Chichakly, K.J. (2016). Practical Systems Thinking: Guidance to Effect Change. Solutions 7(1): 62–64. thesolutionsjournal.com/2016/1/how-do-we-get-from-here-to-there
Reviews Book Review
Practical Systems Thinking: Guidance to Effect Change by Karim J. Chichakly REVIEWING Systems Thinking for Social Change by David Peter Stroh
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s readers of Solutions, we are well aware of the large social, economic, and environmental challenges that face us. Einstein told us we will need to use new ways of thinking to solve these problems. One of those ways comes from system dynamics.1 At its heart is a new way of thinking, dubbed “Systems Thinking” by Barry Richmond.2 To many, systems thinking may not seem like a new way of thinking, as most people have been exposed to the basic concepts. However, knowing about it is very different from integrating it into your thinking and behavior every day—what Barry Richmond dubbed being a “Systems Citizen.”3 The latter takes commitment, guidance, and a lot of practice. At its heart, systems thinking has four basic elements: • Look at the whole rather than its parts • The state of any system is determined by its accumulations • Cause and effect relationships are circular, not linear (known as feedback) • Time delays are inherent and lead to counterintuitive results Feedback itself comes in two basic types: (i) reinforcing, which can generate either virtuous or vicious cycles, and (ii) balancing, which stabilizes a system, making it resistant to change.
Most successful systems have strong balancing feedbacks that push back when you try to change the system, often after a time delay, so a remediation may seem to be effective, but its effectiveness turns out to be short lived. Or, you may successfully change the system by pushing it, so you try to push it again. However, each successive time you push it, the change is less effective. A simple example of the latter would be using credit card debt to live beyond your means. Assuming a rational credit universe, each successive credit card you procure will have a lower and lower limit until you are cut off completely. These ideas make it clear that social change, while necessary, is a difficult enterprise. Maybe if we focus on the issues through a systems thinking lens, we can make it easier. David Peter Stroh does exactly this in his excellent book, Systems Thinking for Social Change. I was pleasantly surprised by both the practicality and applicability of his method. Stroh does not assume you are familiar with systems thinking, and carefully introduces you to the concepts in his well-written introduction. If you have heard of “systems archetypes,” introduced in The Fifth Discipline,4 but have not yet worked out what they are or how to use them, this book is for you. Stroh carefully describes eight of them, giving them the more accessible name “systems
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stories,” including clear examples of how they arise, how to recognize them, and what we can learn from them. The eight stories covered are reinforcing feedback, balancing feedback, fixes that backfire (or fail), shifting the burden, limits to growth, success to the successful, accidental adversaries, and the bathtub analogy. He also briefly describes the other five commonly occurring systems stories. Throughout the rest of the book, he refers to these eight, detailing how they apply to real social change initiatives, as well as ways to escape them when they are working against you. In this section, Stroh also introduces us to the dangers of looking only at our immediate responsibilities and trying to improve our performance without consideration of the whole. He makes the point a number of times that organizations that work in the social sphere have limited budgets and resources, so they need to work together to find the best way to meet the overall objective. In my opinion,
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Glen Forde / Creative Sustainability
An exhibition on systems thinking literature in Espoo, Finland.
the methods in this book are not limited to these organizations, as most businesses have these same budgetary and resource restrictions. The meat of this book is in chapters five through ten, where Stroh describes the change management framework that he co-created with Michael Goodman. Several cases were introduced earlier to help explain the systems stories. In this section, Stroh not only explains the process and the rationale behind it, but walks us through what it was like for participants involved in these social change case studies. The framework has four stages. The first stage, called “building a foundation for change,” starts by identifying
all of the key stakeholders and getting them involved in the process. Stroh is clear that you need to be as inclusive as possible so you do not miss an important constituent. It is then necessary to establish common ground in terms of what everyone hopes to achieve and where they think they are now. The facilitator then helps them build capacity for systems thinking with a focus on collaboration. This stage is consistent with other participatory modeling frameworks. The second stage, named “facing current reality,” is where people start to feel uncomfortable, as it is necessary to look at the system as a whole to both understand why it behaves the way it does and what each person’s
role is in its behavior. This stage is consistent with both participatory modeling and traditional systems analysis. The third stage, called “making an explicit choice,” does not just mean making a choice between many different options (which would be the next stage of traditional systems analysis). Instead, it is necessary to build a case for the current system, including the payoffs of the current system and the cost to change. This is then compared to the case for the changed system, including its benefits and the costs of not changing. Solutions (and strategies) are then generated that, as much as possible, meet both short-term and long-term goals (with an emphasis on the long
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Reviews Book Review term). As Stroh explains, the goal is to bring the explicit choice “to life through a vision that illuminates what people feel called to or deeply wish to create.” The final stage, named “bridging the gap,” is all about getting from here to there successfully. As a systems thinker, one of the most important parts is to change the casual relationships in the system to support the new goals. This also requires helping people change their mental models, keeping people informed, and continuous monitoring and learning throughout the change (and afterwards). The last part of the book contains more detailed information on this process. A strong message throughout this book is the idea that we are the ones who unintentionally perpetuate the very systems we wish to change. When viewed through the lens of systems thinking, it is easier to see how our actions, while seeming to have positive and direct consequences in the short term, either undermine our efforts to change or create other consequences in the longer term that work against us. The classic example of this is fixes that backfire (or fail). In this story, we take immediate action that alleviates the symptom of the problem in the short run. In doing so, we undermine our ability to solve the fundamental problem so must keep resorting to fixing the symptom, further undermining our ability to solve the problem. A common example would be to borrow money to pay the interest on another debt. While this solves your short-term need of servicing the original debt, you now have a larger debt and two interest payments, making it harder for you to pay off the original debt. Stroh points to the pressure to use incarceration more frequently for criminal behavior,
thus taking criminals off the streets (relieving a symptom). However, these increased populations in prison will eventually be released (delay). They are typically unprepared to productively reenter society, so they turn to crime again. This leads to more pressure to use incarceration as a means to reduce crime. The fundamental solution presented by Stroh is to invest in building strong communities that are not breeding grounds for despair and criminal behavior. Another example is accidental adversaries. In this story, Party A does everything possible to meet their objectives, and Party B does the same. However, Party A’s actions undermine Party B’s success and vice-versa—both unintentionally. Stroh provides an example from the Iowa public education system where the actions of the Department of Education and the regional education agencies worked against their common goal of delivering quality education. In this situation, the Department of Education would independently roll out new programs, which felt like progress to them. However, the regional agencies did not have the resources for the number of new programs created, so would customize them to fit their current program, or ignore them altogether. While this undermined the state’s initiatives, it allowed them to feel they were still succeeding. The solution is straightforward: sit the two parties down, and help them see that they are both unintentionally perpetuating the problem, and that they can work together to better achieve their common goal. Stroh is candid about both the positive and negative responses from participants. In particular, there is often pushback against the scope of the process, “My encouragements to slow down and reflect more deeply
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and to consider their own roles, however unintentional, in perpetuating the current system, were confusing to design members who viewed their charter solely in terms of rapidly producing recommendations about how others should change. A few chose to leave the project at this point…” Note that this book is about the process that begins once you have an organization interested in creating change. It does not address, nor does it purport to address, the difficult task of engaging someone in this process. If you want to end world hunger, who do you approach to start this process and how do you engage them? The examples in this book all come from communities, regions, and states. I recommend starting with the sound advice: “Think globally, act locally.” It is also not always possible to engage all key stakeholders in the process. Without giving suggestions or examples, Stroh points out that in this case you must find a way to work around those who will not participate. I am impressed by the level of success this method has achieved in several social change initiatives. If you are involved in a social change initiative or you wish to effect social change, Stroh’s book is an excellent place to start. References 1. Forrester, JW. Industrial dynamics: a major breakthrough for decision makers. Harvard Business Review, 36(4), 37-66 (1958). 2. Richmond, B. Systems Thinking: Four Key Questions. High Performance Systems Inc. (1987). 3. Richmond, B. In Search of a Clear Picture For Unifying our Community of Practice. Keynote Presentation, Systems Thinking and Dynamic Modeling Conference, July 1, 2002, Durham, NH [online] http://www.clexchange.org/news/ conference/2002conference.asp. 4. Senge, PM. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. (Currency Doubleday, New York City, 1990).
Reviews Media Reviews Dreamcatcher Documentary Features Zealous Work of Former Prostitute Turned Activist by Zafirah Zein “See you didn’t know about this, you didn’t know that there were some women like that here did you? You didn’t know that there was somebody to reach out and hold your hand until you can learn how to walk. And that’s what we do.” Brenda Myers Powell and Stephanie Daniels Wilson, founders
of The Dreamcatcher Foundation, are in the van they use to carry out nightly rounds on Chicago’s most dangerous streets. In the vehicle with them is a 19-year-old girl. Her story is heartbreakingly familiar to the others who are approached by The Dreamcatcher Foundation—peppered with abuse, sex, and drugs. Most have lived on the streets since they were as young as four years old, existing in the vicious world of sex trafficking that has swallowed far too many girls in the city’s impoverished West Side.
Brenda and Stephanie spot these young women on street corners and invite them into the Dreamcatcher van, offering clothes, condoms, and a listening ear. These gentle interventions are void of judgment and pressure, the lasting impression on these girls being that they could seek help if and when they wanted to. Their stories are shared in a silently powerful documentary film called Dreamcatcher, directed by British filmmaker Kim Longinotto. The film focuses on Brenda, whose zesty and warm personality makes the film as
Mark Hendricks
Lisa Stevens, Brenda Myers-Powell, and Stephanie Daniels-Wilson present their film, Dreamcatcher at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | January-February 2016 | Solutions | 65
Reviews Media Reviews intriguing and heartening as it is harrowingly grim. While her irresistible demeanor was exactly what convinced Longinotto to take on the film, it was also the survivor-driven agency that Brenda advocated for which makes Dreamcatcher stand out in the mainstream narrative on prostitution and human trafficking. In an interview with Women in the World, Brenda said, “I saw a lot of TV shows, movies, different stuff about human trafficking and the girls and all of that. And I hated it. I hated the storyline…I wanted [people] to know that [prostitution] came from a lot of pain. It came from a lot of pain before they got there.” Brenda is not a stranger to pain. Growing up with an alcoholic grandmother as her sole parental figure, she was molested by her grandmother’s friends since she was a toddler, entering into prostitution at age 14. She was raped and tortured by pimps and customers during her 25 years as a prostitute, adding in the film that she had been a victimizer to other girls as well. “You cannot survive out there and only be the victim,” she said in a conversation with Homer, an ex-pimp and friend who she now works with to spread awareness on sex trafficking. Her life took a turn when her last customer threw her out of his car. Her dress got caught in the door and she was dragged on the road for six blocks, losing all of the skin off one side of her face. After receiving help from a safe house and volunteering with sex workers, Brenda started the nonprofit Dreamcatcher Foundation with her best friend Stephanie, who is the mother of a former Chicago gang leader. Aside from the women they meet on their routine street rounds, the foundation works with prostitutes in jail and runs an after-school club
for at-risk girls. The experiences of the high school girls are tragic—most of them reveal that they have undergone sexual harassment and abuse. According to Brenda, the foundation has gotten in touch with 2500 young women in the span of their work, and 87 girls have been saved. Her outreach under the foundation is currently unpaid and she is now raising money to set up the Dream Center, a space that helps women move out of prostitution. Dreamcatcher is a compelling film that digs into the heart of the many struggles faced by women caught up in the damaging web of sex trafficking. In an industry that offers almost no chance of escape, Brenda encompasses a glimmer of hope as a woman who has been through it all and gotten out alive. Dreamcatcher is her way of making sure other women are able to come along with her.
Violence in Turkey: A New Film Champions Women Activists by Zafirah Zein YOZGAT, TURKEY – One of the last things that Arzu Boztas’s husband said to her before he shot her was, “I won’t kill you. I’ll just make you crawl.” He then shot his wife and the mother of his children six times in the arms and legs. When he went to trial, he argued that she had provoked him. For many men in Turkey, that is enough of a winning argument. For years now, women’s rights groups have been battling judges who, despite Turkey’s strong laws, still have discretion in sentencing and let male abusers off lightly. Many in the country’s more patriarchal and conservative regions are swayed by arguments that a woman tarnished her honor or disrespected her husband.
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“Judges are finding ridiculous and unbelievable reasons to reduce the punishments for murderers,” says Gulsum Kav of We Will Stop Women Murders, an activist group that has been working to pass bills in Turkey’s parliament that will serve to protect and seek justice for women. And now, these women’s groups have another obstacle in their way. In early November, the conservative ruling party won re-election, lowering women’s presence in parliament to only 15 percent and fomenting worry about the future of women’s rights in Turkey. The political party has increasingly been garnering voters on the back of misogynistic and patriarchal rhetoric that includes forbidding women to laugh in public and shaming women who go out while pregnant. Advocates say this absurdly sexist mentality has fueled a steady increase in violence against women. This story, and others, are part of a documentary film in the works by 30-year-old, BAFTA-nominated British filmmaker Chloe Fairweather and The Fuller Project for International Reporting, which follows the lives of two Turkish women beaten within an inch of their lives by their husbands, and their battle for justice with the help of Gulsum Kav and her team. The film joins a growing movement of efforts, by journalists and activists, to expose violence against women in Turkey and the government’s inaction in these cases. In the last year, protests led by women’s groups have brought tens of thousands of men and women to the streets across the country. The activists stand in front of courthouses, visit with victims in hospital, and travel by busloads to the Turkish capital of Ankara to support female lawmakers in defending women.
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Maltepe Municipality / UN Women
On November 25, 2014, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 27 buildings across Istanbul were illuminated in orange to launch the 16 Days of Activism campaign to stop violence against women in the country. Here, activists hold a special ceremony to light the historic Maiden Tower.
Turkish women journalists are also calling attention to the problem, with articles and columns in national publications. “What kind of precedent is set when a woman—soon to become a murder victim—seeks help, fearing for her life and government officials joke, ‘Do not worry, the worst is you will die.’?” asked Turkish journalist Pinar Tremblay in a recent column for Al-Monitor. From January to November, 2015, 212 women were murdered in Turkey. In 2014, the total count stood at almost 300, which was a 30 percent increase from the female homicides reported in 2013.
Presently, a bill is sitting with the Turkish Ministry of Justice while activists like Gulsum Kav continue to battle tirelessly to change both the law and a culture in which women are often marginalized. Drafted by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, the bill revises a disturbing law in the Turkish penal code that supports mild sentences for men who have harmed, raped, or murdered women. If passed, it will abolish sentence reductions based on “good behavior” during trial or “unjust provocation” by their partners. “These women are killed because their perpetrators know that they
are not going to get that long imprisonment,” said Ipek Bozkurt, an Istanbul-based lawyer who has worked on dozens of domestic violence cases. Equally important to changing the law is changing the culture, and that is where activists hope media can play a persuasive role. The laissez faire attitude by many in Turkey towards violence against women was on display in 2014, when a popular Turkish dating show included a 62-year-old “bachelor” who had served time for killing two women in the past, including his wife. Only after an outcry from women’s groups did the show issue an apology.
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