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Shifting the conditions that are holding a problem in place.

Source: Social Innovation Generation (SIG) Canada.

According to FSG, there are six interdependent conditions that typically play significant roles in holding a social or environmental problem in place. These conditions exist with varying degrees of visibility to players in the system, largely due to how explicit, or tangible, they are made to most people:

• Policies: Government, institutional and organizational rules, regulations, and priorities that guide the entity’s own and others’ actions
• Practices: Espoused activities of institutions, coalitions, networks, and other entities targeted to improving social and environmental progress. Also, within the entity, the procedures, guidelines, or informal shared habits that comprise their work
• Resource flows: How money, people, knowledge, information, and other assets such as infrastructure are allocated and distributed
• Relationships and connections: Quality of connections and communication occurring among actors in the system, especially among those with differing histories and viewpoints
• Power dynamics: The distribution of decision-making power, authority, and both formal and informal influence among individuals and organizations
• Mental models: Habits of thought – deeply held beliefs and assumptions and taken-for-granted ways of operating that influence how we think, what we do, and how we talk.

Source: FSG, The Water of Systems Change, John Kania, Mark Kramer, Peter Senge, 2018.