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Collaborative Thinking as a Social Change Tool



Genership 1.0: Beyond Leadership Toward Liberating the Creative Soul by David Castro describes some tactics for approaching social innovation in a creative, collaborative way. This post introduces three specific ways of thinking collaboratively, or individually, about social change efforts. Castro offers much more detail on using leverage, systems thinking and design thinking.

Three Approaches to Thinking about Social Change:

Whenever a group of social entrepreneurs gets together to plan or problem solve, they can choose to adopt one or more modes of thinking about the challenge at hand. The three modes of thinking that Castro mentions each deserves a book or two, but an introduction is easy to supply:

1. Looking for Leverage - This is a social change approach I’ve advocated for in previous posts. Activists should look for places they can intervene in society to produce the most benefit for the resources invested. A deep familiarity with the problem might be enough to suggest ways to intervene to produce a maximum benefit.
2. Systems Thinking - All social problems have multiple causes and effects. A number of factors doubtlessly influence the problem, making it worse in some circumstances and better in others. To be effective activists requires at least a basic understanding of the system in question. The group needs to look at interrelationships between parts of the system.
3. Design Thinking - Consider how the possible solution will fit into the social environment by developing elements that match the needs of the population. Several posts in this blog have addressed design thinking in more detail.

Creative thinking should be an element of collaborative thinking about how to affect social change. Some groups use an unsophisticated process of just coming up with ideas. A formal approach to generating ideas is almost always going to give better results. Brainstorming techniques like concept mapping or morphological analysis can serve the group well. The group could use SCAMPER to refine or combine promising ideas.

Addressing Gun Violence:

A standard approach to gun violence might be to simply advocate for tougher gun laws. Maybe the city government can ban concealed carry or Congress can expand on the so-called assault weapons ban. Those approaches represent a search for leverage, a way to use the existing system to affect a reduction in gun violence.

A bit of systems thinking would reveal some insights about the factors that influence rates of gun violence for better or for worse. This work might reveal something that could be more easily addressed than gun laws. Perhaps lots of young men don’t have anything constructive to do for money, or just to pass the time, end up running with gangs. A program to address that problem might give us a new design to address gun violence.

A bit of collaborative thinking could produce new ways to gain leverage, or a new social program or policy that offers a new way of dealing with the causes of gun violence.


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