As the world struggles to contain COVID-19, it appears to be increasingly stuck; Inequality has widened, climate degradation is accelerating, and many are suggesting that we may have missed out on opportunities presented by the pandemic to build a more just and inclusive system. But a new book this month shows us that the way forward is right under our noses — it’s invisible to most people.
The System Work of Social Change by Cynthia Rainer and François Bonici, published by Oxford University Press, offers a fresh and deep look at the age-old problem of how to change the world. The book takes a fabricated view of social systems, highlighting an overlooked source of deep social change: the quiet and often unnatural work that happens every day in organizations around the world that have found innovative ways to solve local challenges.
The book is framed by a fundamental paradox: we live in a world where what Rainer and Bonissi call the “industry of social change” (which Peter Buffett calls the “charitable industrial complex”) has grown larger than the global finance industry. . It contributes an average of 4.5 percent to GDP and employs 7.4 percent of the world’s workforce. Yet the social system remains adamant about change.
Rainer and Bonici argue that if we want change, it is probably clear that we need to look at things “a fundamentally different way”. But to do that, they caution, we first need to understand things in a fundamentally different way. Simply put, “the thinking that took us here will not take us where we want to go”. In an attempt to understand and re-imagine, Rainer and Bonissi distill 200 years of thinking that have shaped the social change movement and the experiences of eight major social purpose organizations and a host of social change practitioners on nearly every continent. Take things apart for insight on how to understand.
The result is an encouraging and revealing glimpse into how positive social change really happens on the ground, and the processes and practices to drive it. Rayner and Bonnici put forward a set of clear and practical insights that will be useful to those struggling to solve the world’s problems big and small; A sort of “how-to” for working across social systems that is both subtle and profoundly game-changing.
In many ways the book is a deeply personal journey, fueled by a growing sense of unease that the work they were doing was too naive to understand how change happens. Bonici and Rainer met a decade ago at the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Center for Social Innovation – where Bonici, a former medical doctor, was founding director (he has since gone on to lead the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship) and Rainer One was a senior researcher. Working in the turbulent, unequal but resilient society of post-apartheid South Africa, he found that he had one foot in the world of institutional change-making and the other firmly engaged in “grassroots” work of social change.
Against this background, the Schwab Foundation approached him to create a new set of learnings from organizations dealing with the same complex, large-scale and deeply systemic problems that they were facing at the Bertha Center. The Schwab Foundation hosts the largest community of accomplished social change leaders in the world, while the Bertha Foundation supports a network of hundreds of social justice activists and social movements around the world.
This ignited a long-term research engagement with the fundamentals of systemic change. Through the networks he had built with organizations on the African continent, and globally through the Bertha Foundation and the Schwab Foundation, he spent five years exploring and studying dozens of social change organizations in greater depth than ever before.
The book enlists this journey, with the twists and turns that come with understanding the world of social change in a radically different way. The two eventually conclude that systems cannot be “fixed” in the way the industry of social change sets out to confidently achieve, but they can be changed through the systems work of organizations. . They define this function as the day-to-day principles and practices that guide the actions of organizations and individuals as they work to replace systems and structures that remain deeply problematic.
The work emphasizes process and people over results and revolves around three key principles: connection (how people are working together), context (how people adapt their work to their context), and Shakti (who makes the decisions).
“Through systems work, these organizations engage in day-to-day operations that acknowledge the depth of systemic problems. They are working to fundamentally change the way a system functions in relation to change. They are making sure that the people most immersed in the context of a social problem and those who live it every day—who we call the primary actors in the system—are able to engage with the challenge in new ways. In this way, the organization system so that they can act in a more responsive and representative manner,” write Rayner and Bonici.
“When we treat social change efforts with defined beginnings and ends, we almost always feel frustrated, because our understanding of the need to change is essentially a moving target. However, on the process of change By focusing—asking important questions, such as who qualifies? Who designs? and who decides?—we can move into the future with a greater ability to adapt.”
Ultimately, this book fills in the strange and untold gap between the theory of system change and the actual practical work required to accomplish it. Thus, it has been hailed as important and overdue by the sector, with Stephen Chambers, Director, Marshall Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science calling it a breakthrough book that will “guide those who work And think about changing the system. One generation.”
Rainer and Bonici say they hope the book will enable clinicians to move from the recognition that things are complex to handling the steps needed to purposefully navigate this complexity. And Winnie Byanyama, Executive Director, UNAIDS, in her endorsement of the book, suggests that it will achieve exactly this: “In order to address the inequalities and deep-rooted injustices in our society, we want a clearer vision of the world and how to get there.” process. Together we can build a better world!”
Book: The Systems Work of Social Change by Cynthia Rainer and François Bonikis
Published: Oxford University Press
cost: INR 350
Book Review: System Work of Social Change by Ashutosh Kumar Thakur
(Ashutosh Kumar Thakur is Bangalore-based Management Consultant, Literary Critic and Co-Director of Kalinga Literary Festival. He can be contacted ashutoshbthakur@gmail.com)