Learning for Change: Exploring the Patterns of Small Groups Spawning Changes

StartFragmentEveryone in society has a role to play in any change. For those of us trying to impart positive change in communities, it can be helpful to know the characteristics of these roles and how they interact with each other. This workshop explored that process.

To better understand how Social Innovation spreads, we worked with the analogy of an Amoeba to explore the roles people take on in society that help or hinder transformation. Imagine an organism moving towards it’s food, putting out receptors into new territory, the rest of it slowly following, with the nucleus finally reaching the new point. Now consider human culture and the individuals that make it up as these various molecules of the amoeba. Some lead with new ideas, others take their time to consider it, and others still hold back until the last moment. This workshop invited participants into a facilitated role play, where we explored how change happens as a result of several factors.

Based on a game invented the Context Institute Executive Editor, Alan AtKisson, we were given a scenario of a community divided over a large shopping area’s impact on their neighbourhood. Some felt the strain of bringing consumption and waste as others saw the benefit of jobs and recreation. We each read a small background to prepare our character and then delved into our role of an Amoeba molecule to experience how ideas can spread through a culture.

The key players and their roles:

Innovator: Generates new ideas, leads research or inventions; pulls amoeba/change from in front.

Change Agent: Slightly more accessible by the mainstream, promotes the new ideas, solutions, directions, somewhat on behalf of the Innovator.

Transformer: Open to new ideas and wants positive change; Within the mainstream, yet adopts the idea earlier; Can sometimes be an ambassador who may be hesitant to get on board, but once they do, they can influence many others.

Mainstreamers: Consumed with their own life and doesn’t take strong opinions, not aware of issues; the majority; will change when other Mainstreamers change.

Laggard: A Mainstreamer who doesn’t like change in general and adopts change late, only when pressure from the majority.

Reactionary: Actively resists the new idea because s/he benefits from keeping the status quo or moving in the opposite direction; sometimes has economic or power interest.

Iconoclast: A silent partner to the Innovator who also believes things must change for the better; often a journalist, critic, or artist; keeps Reactionaries busy and pushes change from behind.

With two that operate outside the amoeba membrane:

Spiritual Recluse: The monk or meditator who inspires the Change Agents and Innovator; generally more preoccupied with eternal truths than realities.

Curmudgeon: The complainer who tried and failed and has lost faith in society; can sometimes creates an antagonistic subculture.

It was interesting to note that everyone can play any of these roles in different contexts and/or at different times in their lives.

We witnessed - and actually unknowingly created ourselves - this natural paradigm of a culture adopting an innovation. Discussion afterwards revealed that research has discovered a fairly predictable pattern in this process: The innovator proposes the idea, it slowly spreads through the change agents’ promotion and picks up momentum as transformers get on board.

We saw how the lagging center represented the tendency for the mainstream to be far from the forefront of cultural advance. Though as more people adopt this idea, others easily followed.

Group debate, the pushes and pulls of a new idea.

Photo by Abbie Caldas

Lessons Learned

Innovators:

Because the idea(s) can be so radical to some, you’re probably a quite ineffective Change Agent; so enlist their help to be more accessible to the mainstream.
Be careful not to be too attached to your original idea as it reduces the diffusion potential.

Change Agents:

You’re more effective when you work together.
A big return on your effort lies in working with Transformers.
You may waste time trying to change Reactionaries and they are most effective when they discredit or disempower you. So remember it’s easier to stop change (their role) than to push it forward and facilitate others’ understanding (your role).

Iconoclasts:

Your time is well spent keeping the Reactionaries busy.
You often make terrible Change Agents, and vice versa.
Don’t give much time to the Curmudgeons - maybe they used to be a Change Agent and got burnt out from disappointment and disillusion.

Applying this in Social Innovation work:

Enlist key players in your community for support, ensuring their skills blend well together and their roles and responsibilities are clearly communicated.
An effective implementation plan is simple, flexible, and broken into achievable parts
To give strength to the plan, ensure all those pushing the message area also living it, keeping consistent and genuine messaging.
Develop enabling structures such as training, and pilot programmes.
Celebrate and promote achievements, communicating these to the wider community.