The Art and Practice of Systems Transformation
Beginning to move from what is, to what could be
Systems of shared purpose offer great promise, but the question remains: How do we bring them into being? What does it take to transform existing systems, with their entrenched power structures, established routines, and misaligned incentives, into ones guided by collective meaning?
This question emerges whenever we confront the gap between a system's stated purpose and its lived reality. As we’ve discussed in prior articles, we see healthcare systems designed for healing that often harm, education systems meant to liberate minds that frequently constrain them, and governance systems intended to serve communities that regularly exclude them. The disconnect between what systems claim to value and how they actually operate creates not just practical problems but existential ones, undermining trust, diminishing participation, and corroding our sense of shared possibility.
Systems transformation becomes both necessary and daunting precisely because systems are not merely technical arrangements but living webs of relationships, identities, and meanings. Changing them requires attention to visible structures and processes and the underlying assumptions, values, and patterns that give them life. This work cannot be reduced to simple formulas or one-size-fits-all solutions. It requires both art and practice, the creative imagination to envision different possibilities and the practical wisdom to bring them into being.
Drawing from diverse contexts and traditions, this exploration offers a set of approaches that have proven fruitful across different types of systems, yet not a comprehensive blueprint. These approaches are complementary pathways that often interweave in the complex work of transformation and are not linear as many expect them to be. They represent different entry points into the living systems we seek to change, recognizing that transformation rarely follows linear paths but emerges through the interplay of multiple interventions at different scales.
Three pathways to transformation
Systems transformation isn't a single process or methodology. It's more like a journey along multiple interconnected paths. Through studying systems that have successfully realigned around shared purpose, I've observed three approaches that consistently create movement toward greater purpose alignment.
1. Small, bounded experiments
Transformative change often begins not with comprehensive redesigns but with modest experiments that test new possibilities at manageable scales.
Consider how the city of Curitiba, Brazil, approached urban transformation under Mayor Jaime Lerner in the 1970s. Rather than implementing a sweeping master plan, Lerner launched targeted, creative interventions, converting a downtown street into a pedestrian zone over a weekend, implementing a straightforward but effective bus rapid transit system, and creating a program where citizens could exchange recyclables for fresh produce[i]. In a famous episode in 1972, when motorists threatened to drive through the newly created pedestrian mall, Lerner gathered hundreds of children to paint the street, making it impossible for cars to reclaim the space[ii]. Each initiative revealed context-specific insights, gradually transforming the entire urban ecosystem without requiring massive investments or causing widespread disruption.
Complexity theorist Dave Snowden describes this as a ‘probe-sense-respond’ approach; introducing small interventions, strengthening what succeeds, and reducing what doesn't[iii]. This method avoids the presumption that we can completely redesign complex systems through centralized planning. Instead, it acknowledges that meaningful change emerges through practical experimentation and learning.
Research on social change confirms that these small experiments often prove more effective than comprehensive redesigns precisely because they generate learning that informs subsequent iterations[iv]. Small wins create momentum and learning necessary for larger-scale transformation.
The key lies in designing interventions that are genuinely ‘safe to fail,’ bounded enough that failure won't threaten the system's viability, but substantial enough to yield meaningful learning. This requires both creative design and careful attention to power dynamics, ensuring that those taking risks aren't disproportionately exposed to negative consequences.
2. Amplifying what works
A second pathway acknowledges that every system, no matter how dysfunctional, contains pockets where purpose and practice already align. The work of transformation often involves finding these bright spots, understanding what makes them work, and amplifying those patterns.
This approach has been formalized as ‘positive deviance,’ a method that identifies individuals or groups that solve problems better than peers with access to the same resources and facing similar challenges[v]. Rather than imposing external solutions, positive deviance seeks out what's already working within a community and spreads those practices. The approach has been successfully used in contexts ranging from child malnutrition to healthcare-associated infections[vi].
The maternal health movement in rural India exemplifies this approach. When researchers found that despite widespread malnutrition, some poor families had healthier-than-average children, they studied what these families were doing differently. They discovered these families were feeding their children small shrimp and greens from the rice paddies; foods that most families threw away, believing they were unsuitable. By amplifying this existing solution rather than importing external nutrition programs, communities achieved remarkable improvements in child health[vii].
Some research suggests that finding and amplifying bright spots often proves more effective than problem-focused interventions[viii]. By studying what's working rather than what's broken, transformation efforts tap into existing capabilities and reduce resistance to change. These positive outliers provide both proof of possibility and practical guidance for implementation.
The challenge lies in discerning which patterns are genuinely aligned with deeper purpose rather than merely efficient within existing constraints. Not everything that "works" in the short term serves the system's deeper aims. The key is identifying positive deviance that embodies the purpose we're seeking to amplify.
3. Creating parallel systems
Sometimes the most effective approach isn't reforming existing systems but creating parallel alternatives that demonstrate different possibilities.
Educational transformation often follows this path. Instead of trying to reform entire school districts, innovators like Deborah Meier created small alternative schools like Central Park East in East Harlem that demonstrated different approaches to learning. These schools served as ‘existence proofs’ that different educational approaches were possible, ultimately influencing broader systemic change in public education[ix].
Similarly, restorative justice programs began as small community-based alternatives to the criminal legal system. They demonstrated different ways of addressing harm that centered healing and accountability rather than punishment. Their success has gradually influenced mainstream justice systems, with restorative practices now adopted by courts, schools, and communities worldwide[x].
This strategy reflects ‘critical connections over critical mass’ highlighting the building of small-scale alternatives that demonstrate new possibilities rather than trying to transform existing systems all at once[xi]. These alternatives often grow through mimetic processes or seeing what works somewhere else and adapting it to new contexts[xii].
Research on social innovation demonstrates that these parallel systems often prove crucial catalysts for broader change[xiii]. The development of alternatives outside existing institutional constraints creates both practical examples and normative pressure that eventually influences mainstream systems.
The challenge in creating parallel systems lies in navigating the tension between differentiation and integration. Systems that are too similar to existing models may reproduce their limitations; systems that are too different may struggle to gain traction or translate their insights. The art lies in creating alternatives distinct enough to embody different purpose while remaining legible enough to influence existing systems.
From personal to systemic
These pathways don't exist in isolation. They interconnect through a fundamental principle: The work of creating systems of shared purpose begins within us, not in isolation, but in relationship.
It starts with each person reconnecting with what matters most, with our own sense of purpose beyond status, security, or survival. Author and educator Parker Palmer suggests that we find purpose through a deepening of meaning that results in our continual choosing to empower and give ways of being in our environments[xiv]. This personal clarity creates the foundation for collective action. When we connect with others who share similar values but bring diverse perspectives, we begin creating conditions for new systems to emerge; systems that reflect a larger sense of purpose than any single person could articulate alone.
Consider the transformation of end-of-life care through the hospice movement. It began with Cicely Saunders' personal commitment to a different vision of dying that centered on dignity, comfort, and meaning rather than medical intervention at all costs. Her vision led to the founding of St. Christopher's Hospice in London in 1967, which became the world's first modern hospice combining patient care, teaching, and research[xv]. This personal purpose connected with others who shared similar values, gradually creating a parallel system of care that eventually transformed mainstream medical approaches to death and dying.
This isn't about grand solutions imposed from above. Rather, it’s about the iterative work of creating new patterns through intentional relationship and action[xvi]. It's about recognizing that systems are not fixed machines but living networks that can evolve when enough people begin inhabiting different possibilities.
Research on social movements demonstrates this essential connection between personal purpose and systems transformation. The most effective movements cultivate both inner transformation and outer change, recognizing that the two are inseparable[xvii]. This suggests that personal purpose development isn't separate from systems change but foundational to it.
Leadership for systems transformation
The work of systems transformation calls for a different kind of leadership than traditional models focused on position, authority, or vision-setting. It requires a ‘public narrative’ or the capacity to articulate shared purpose by connecting personal stories with collective stories and the story of now[xviii].
This form of leadership operates through invitation rather than mandate, creating spaces where people can explore what matters most and how they might collaborate to bring it into being. It's about asking powerful questions rather than providing definitive answers; questions that help the system see itself more clearly and imagine new possibilities.
Research on complexity leadership theory shows that this approach proves particularly effective in conditions of rapid change and high uncertainty [xix]. Complex adaptive systems require leadership that enables rather than controls and creates conditions for emergence rather than imposing predetermined solutions.
Effective systems transformation leadership, then, may operate at multiple levels simultaneously:
Personal: Embodying the purpose in one's own actions and choices, modeling the alignment between espoused values and lived behavior.
Relational: Building trust through authentic connection, creating psychological safety for honest dialogue, and fostering generative conflict that deepens rather than threatens relationships.
Structural: Designing and adapting formal structures, processes, and metrics to support purpose-aligned action, removing barriers to participation, and creating feedback loops that enable ongoing adaptation.
Cultural: Cultivating shared stories, rituals, and norms that reinforce collective purpose, celebrating examples that embody the purpose, and helping the system metabolize both success and failure as learning.
This multi-level approach recognizes that systems transformation happens not through isolated interventions but through coordinated shifts across dimensions of system behavior. The most effective leaders move fluidly between these levels, recognizing when each needs attention and how they interrelate.
Consider the transformation of the disability rights movement under the leadership of activists like Judy Heumann and Ed Roberts. They embodied personal commitment to dignity and autonomy, built relational networks across diverse experiences of disability, created new structural approaches through independent living centers, and transformed cultural narratives from charity to civil rights[xx]. This integrated approach created systems change far more profound than any single intervention could have achieved.
Beyond technical solutions
Many approaches to systems transformation focus primarily on technical elements such as new policies, programs, technologies, or infrastructures. While these matters, purpose-driven transformation requires equal attention to the deeper work of shifting values, beliefs, loyalties, and identities.
Technical solutions address problems where both the definition and solution are clear, such as situations where expert knowledge can provide answers. Adaptive challenges, by contrast, involve situations where the problem definition itself is contested and where progress requires learning and evolution from multiple stakeholders. Most significant systems transformations involve both technical and adaptive elements intertwined.
Climate change illustrates this distinction perfectly. While technical solutions like renewable energy infrastructure are essential, the deeper challenge involves shifting cultural values around consumption, rethinking economic systems premised on endless growth, and reimagining our relationship with the natural world. No amount of technical innovation alone can create the adaptive shift required.
Research on adaptive leadership demonstrates that confusing these two types of challenges represents one of the most common reasons change efforts fail, suggesting that leadership failure occurs when adaptive challenges are treated like technical problems[xxi]. This is because when we apply technical solutions to adaptive challenges, we create the illusion of progress while leaving deeper patterns unchanged. In this way, we have placed a “bandage” on the problem and argue it’s fixed, without addressing the root cause of the problem.
Purpose-driven systems transformation inevitably involves adaptive work because purpose itself exists at the intersection of values, identity, and meaning. Shifting from disconnected to aligned purpose requires not just new structures but new ways of being together and new understandings of what matters and why.
This adaptive dimension helps explain why meaningful change often stirs deep emotional responses. It invites people to examine not just their actions but their identities and core values. It brings to light inconsistencies between stated beliefs and actual practices. Perhaps most challengingly, it requires holding both loss and possibility simultaneously, recognizing what needs to be let go of to make room for new potentials to develop.
Creating cultures of transformation
At their best, these approaches to systems transformation don't just change specific structures or practices. They create cultures capable of continuous evolution, ‘learning organizations’ [xxii], and what indigenous governance systems have embodied for millennia through practices of adaptive stewardship[xxiii]. These cultures embrace ongoing adaptation through collective inquiry and experimentation.
Senge defines learning organizations as places where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together[xxiv]. This concept has profound implications for systems transformation, as it shifts the focus from one-time change efforts to creating conditions for ongoing evolution.
Research on collective learning shows that these cultures share several key characteristics[xxv]:
Psychological safety: Creating environments where people feel able to speak truth, take risks, and acknowledge mistakes without fear of punishment or rejection.
Appreciation of differences: Actively valuing diverse perspectives, seeking out cognitive diversity, and using creative tension as a source of innovation rather than a problem to resolve.
Openness to new ideas: Maintaining curiosity about alternative approaches, seeking inspiration across contexts, and resisting the tendency to defend existing practices.
Time for reflection: Building in regular opportunities to step back from immediate action, examine assumptions, and integrate learning from experience.
Boundary spanning: Creating connections across different parts of the system and with external environments, enabling the flow of new information and perspectives.
The transformation of community health systems in rural areas demonstrates these principles in action. When communities create regular reflection practices, value diverse knowledge from both medical professionals and community members, remain open to new approaches, and connect across traditional boundaries between clinical and community settings, they develop remarkable capacity for continuous evolution of health practices that respond to changing needs[xxvi].
These characteristics create conditions where purpose can remain alive and evolving rather than calcifying into rigid dogma or empty rhetoric. They enable communities to learn not just how to accomplish predetermined aims more efficiently but how to continually refine and deepen their understanding of what genuine health and wellbeing truly mean.
Reimagining fundamental systems
As we engage in systems transformation, we inevitably encounter questions about the fundamental systems that shape our lives (e.g., education, healthcare, governance, economy, and more). These systems not only address practical needs but significantly shape our identities, relationships, and sense of what's possible.
Yet many of these systems remain rooted in industrial-era assumptions about standardization, hierarchy, specialization, and control, and these assumptions are increasingly at odds with both human flourishing and contemporary challenges. The gap between their stated purposes and their lived realities grows increasingly apparent.
Take education systems, ostensibly designed to foster learning and development. Yet their industrial structures include standardized testing, age-based cohorts, and siloed subjects, which often undermine genuine learning. Schools claiming to prepare young people for the future often replicate patterns from the past rather than prepare them for the future.
The reimagining of such fundamental systems isn't just an institutional question but an existential one. What is education for? What constitutes genuine health and healing? What makes governance legitimate and effective? What is the purpose of economic activity beyond material production?
These questions arise naturally from the work of systems transformation because they reflect the deeper purpose of inquiry at its heart. As we reimagine the purpose of our organizations, institutions, and communities, we inevitably confront questions about human activity itself, about what constitutes a life well-lived, and how our systems might better serve genuine human and ecological flourishing.
New approaches are emerging across these domains: more human-centered healthcare models, more participatory governance systems, more regenerative economic practices, and more learner-centered educational approaches. These aren't yet mainstream, but their outlines are becoming increasingly visible. They represent not merely new policies or programs but deep reconsiderations of these systems' meaning and place in creating thriving societies.
This shift doesn't happen automatically. It requires the intentional cultivation of new stories, new structures, and new ways of being together. The journey toward systems of shared purpose inevitably leads to this deeper reconsideration of the fundamental systems that shape our lives, and a journey we must undertake collectively and with courage and care.
Research across multiple fields demonstrates that this reimagining isn't merely idealistic but increasingly necessary. Systems designed around genuine human needs and ecological health outperform those focused on narrow instrumental metrics across a range of outcomes, from innovation to resilience to wellbeing[xxvii]. This suggests that purpose-driven systems represent not just an ethical alternative but an adaptive advantage in our increasingly complex and interconnected world.
Reflections on the Journey
Walking the path of systems transformation has taught me to hold contradiction: to embrace both humility and determination. Every transformation effort I've participated in reveals the persistent gap between vision and reality, between what we hope to create and what actually emerges.
My own experience includes moments of breakthrough followed by unexpected regression. Initial excitement giving way to the patient work of changing embedded patterns. The delicate balance between honoring existing wisdom and challenging limiting structures.
I believe that transformation is not an achievement but a practice; not a destination we reach but a way of moving through the world. It requires continuous realignment between our deepest values and our everyday actions.
What keeps me engaged isn't blind optimism but what Rebecca Solnit describes as ‘hope in the dark.’ It’s the understanding that change unfolds in ways we can't fully predict or control, often appearing long after the seeds were planted[xxviii].
These days, I find myself attuned to subtle indicators of deeper change: the shift in tone when community members speak to each other; unexpected questions arising in policy forums; small but meaningful redistributions of resources toward what truly matters. These quiet moments, not dramatic breakthroughs, form the actual texture of transformation, which highlights for me the gradual work of bringing systems into deeper alignment with genuine purpose.
I continue this work not because it's easy or certain, but because it's essential. The systems we shape today create the possibilities for tomorrow. When systems align with meaningful purpose, they open space for our fuller humanity to flourish.
This work belongs to each of us, in whatever contexts we inhabit.
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[ii] Martin Larbi, Jon Kellett, and Elisa Palazzo, “Urban Sustainability Transitions in the Global South: A Case Study of Curitiba and Accra,” Urban Forum 33, no. 2 (June 1, 2022): 223–44, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-021-09438-4.
[iii] David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making,” Harvard Business Review, November 2007, https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making.
[iv] Trish Reay et al., “Transforming New Ideas into Practice: An Activity Based Perspective on the Institutionalization of Practices,” Journal of Management Studies 50, no. 6 (2013): 963–90, https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12039.
[v] Arvind Singhal and Lucia Dura, “Protecting Children from Exploitation and Trafficking: Using the Positive Deviance Approach in Uganda and Indonesia” (Save the Children Federation, Inc., 2009), https://resource-centre.savethechildren.net/pdf/protecting_children_from_exploitation_and_trafficking.pdf/.
[vi] Ruth Baxter et al., “What Methods Are Used to Apply Positive Deviance within Healthcare Organisations? A Systematic Review,” BMJ Quality & Safety 25, no. 3 (March 1, 2016): 190–201, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004386.
[vii] Singhal and Dura, “Protecting Children from Exploitation and Trafficking.”
[viii] Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, 1st edition (Crown Currency, 2010).
[ix] Deborah Meier, The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem, unknown edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002).
[x] Howard Zehr, Little Book of Restorative Justice: Revised and Updated, 2nd Edition, Second (New York: Good Books, 2015).
[xi] adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Reprint edition (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017).
[xii] Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Kostakis, “From the Communism of Capital to Capital for the Commons: Towards an Open Co-Operativism,” tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society 12, no. 1 (April 3, 2014): 356–61, https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v12i1.561.
[xiii] Frances Westley et al., “Five Configurations for Scaling Up Social Innovation: Case Examples of Nonprofit Organizations From Canada,” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 50, no. 3 (September 1, 2014): 234–60, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886314532945.
[xiv] Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, 1st edition (San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass, 1999).
[xv] David Clark, Cicely Saunders: A Life and Legacy, 1st edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
[xvi] brown, Emergent Strategy.
[xvii] Michael Ganz, “Leading Change: Leadership, Organization, and Social Movements,” in Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, ed. Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, First Edition (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2010), 509–50.
[xviii] Ganz.
[xix] Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion, and Bill McKelvey, “Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting Leadership from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Era,” The Leadership Quarterly 18, no. 4 (August 2007): 298–318, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.04.002.
[xx] Joseph P. Shapiro, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement, First Edition (Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar: Crown, 1994).
[xxi] Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Leadership on the Line, With a New Preface: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change, Revised edition (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017).
[xxii] Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, 1st ed. (Doubleday, 1990).
[xxiii] Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, First Edition (New York: Milkweed Editions, 2015).
[xxiv] Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.
[xxv] David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson, and Francesca Gino, “Is Yours a Learning Organization?,” Harvard Business Review 86, no. 3 (March 2008): 109–16.
[xxvi] Elinor Ostrom, “Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems,” The American Economic Review 100, no. 3 (2010): 641–72, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.3.641.
[xxvii] Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Reprint edition (White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2018).
[xxviii] Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, Second edition (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016).