Come Together Across Boundaries
No one person or group can see the interconnections within a system—and how an action in one part influences another—on their own. To make a meaningful, lasting impact on a systemic challenge, you need to learn from and work with people from outside your part of the system.
As Reos Partners state on their website: “The starting point [for making progress on complex, stuck challenges] is a diverse coalition that is ready to challenge the status quo, together.” That may mean partnering with people in other functional areas, other parts of a value chain, or other cultures. It inevitably involves working with people with more or less power than you, and those with different beliefs and experiences.
Coming together across boundaries in this way isn’t easy. Assuming shared responsibility for a problem takes humility and empathy, openness and curiosity. When you and other stakeholders begin to share your vision of the system, you’ll gain both new perspectives on the situation—including possible areas of high leverage for change—as well as allies in making change happen. You’re no longer on your own.
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Stakeholder Interviews
According to the Presencing Institute, “Stakeholder Interviews are conducted by practitioners with their key stakeholders: this could include customers, bosses, subordinates, or peers both within and outside the organization. The interviews allow you to step into the shoes of your interviewees and see your role through the eyes of these stakeholders.” Through the process, you also deepen your relationship with these individuals.
Stakeholder Interviews
4-Player Model
Systems psychologist and consultant David Kantor contends that there are four different roles people play in any conversation: Mover, Follower, Bystander, and Opposer. In a productive conversation, people shift roles without becoming stuck in one, and the group as a whole maintains a healthy balance among the four perspectives. The Four-Player Model is useful for ensuring this balance.
4-Player Model
Liberating Structures
Conventional ways of engaging with each other—such as presentations, status updates, and brainstorming sessions—can lead to conventional outcomes. Liberating Structures are designed to creatively involve people in shaping their future together. They consist of a menu of innovative practices for meeting, planning, deciding, and relating to each other. Through simple rules, each Liberating Structure guides and encourages contributions from all participants.
Liberating Structures
Historical Mapping
Historical Mapping is a methodology for bringing stakeholders in a system together to explore and analyze a real-world problem by searching for its roots in the past. The group documents the history of a community through pictures, writing, or symbols. Members then create a timetable that goes back as far as people can remember. The process stimulates discussion and collects different points of view about the source of the issue at hand.
Historical Mapping
Systems Mapping
A number of tools exist for “seeing systems,” ranging from simple hand-drawn clustering techniques to computer-based simulation models. At the core of all of these approaches is identifying different elements of a system and the interconnections between them. As you explore your role in the system or systems that are important to you by experimenting with systems mapping tools, remember that even a pen-and-paper approach can provide you with important insights.
Systems Mapping
Connection Circles