INTRODUCTION
why change is hard...
Everyone has a theory about how to make change happen. But there is no universal key to unlock every problem.
The longer we think that one person alone will fix things, or tell ourselves that something is someone else’s problem, the longer we will remain stuck.
Indigenous and First Nations peoples, from Aboriginal Australians to the Lakota people of Turtle Island have known for thousands of years that we are all interconnected, interdependent, and can find solutions to life’s challenges by looking at how nature functions in ecosystems. It’s only in the last 30 years that the rest of the world has begun to do the same, calling this systems thinking.
Modern governments, corporations and groups tend to make small, iterative changes for short term benefits, creating very little change for societies and ecosystems. And, just one look at the new headlines makes clear that bolder, more effective action is needed to protect people and the planet.
Creating fundamental, long-lasting and meaningful change requires systems thinking. It requires us to make changes at the deepest levels of the systems that shape our lives and world.
“I am because we are.” - Translation of Ubuntu, name of an African philosophy.
For those of us who work for social, environmental or economic justice, we are also caught up in the short-term thinking of the systems we are trying to change. It is all too easy to become overwhelmed by the complexity of problems we seek to address.
So let us imagine life in all its complexity, just like a river basin - one huge ecosystem made up of thousands of other ecosystems, interacting with and influencing each other. Working toward change is like building a raft and traversing this roaring river ecosystem.
To cross the river successfully, we cannot just paddle a straight line from one shore to another.
It is the same with designing and delivering strategic communications and change initiatives. Simplifying away all of the complexity to focus on a linear, short-term, path of change rarely shifts anything for long. We become busy being busy.
Understanding the dynamics of inter-related systems within the river that we’re moving through helps us set a course that benefits from helpful flows, manages oppositional currents and avoids dangerous eddies. To move through the systems we must see ourselves as part of them. This is ‘Systems Thinking’ and strategy.
common and uncommon sense
What gets in the way of us taking a Systems Thinking approach? Common sense.
Common sense is the basic knowledge that most people in a society share and believe to be true. It is shaped by the norms of that society into a powerful narrative. Common sense informs - often implicitly - how we act, understand, behave, live and do as communities and societies. When it is accurate, common sense can help us navigate life’s thousands of daily decisions. When common sense is wrong or misguided, it can lead us as societies into collective delusions and mistakes. Think of the people who were killed for arguing that the Earth orbits the Sun.
Sometimes changing the world for the better takes Uncommon Sense. It takes defining a new, better, Common Sense.
Let us return to the river basin. If our kayak capsizes as we traverse the river and we find ourselves underwater, there are two possible responses:
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Intuitive, fear-led common sense might tell us that breathing is the most important thing, so we need to get our head above water as soon as possible.
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So we thrash our head around trying to get up and breathe, but our head is heavy and we struggle.
Systems-thinking uncommon sense would tell us the problem is caused by gravity, our bodyweight and the water density coming together, so we need to act with the flow of the system. We need to act counterintuitively. So we get our body in position under the water level, and we flick our hips or knees to get the kayak up again. This helps bring our head above the water again.
Rather than acting on the system, we work with the various forces within the system. This approach will help us to navigate around rocks, converging currents and other obstacles as we move along the water.
“Common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen.” - Albert Einstein
What is accepted as Common Sense also changes over time. For a thousand years many cultures accepted the world being flat as common sense knowledge. Many cultures also used ‘common sense’ racial and gender hierarchies to justify the killing and oppression of groups of fellow human beings. Common Sense may not always make sense, but it is the common worldview that holds groups together.
“Yesterday's deconstructions are often tomorrow's orthodox clichés.” - Professor Stuart Hall
Clever advertising and public relations professionals are well aware of the power of common sense, as well as how it can be shaped through sustained, targeted strategic communications:
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Common sense in the West in the 1950s was that plastic was just another item that we could allow to accumulate as rubbish. Then when the public began to find out about plastic as a pollutant, companies created littering campaigns to focus consumers on “cleaning up,” and recycling, despite low global recycling rates. This allowed the companies to continue to produce and sell plastic goods. Common sense is now that consumers are responsible for dealing with plastic.
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Common sense across much of South Asia in the 1980s-1990s was that people could pick up groceries with whatever they wanted or had available. Common sense now is that plastic bags help to keep groceries dry and can be reused for other purposes.
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Common sense across the West for most of the twentieth century was that oil extraction was not a problem. Common sense now is that as consumers we must reduce our carbon footprint in order to mitigate climate change. The oil company BP worked with the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather to create the idea of a carbon footprint in the 2000s. This shifted the way we understand the problem, the solution, and who’s responsible from companies to individuals - Climate Disinformation to Carbon Footprint. Additionally, fossil fuel companies promote natural gas as a “clean” solution despite it still being a fossil fuel.
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Common sense in many countries in the nineteenth century was that we could manage land adequately to feed our populations. Common sense today is that we need monocrops, pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified crops in order to feed everyone. Food company campaigns in many countries and cultures advance the argument that clearing natural forests and landscapes for food production as well as using pesticides, genetically modified crops, and petrochemical fertilizers necessary to provide sufficient healthy food to a growing population. In reality, there is more than sufficient arable land to feed a growing world population if it is managed well, and many of these proposed “solutions” like monocropping are actually themselves driving new problems.
Uncommon sense ideas may be obvious or available, but not recognized, valued or taken up sufficiently. For example, the recognised map of the world is wrong. No one can measure a journey based on it. But actually if you are traveling a conventional North to South, the second world map would probably be more sensible.
Comparison of 3 images:
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“Common Sense” Mercator projection world map
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2. Size-accurate and South-up Peters projection world map
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3. Distance-accurate Azimuthal polar projection. This shows the North Pole in the middle and Antarctica around it (this distorts land mass size but shows accurate distance of continents from the North Pole)
creating a new path
“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” - James Baldwin
The societies and environments we live in are complex and constantly changing. Driving progressive social change is rarely as easy as starting in one fixed place and moving to another. We need to be agile in living, breathing, moving, and in interwoven systems.
If we understand the systems we pass through as we traverse the river, we can bypass their challenges and benefit from surprising opportunities. If we move the rocks in the river as we pass, we can also make a better path for everyone.
We live in systems that come in all shapes and sizes: from the family to the planetary. The Lakota people of North America and Indigenous Australians do not have a word for "nature" because they see humans and nature as one system, not separate entities. This interconnected view is a more logical and strategic way to see and understand the world.
In this handbook we look at systems ranging from interpersonal relationships, local communities, whole societies to global narratives.
We live in interdependent systems that are built on information and powered by relationships.
The uncommon sense approach blends systems thinking, strategic communications and narrative change strategy, to give us five ways to truly shift systems and narratives for a healthier world.
how to use this resource
This resource is designed for people working for social, environmental, or economic justice at local, national, or international levels. If you are someone who is seeking fresh insights to understand obstacles to change and find better solutions to accelerate change-making, then you have come to the right place.
Whether you are donating your time to work on social change in your community, a professional changemaker in a not-for-profit civil society organization, a donor seeking to increase the impact of your philanthropic investments, or a government policymaker seeking to lead more effective change, this resource is designed to help you strengthen your effectiveness and impact.
This handbook is packed full of ideas, stories and tools. If you already have a grounding in systems thinking, you will understand the methodologies and tools here more easily. If not, look out for more content coming soon…
The ideas in here are curated, not created. This resource benefits from and weaves together the experiences and knowledge of practitioners and researchers from across the Americas, South and Southeast, East Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa. We have looked at complexity and systems in movement practices, Indigenous thinking, academic study, and the natural world, and the latest examples from communicators and campaigners around the world.
The methodology introduced in this handbook is built on three main foundations:
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Systems Thinking for social, environmental and economic justice
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Strategic Communications across multiple platforms and channels
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Practical Examples from successful campaigns and narrative change efforts
As changemakers we need to sense our way around and through systems in order to change them.
We have organized this handbook into five steps - spelling out the word S.E.N.S.E. - to help you approach your challenge:
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System: Profile the system you want to change
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Equilibrium: Set a near-star and far-star goal to shift the system
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Navigation: Design & deliver strategic communications campaigns
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Storms: Plan for and strategically respond to emergent crises and opportunities
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Energy: Evaluate when to change course and when to walk away
We use the S.E.N.S.E. methodology to explore and strategize for change at every level of the system: from the interpersonal relationship to the community, country and planetary narrative.
If this is your first time working with the S.E.N.S.E. methodology, we recommend that you work through it in chronological order. Consider reading all the way through the materials over the course of a week, then working with the tools and ideas over the course of a few months or longer as you design and deliver a systems-oriented strategic communications campaign. Give yourself the space to ponder, explore, and challenge your own assumptions. Remember, the S.E.N.S.E. methodology involves a different way of seeing the systems around us and setting strategies for long-term change. Once you are more familiar with the concepts you will discover that this handbook is designed so you can jump back and forth between the chapters or sections that you most need in a particular moment in your change-making work.
Use this resource however you want. Attend a Multicultural Leadership Institute training. Create your own strategy workshop. Copy it, stick it on the wall, remix it.
And, please let us know how you get on. Share new stories and case studies. Offer suggestions for how this community resource can be even better. We look forward to hearing from you: uncommonsense@multiculturalleadership.org
