Can a New Idea Work in an 'Old' System?
During the last few months of 2023 my focus was on bringing to life a new way for everyone to be involved with the world’s largest climate conference (After all the climate is something that impacts us all so it makes sense everyone should be able to participate in the decision making on this subject).
The new idea was bought to life and continues to be creating purposeful impact (more on that in future blogs) but the experience left me questioning ‘Can a new idea work in an ‘old’ system’?
(System meaning ‘a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done’). I won’t provide any definitions on ‘systems thinking’(there is already alot of great writing on that), instead I will share a real life experience of a new idea not fitting within the accepted human system for conferences.
Summed up in a sentence my experience left me aware that:
‘New ideas are hard to engage with when they require action beyond the actions we are used to doing, in the system we are currently in.’
Our world leaders, companies, NGO’s etc are used to traveling to attend an event where certain people’s voices are heard- this is the accepted current system. It is obvious that the number of people who can be participating and included is limited (by the number of people that fit in a city, hotel, conference hall or meeting room) but the system remains, despite these restrictions.
While leading a group to trial the idea that EVERYONE’s voice could be heard and EVERYONE could participate in the world’s largest climate conference, those people who were familiar with and in action in the current system seemed to lack the time to be able to engage with the new idea. In other words those traveling to the conference had their time consumed by speaking to others also at the conference (both following the same systematic approach to find new climate solutions). At this point it would be easy to criticise the carbon footprint of travel and the laziness of humanity that we are not trying something different but as I spoke to more and more of those leading in climate change my empathy for and understanding of the challenges of breaking out of existing systems grew.
Criticising the existing system will have limited results - exploring how a new system can be created and implemented is more impactful and our experiment in enabling everyone’s voices to be heard led to some interesting insight. Those not familiar with or in action with the current system took action with ease and passion on the new idea (we had double the number of participants we expected). Those aware that a new system is needed yet time poor due to participating in the existing system supported from the sidelines and in the first few weeks of 2024 seem to be keen to use the findings from a new idea bought to life to help them break out of old systems.
A good mentor of mine always says ‘ We spend too much time thinking about who has a seat around the table rather than questioning why we are limiting ourselves to one table and the seats that fits around it’
We now have proof there could be a new system for inclusion, participation and everyone’s voices being heard so while a new idea didn’t work for those in an ‘old system’ maybe the learning is that this is the first step in creating a new system.