What is your theory of change?
How does change happen in organizations and communities?
As a change champion, how do you affect change?
I recently asked a mentee these questions and as they responded, I could see their eyes light up, confirming the suspicion behind my line of questioning. Like so many doing work requiring systems change, culture change or transformational change of any kind, this individual was so busy doing, they had not paused long enough to think about what they believed about changemaking. In the work of leading movements for change, it is so critical to pause to consider why you do what you do and what you believe about how to get there. That will impact all the work you take on, to get you from where you are now, to the desired future you are working towards. A typical theory of change can be both conceptual and practical. It is meant to comprehensively articulate at a minimum, your: purpose, assumptions and beliefs about change, current reality, desired future outcomes, pathways to the desired future, strategies and actions on the pathway to the desired future and how you will know you are making progress.
A more practical rendition of a theory of change starts to look like a strategic roadmap, but by far the most important elements in my view, are your purpose (which defines your reason for being and your call/work in the world – see more here) and your fundamental beliefs/assumptions about how change happens. Your fundamental beliefs and assumptions about how change happens ultimately become your guiding compass for how you live out your purpose. If you define yourself as a change leader or agent, the core of your theory of change must be your elevator pitch response to the question: How does change happen in communities, organizations and systems? This could be culture change, large-scale change initiatives in organizations, community organizing, social change, climate action…essentially any realm in which you are working towards transformational change in the way things are done to deliver fundamentally different outcomes than today.
In my praxis over the years, I have landed on some fundamentals that guide me on my personal as well as organizational change-making journeys. I have distilled the following core principles that form my theory of change, how I believe change happens and what is required to take me from current state to desired future. Pulling, from complex adaptive systems, dialogic organization development, appreciative inquiry and my life experiences, I believe that:
- The complex challenges of our time require transformational change – fundamental changes in the way we think, act and interact, to result in radically different outcomes now and into the future.
- The complex challenges of our times require collective action. We cannot go it alone.
- Collective action does not imply lack of individual responsibility. Everyone needs to feel and be responsible to play their part in an era where every action matters to get us to the tipping point of transformational change.
- Change interventions are required at every level of systems, from the personal, to the group, to the whole system.
- Change happens through relationships and dialogic processes that allow people to make meaning and construct new realities together, guided by data and evidence that is holistic—quantitative as well as qualitative and inclusive of many perspectives and way of knowing and making meaning.
- We are living in an era of grey zone change where attention must be paid to the psychological transition, learning and synthesis, group/systems development and a focus on courage and possibility. Experimentation and innovation will be required and will take courage to explore uncharted territories
- Focus and amplify what is working! If you find pockets of positive change, find out what made them work and amplify them to grow a movement for change.
Taken together, these ideas have guided me to making choices such as seeking out positive change examples to guide my own work, finding courage to experiment with new/different actions, aligning myself with change champions with shared interests, and seeking positive ways forward toward transformational change. All this also implies, doing the consistent, often difficult and personal work of transformative learning myself, to continually challenge my own assumptions, understand and process my emotions about issues, wade through complexity with others and always, find and align with ways forward.
So how about you? What is your theory of change?
For more, see my work and free resources on Grey Zone Change here.