personal Development• Working from clear purpose• Transforming motivation from anger to love• Meditation/contemplation – Awareness Practice: Loving
Kindness,‘Tong-len’ (exchanging self with others – Tibetan perspective taking meditation)
• Triggering work, and psychotherapy • Shadow Awareness • Avoiding Burnout/Personal Ecology• Mind-Body-Spirit-System connection
Activities of a Systems
Entrepreneur
Activities in conservation phase:•question the broad strategic context) in order to understand reason for decisions,• frame these for front line where innovation continues to occur, • recognize innovations of interest to policy makers and •sell these up to the decision makers•Introduce disturbances to precipitate a release phase.
Activities in release phase:• Sensemaking activities such as branding mapping, surveying, sharing narratives and vision building• Non-directed convening activities such as open door town hall meetings, new connections between previously separate groups,.•Directed/designed convening activities: future search,scenario planning or otherwhole system approaches•Getting to Maybe: the “love” strategy
Activities in exploitation phase:• Deliberate and strategic marshalling of connections and resources in support of a winning idea set.• Building Broader Commitment thru story telling/marketing •Leveraging polictical support for policy change
Activities in reorganization phase:• Entrepreneurial proposal of novel solutions and ideas •Brokering partnerships•Building umbrella strategies to link competing.solutions •Deal making between parties in order to achieve consensus or to link novel ideas. •Finding capital for new ideas• Shedding ideas “without legs”
Questioning the Context Amplifying Disruption
Convening/Framing/Sensemaking
Identifying/Brokering
Selling
Slide courtesy of Frances Westley
Critical Transitions
• Need to overcome “lag” of identity and resistance to change
• Require different resource investments, realignments• Need different forms of evaluation• Requires a shift in attention and approach• Demands new leadership capacities and
combinations of people• Demands new and different kinds of social
connections and relationships
2.Political
3Cultural
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EconomicA. Institutional landscape
B. Problem domain/regime
C. Innovation niche/regime
D. Scaling Up -Institutional Entrepreneurs
E. Scaling Out/Social entrepreneurs
How do “institutional entrepreneurs” approach system transformation
• To recognize and support innovation –sometimes from adjacent domains
• By changing the ideas, discourse, knowledge, social interactions, resource expenditures, and policies/laws which support the current situation to a new pattern which supports innovative alternatives.
• To work across scales and with multiple agents in the “problem domain”
Bricolage:old elements in new
combinations
Measured by the ripple effect: how much of the surrounding system is “disturbed”?
Exercise
1) Map the phase of your initiative on the adaptive cycle
2) Note the kinds of capacities needed to move forward
3) What are your strengths and passions?
4) Where do you need to grow?
5) Where might you bring in new collaborators who bring these skills?
Summary• The difference between successful and unsuccessful
attempts to resolve complex problems is determined in part by the broader context and in part by the skills of institutional/systems entrepreneurs
• Successful system entrepreneurs sense or discern the larger patterns and connect resources to opportunities in a timely way
• System entrepreneurs are bridgers, connecting groups, ideas and resources
• System entrepreneurs convene the ‘field’ and allow for sensemaking and interaction to reconfigure the system
Debrief
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Psychological and Cultural Development
Psychological and cultural perspectives co-determine what world is seen and acted within
Developmental psychology: simplified levels of ego development and evolution of moral spheres of care and concern - Loevinger, Gilligan, Piaget, Wilber, Gardner, Kohlberg.