I love it when you read a phrase that causes so many bulbs to light up and bells to ring it’s like you’ve hit the jackpot on a fruit machine.
I recently came across Otto Scharmer and Katrin Käufer’s call to action to move from ego-systems to eco-systems if we are serious about creating social change.
Ego-systems means seeing everything from the perspective of our organisations and optimising for organisational wellbeing.
Eco-systems means embracing that we are part of a web of people, systems, services, and optimising for the wellbeing of the web.
This connected deeply with my experience of working with charities.
Charities being in ego-system mode has been a core cause of my frustration with how charities work. Because it gets in the way of creating the change we say we want. It puts us in the wrong mindset.
What does it look like when we are in ego-system mode.
- Our theory of change is all about us and what we are doing, overstating our own contribution. They rarely acknowledge the systemic influences on our mission, or centre the voice of the people we exist for.
- Our risk management approaches consider the organisation first, not the risk to achieving our purpose. Which too often leads to a low risk appetite at a time when the people we exist for need us to be bold.
- Our strategies focus on our own ego – being the best, growing, being better so we can be the best and grow. Rather than what the people we exist for need us to be. (Spoiler alert it is rarely for us to beat out the competition.)
I understand why it is so often like this. Funders often ask us to compete, to set ourselves apart, to demonstrate how we are uniquely and solely solving problems.
And Trustees often come from a corporate background, where this mindset makes sense.
But this is such a disservice to the people and places we exist for.
Why does this matter?
We exist to deliver charitable purpose.
Everything we do should be about that purpose. Every single decision we make should be about furthering that purpose.
And that purpose is external to us. It is something we are trying to influence, respond to, make better. And for many charities the reasons we are needed are complex and influenced by a myriad of factors.
So our role in responding to it needs to understand how we sit in that web of factors and other folk working to respond to it.
We need to be in eco-system mindset.
What does it look like to take an eco-system approach to these processes?
- Theory of change that is as much about learning as accountability to funders, that embraces the complexity of our work and our position, and strengthens our ability to achieve our purpose.
- Risk management that asks ‘what is the risk to achieving our purpose?’
- Strategy that used tools like PESTLE to ask what the impact is on the people we exist for, and what is the impact on our ability to deliver our purpose?
These are small changes. But they make a significant difference to our ability to create real change for people. Because we focus our organisational decisions on our purpose.
These are the approaches I take in my work with organisations. But until recently I didn’t have a handy phrase to explain this mindset shift and why it matters. So thank you Otto and Katrin!
Postscript
I’ve never used a fruit machine because I was raised in a Church of England family and gambling was not allowed. I haven’t considered myself a Christian since I was 17, but that primary programming is hard to break.
There are so many mindsets about how we do charity which are equally hard to break, because they are just the way things are done. Finding framing and language like that provided by Otto and Katrin’s is so important to help us reflect on whether these are still helpful.
Because if it’s the way it’s always be done, without clear motivation, why would we change it?
