The Basics: Strategy
We focus on behavioral norms to give us a common language
When I started writing this newsletter, I set out to share a series of instantly useful exercises that anyone could deploy to get smarter about the problems they are trying to solve. However, as I’ve shared these exercises with more people, I have also gotten some requests to say a bit about the system behind them. That’s what inspired this new series of posts. Here goes…
The title of this newsletter is “Social Change Strategy.” When people ask me what that means, I usually say something like “critical thinking about how to make the world a better place” — that definition fits well with what most people need when they first meet me.
But the actual definition requires us to go a little bit deeper. First, let’s look at “strategy.” Dictionary definitions of this word are just fine. Here’s the one from the Merriam-Webster website:
Most definitions of strategy involve a plan to achieve a goal. In the traditional use of the word, that goal was a military one like “capture the enemy capital” or “erode the enemy’s will to fight.”
The word has since been adapted to other fields where there is an objective definition of winning. People devise strategies to make more money than their competitors, get more votes than the opposing candidate, or score more goals than the other team.
One nice thing about an objective definition of winning is that you can compare ideas about how to get there. You can easily imagine generals debating how to capture the hill or teammates sharing ideas about how to score a goal.
But when it comes to making the world a better place, there is frequently disagreement about the plans and the goal. This makes it hard to compare ideas and develop new ones.
In my system, this problem is solved in two ways. First, we always assume that “winning” will take the form of changing human behavior through the alteration of social norms. Norms are the unwritten rules behind human behavior in groups — I’ll have more to say about them in a future post.
However, practical experience has taught me that clearly seeing norms is tricky, which is what leads to the second component of my method. Alongside the concept of a strategy focused on norms, I also teach six lenses people can use to see, understand, and disrupt norms. Because of their usefulness in facilitating change, my colleague Jeff Leitner and I nicknamed these lenses “innovation dynamics.” These six dynamics are:
Actors – the people and organizations tied to a problem as well as their various relationships and motivations
Limits – formal rules and constraints that shape the world of the problem as well as how people react to them
History – the many stories people tell about the past of the problem and how they influence their behavior today
Future – people’s expectations about where the problem is headed and the assumptions they make in the present as a result
Configuration – mental categories people construct around the problem (often manifested in specialized vocabulary) and how those categories fit together
Parthood – the context of the problem, especially the ways in which it relates to other problems people and organizations are trying to solve
Asking questions about these dynamics automatically leads to critical thinking about norms and social change. And all of the exercises in this newsletter are based on one of the dynamics. So any time you attempt one of the exercises, you’re doing social change strategy!
(In case you want to try it out, here is a link to one exercise based on each dynamic: Actors Limits History Future Configuration Parthood)
To me, the key benefit of this method is that we can use the dynamics to compare and contrast different approaches to a social problem. So for example, we might consider whether it would be better to engage with one group of actors versus another.
Even if the participants don’t realize it, such a discussion helps them compare different plans to change social norms. That’s one reason why I frequently lead with questions or exercises rather than definitions — I would rather my students and clients feel what it is like to do social change strategy than just read about it.
Do you find this way of thinking about strategy useful? What other questions do you have about the approach? In future posts, I’ll share more about norms and each of the dynamics.