Introducing the Forum’s Six Steps to Significant Change
How do you create optimal change? We’ve been working with our Six Steps to Significant Change model for a while now - some of you have seen it and some of you have worked with us on it. So we thought it was about time that we shared it with the wider world because creating significant change calls for a more sophisticated approach.
The Six Steps model is based on a combination of change theory and our 15 years of experience of trying to make change happen. We find it an invaluable framework for designing change processes and learning from them. We designed it with big systems change in mind, but it equally works at a sectoral and organisational level.
The Six Steps are described in detail here, but put simply, change starts with understanding. The first two steps (understanding the need for change and diagnosing the system) are about raising awareness of the challenges an industry faces, working out what needs to change and how it might happen.
Then we move into system innovation where new thinking and practical action are key. Creating pioneering practice is about developing and showcasing new and better ways to do things.
In the next step, enabling the tipping, experiments are taken up more widely by an industry once they see how effective they are and increasing number of people and organisations are involved.
The final two stages (sustain the transition and set new rules for the mainstream) are about maintaining the change that has been created, often through widespread sign-up to voluntary commitments, new consumer standards or regulation.
But, clearly, change is not as simple as all that - it is not a linear process and you can go round different elements of the cycle a number of times. We need to keep learning all of the time to ensure that we are making optimal interventions.
So tell us what you think. For us, it is a really useful starting point in planning and learning about the change that is needed to get to a sustainable future. We are constantly learning about how to do this better with all our partners and industry groups and would love to hear about what others are doing too.
If you would like to share your ideas and thoughts with us or want to know more please contact Stephanie Draper or Anna Birney.
Comments
Very interesting model Stephanie, thanks for sharing.
Looking at it from a communications/engagement perspective, I see that step #3 is very important. Pioneering practices and the results that came out of them will need to be communicated to broader audiences (i.e. broder business community that we wish to engage in this change process) in order to make step #4 possible.
Step #3 is all about celebrating success, demonstrating a business case, and showing that XYZ pioneering practice is possible and makes sense.
At a company level, this is very interesting: celebrating the successes/pioneering practices of some staff (who managed to move sustainability forward in their area of business) in order to show to other employees (their colleagues) that everything is possible and that everyone (not just the Sustainability Department) can make a difference when it comes to sustainability. This is key to ensuring that sustainability is embedded across all business functions and levels.
Very interesting. I look forward to reading more of your posts. Cheers, Perrine
How important is it for companies to create their own pioneering practices after steps 1 and 2? Significant change for an unsustainable company might mean adopting the practices of sustainability leaders operating in the same industry - therefore creating significant change but without being truly pioneering. Or do the 6 steps apply solely to industries as a whole rather than also at the organisational level?
I think the KEY is to understand the 'whole' system. So often this is overlooked and supply chains from producer to consumer are far from linear. And often the smaller components get left behind in vision of change, therefore i like the tipping analogy, it takes a while to build up momentum but if there are enough of the components involved the balance will shift.
Your model looks ok for managed change but what about unexpected change which forces the tipping point - such as the recent events in North Africa and the middle east or Japan say? I don't have the answers but suggest the model has a dotted line in to step 4 from these unanticipated changes which probably takes us to step 5a (chaos / storming) before settling back in to 5 and 6. Just a random thought.
When you're going through the steps, esp 1, 2 and 3 where it may not seem so obvious, v. impt to have 'whole system' involved in sharing the experiences of need to change, collaborating in diagnosing, and creating pioneering practices. Not just the businesses involved / supply chain, but other stakeholders too.
Thoughts?
Hi Penny - I agree that you definitely need to involve as many people in the change as early as possible. Having different voices from stakeholders is incredibly useful - take WWF and the Marine Stewardship Council for example. And the more of a network you create early, the more chance you get a tipping point later in the process. However, generally speaking it is hard to get the whole system in the room at the start, so you tend to start with a group of leaders or a particular niche that can really do something and then give others something to follow. Look forward to discussing it further. Stephanie
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