It’s easy and common to feel stuck. Change is hard and change makers regularly feel like we’ve exhausted our different approaches. And yes, I often advocate for consistency and taking the long view, but sometimes we need to try something different.

The Policy Lab has recently put out a toolkit on thinking about the government as a system. As expected, it uses the systems thinking approach, which I love. And yes, I know we all don’t work in or with governments. I don’t either. However, we work in systems, which is why I find value in the resource.

Below is the grid of 56 different approaches to try. Ok that is not what they call it, but how I think about it. One axis is the spectrum of influence and control, while the other axis is different types of power – informal to formal. You like need to either zoom in on the image or right click and open image in a new tab to be able to read it better.

Sometimes words spark ideas – ‘Oh I could try that’ – and it gives us energy to try again in a slightly different way. Or perhaps it gives you a new understanding of what is going on in the system or your approach. Perhaps you are spending all your time in different variations of ‘Delivering’ and need to add some other ‘columns’ to your approach. Or it’s all informal ‘softer’ power and you need to add some more ‘formal’ power approaches too.

Spend some time with the framework. Share it with your teams and see what discussions and new action is leads to.

Photo by Policy Lab