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.