Storytelling for Systems Change

Author: Sarah Cassidy, January 2020

The idea for this piece of work first emerged out of a group discussion at a Lankelly Chase retreat in York in March 2019. The gathering was attended by grantees of Lankelly Chase all of whom worked, in some shape or form, on systems change. While the group were diverse in the nature and scope of their work — spanning the arts, public services and academia and working across the breadth of the UK — they each shared the same challenge: how do we communicate with people about systems change? How do we talk about it in a way which makes it seem manageable and personable, rather than theoretical and alienating?

To help them think more deeply about these questions the group decided a good place to start was with themselves, with their own stories. What had led the people in that group to become preoccupied with systems change? What did it mean to them personally? Through inverting the lens and looking at their own personal relationships with systems change they hoped they might be able to draw some insights that moved beyond the academic and professional, and helped identify some useful language and ideas on how to talk to people about systems change.

They decided to use storytelling to guide this process.

Background to the Storytelling Methodology

Arts at the Old Fire Station is a public arts centre in Oxford which presents new work across art forms, supports artists, and works to include people facing tough times. Since 2017, Arts at the Old Fire Station has used a storytelling approach to evaluate the impact of its work. This involves the collection of stories from people with whom it has worked.

These stories are guided by the question: what has been the most significant change for you as a result of working with Arts at the Old Fire Station? This methodology is based on the Most Significant Change methodology* which, unlike conventional approaches to monitoring, does not employ quantitative indicators developed in advance. Instead, it is the storytellers who decide what they think is the most significant impact for them.

The stories are gathered by a team of story collectors comprised of volunteers, staff, artists and Crisis members. They are audio-recorded, transcribed, and then edited down by a writer into a 1–2 page story. During the editing of these stories, great attention is given to ensure that the stories:

• Are vivid and capture the reader’s attention

• Faithfully reflect the teller’s insights and its significance for them

• Accurately keep the teller’s ‘voice’ in the storytelling it in their own words.

Once the storytellers have given their approval for the stories to be used, these stories are then shared with a group of staff, volunteers, story collectors, trustees and partners, who read the stories before coming together to discuss and analyse them. Arts at the Old Fire Station has learned a lot from this process. It has proved especially valuable for measuring change and understanding ideas that are intangible or fuzzy — unexpected, emergent, personalised or diverse.

Storytelling on Systems Change

The group decided to experiment with using an amended version of the storytelling approach. The process began in July 2019, when 5 participants from the original York retreat met in London.

Following an introduction to the idea and approach of storytelling, they proceeded to collect one another’s stories. While in previous uses of the storytelling approach people had told their stories individually to a story collector over the course of an hour or so, in this instance the group took 15 minutes to tell their stories in the company of the group. The stories were prompted by the question: what got you to a place where you were interested in and preoccupied with systems change, and what does it mean to you personally? Their responses were recorded, transcribed and edited into a 1–2 page story, which was then sent for approval to the storytellers.

The outcome of this process was 5 stories, each of which offers a window into the storyteller’s experience and relationship with systems change. The group work across public health, academia, the arts, philanthropy and social inclusion and span the North East, North West, London, South West and Midlands.

In November 2019, the group reconvened to discuss and analyse the stories, prompted by the questions:

• What is most striking in any or all of these stories?
• Has anything surprised you in the stories?
• Are there any threads or themes coming out of the stories for you?
• What, if anything, does this tell us about what systems change means, why it matters and how we can explain it?
• What might we do next?

The response to the final of these questions — what next — has resulted in the writing of this document, which aims to capture the storytelling process and share learning drawn on systems change and how we communicate about it with others.

Themes

1. Social Justice

All of the tellers speak about their experiences of working in ‘people industries’ — healthcare, education and the criminal justice system. They each describe a sense of discomfort at being implicated within a system that ‘didn’t feel right’.

‘I worked in psychiatry at night. I never felt comfortable, some of the things that went on were what now would be in breach of human rights legislation. So I’ve always had a desire not to be complicit in that kind of thing.’

‘I was a year six teacher and I just didn’t see the point in SATs at all and I thought actually, why have we got to do this? it makes me not want to be a teacher and it makes me sad really, to think that I’ve got to prepare these eleven-year olds for these tests.’

‘Early in my career I didn’t have an overarching theoretical narrative about the place or meaning of professions in oppressing their patients or anything like that. I think that there was a sense of, this is wrong.’

In all of the stories there is a turning point — a moment in which the teller felt they could no longer be implicated in a system that they didn’t believe in. They each then used whatever agency they had to try and influence change. This reflects the tellers’ shared commitment towards social justice which resounds across the stories. Ultimately their work on systems change is underpinned by what can be described as an ‘activist persona’ — a desire to take action to try to change the way the system works in order to create a fairer society.

‘What brought me here is a desire –I’m a Socialist, I’ve been politically active since I was eighteen, ideas about democracy, ideas about equality, ideas about fairness, but also ideas about context and contextualizing people.’

‘I ended up working in philanthropy because I felt I was lucky enough to get where I got to and I had this sense of fairness.’

‘The death of my Mum made me put things in perspective, and I thought, you know what, I don’t want to be a teacher anymore.’

‘I’ve always been interested in how, if policy and leadership can be changed how can that help people like teachers and people who are working at that level.’

2. Agency and Power

Many of the tellers recognise in themselves a definance — they are not afraid to speak out for what they believe in and disrupt the status quo.

‘so my wife recently found my primary school reports and they all say: ‘Very bright boy, but disruptive.’ So, if someone says that it’s black, I’ll find reasons to argue that it’s white. So that’s kind of part of my nature.’

‘I remember I was still in single digits age-wise, and my uncle saying, um, that I should, think of becoming a lawyer because I would argue black is white, simply because, so, that natural sense of it not being right, challenging, was there.’

Many mention carrying out ‘acts of disobedience’ to try and change the system around them, however they also describe feelings of frustration at their apparent lack of agency to change the system from within.

‘early in my career I had this narrative that if I rose to the top then I could somehow effect change. And so, in my kind of three or four professions that’s what I’ve done and– and what you find is when you get to the top, you’re actually more trapped than you were… [laughs]’

‘I tried to raise these sorts of questions in various places and [it] was like I was invisible in those conversations. So, every Wednesday morning I would take Tommy a cup of tea. And I’d say, ‘if you want ECT don’t drink the cup of tea’ and I’d leave it next to his bed. And sometimes he’d drink the cup of tea and there’d be a furore because he wouldn’t be able to have ECT. And sometimes he wouldn’t have the cup of tea and then he’d have ECT. And it was the only thing I could think of to do that enabled him to have some kind of agency.

And although he was the powerless one in this and I had relatively speaking a lot of power, but weirdly we were both in the same place, we only had one tiny lever that we could access.’

A significant moment for many of the tellers was when they recognised that changing the system was about more than changing the power structures at play, but also the dynamics which upheld them.

‘There was a view that if you put the right plan in place with the right resources things will change, but the power dynamics didn’t shift. Systems change is not about resource allocation and laws in place. Systems change is the power dynamics within how things are delivered, its cultured.’

3. Human Powered Systems

All the tellers describe how the structure and expectations entrenched in the way systems operate serve to standardise and silo services, which can inhibit people from acting in a human way and forming relationships.

‘The whole system is set up to stop you being authentic, to stop you building relationships, to stop you acting like human beings because it fundamentally comes from a place where it sees human beings as units of production rather than as valuable things in their own right.’

‘When I was doing training I remember being told, ‘well you need to think what it’s like to be a patient on a trolley and looking up at the lights‘ and thinking you know, do I need to be told to think that? That capacity to think and empathise, do I really need to learn to do that?’

‘It never entered my head in any of my training or any of the processes or anything that you might actually try and get to know somebody as a person. Just that wasn’t on the list of things that you did or thought about.’

‘My Dad started to become quite ill when he was 60…I was quite cross at how that whole thing had been handled. My interpretation of it was hopefully all this sort of stuff wouldn’t have happened if we’d had that more relational aspect between Dad and the doctors.’

‘so I asked for the first time for some help with my mental health, and I remember going through this big long tick-box exercise and just being told at the end you’ve got low mood and generalised anxiety and there’s not really anything that we can do for you other than see your GP and the GP will give you medication. I had no idea what type of thing I actually needed, I had to eventually find that for myself.’

What is needed instead is a system which places importance on human relationships and connections.

‘what we need is a system which enables relationships, enables people to behave like humans rather than commodities. ‘

‘It’s just about seeing that everything is interconnected and that we have more in common with each other than we do that separates us.’

The tellers explain that, while we may not be able to change the whole system, we do have agency over our own behaviours — being ‘human’ in our interactions, breaking down the distinction between our personal and professional selves, showing human compassion and kindness to those we engage with across all spheres.

‘I lived a long time living and feeling this stuff without having a language, then Lankelly came along and gave me a language to express it, but left me with no idea of what to do differently as a result. Then I realised that the only thing I’ve got control over is my own behaviour, so what I’ve got to do is try and behave well. If we all do that, that would be systems change. If we were all honest, that would be it. Relationships become the day job.’

‘I’ve never really bought into these processes of separation between professionals and the people they work with.’

‘I feel like the only moments in the work I’ve done [that] has felt real in terms of it actually having an impact on others and indeed on myself is when it’s been as close to how I like to be outside of work as possible. So, if I’m talking about where we’re going to go on holiday, I don’t write a strategic plan, we have a little chat about it and see what everyone wants to do, see what seems like a good idea. And when I’m able to bring the behaviour I would normally try and have with my friends and my kids and my neighbours and in the shop and in the bus queue, into the professional setting then the professional setting starts to make sense for me in some way.’

‘for a long time — twenty-odd years — I’ve tried not to infantilize colleagues, I’ve tried not to be disrespectful of colleagues, to treat colleagues as people just like me; and at times that has seemed quite radical — which is very telling, isn’t it.’

Within this we also need to create space for different voices to be listened to and brought to the fore.

‘wouldn’t it be so good if we could think about how everybody’s voice is valid and bring that to the table and use that and think about how that can actually make a bit of a difference.’

‘why I’m really interested in this as well is because it addresses the idea of power and perspective and thinking about participation and bringing everybody’s voice into this process and how that can affect decision making.’

Through doing this — being human, building relationships, listening and encouraging others to do the same — we can mark a culture shift which redresses some of the power imbalances at play within the system itself.

‘Within my tiny organisation, I have quite a lot of power, I’m the boss. So there’s all sorts of power dynamics there, obviously, so the trying to create, or kind of contribute to a culture which says the most important– the thing that will enable us to raise the money we need to raise, put the shows on we want to put on, to be as inclusive and welcoming as possible — the thing that’s going to enable us to do all of those things is if we are attentive to how we behave. And as soon as we stop behaving well then none of those things are going to work.’

‘what’s remarkable is that people find it remarkable, because really all we’ve done is try and behave as a collective, to try and be kind to each other, and to try and do the right thing, which is always about responding to people as human beings. And what’s really remarkable is how the systems that exist really conspire to stop you doing that.’

4. Human Powered Systems

All of the tellers describe a turning point in which their understanding of systems change and how it related to their own work came into focus. This was often aided by something which helped them to pull away from the system and see it differently — a person, a project, something they read, or a group.

‘One of the first things that I could think of as a moment of clarity was discovering books and being able to read and inhabit worlds outside and pull in concepts that were alien to the one I existed in, and learning from that, and growing.’

‘I guess that’s what’s brought me here, seeing the system through lots of different lenses I actually feel a lot more free now to be truly critical of the system than I have, you know, in various other roles.’

‘enterprise which provided services which I didn’t one hundred percent believe in but hadn’t massively questioned neither.’

‘It’s like, you know, kind of going along with it that this is what everyone has to do, so therefore we’ll do it. But that course really took my thinking to a level where I thought I don’t think I can be in the direct delivery of public services anymore.’

These moments all mark an opportunity to look at the system and consider it through a different lens. Distance from the system — being able to step outside it, discuss it with others, and understand it in new terms — is important in helping us to see the system and our scope to change it.

5. Disrupting the System

Many of the tellers acknowledge that being in a position where they feel able to challenge aspects of the system and influence change is a privilege.

‘I suppose I’m in the luxurious position of working in the happiness sector not the misery sector. I’m old enough not to need another job, you know I’ll just do this job and then stop and that’ll be me done, so I don’t have to strive for anything, personally. And I can spend time just thinking about how to try and do things right. And actually this space then becomes a really obvious place to be. Because this is the space where you just try to think deeply about actually why on earth do we keep doing that, when we could just do this?’

‘It feels like quite a privileged position, and I know that not that many people have that amount of freedom that I do to be completely honest about all the flaws that I see.’

Changing the system is undoubtedly harder when you are directly implicated by challenges to the system, or the consequences of changes made. It can also be harder to challenge unhealthy relationships and behaviours which are already established, as oppose to setting the nature of new ones made.

‘Being brave when you’re in the system is much harder. These might be small acts of disobedience, but there is also loads of conforming. I have got more confident as I’ve got older, but also because I pull myself away from it. It’s easy for me and others to say this is how you behave, but much harder to be in it and behave differently.’

‘I spent yesterday sat in front of a screen all day trying to write a funders report. And we’ve failed to count the things that we’re supposed to have counted in a way that makes any sense. And insofar as I can honestly present those numbers they’re all less than what we said we would do. And I just want to write a report that says none of this makes sense. Meanwhile, I feel I’ve got to write the thing that is going to bring in the money. Because there’s people’s wages– people’s livelihoods depend on this. And I just think I hate this, I hate this so much. I shouldn’t have to do this.’

‘if your work has not pissed you off and has on the whole only been good to you, you’ll only ever tick a positive thing because you know that it might get them in to trouble. there’s this power dynamic where if you are really honest about that you feel disloyal. And that’s something that I really care about changing because I think it just doesn’t give us a true reflection, of what’s happening.’

‘The job is to stop doing assessments and start doing understanding — that’s hard if your whole career is about assessment.’

How do we help people to recognise and utilise the agency that they do have? How can we influence management to create cultures in which people working within the system are able to speak openly about how it needs to change and have agency over their behaviour? By supporting people to commit small acts of disobedience from within the system we can make them more commonplace, which in turn makes people less vulnerable and actions more collectively impactful.

Creating this culture shift and offering this degree of support involves influencing the system from many sides and harnessing our power as a collective.

‘I think if you have a Commissioner and someone from a philanthropic background and a Chief Exec and several people with lived experience and an academic, as a collective all saying broadly the same things, that’s much more powerful than any one person.’

6. Being in the Grey

Several of the tellers mention enjoying being ‘in the grey’ — being comfortable with uncertainty.

‘I actually enjoy being uncertain and living in the grey, I’m not very good at black and white. I enjoy meetings where nobody really knows what this is about more than meetings where people go bam bam bam– the meetings where we’re trying to work it out because we’re a bit unsure, and people can own up to being unsure.’

‘I’m never going to do a good job in my mind because, you know, nothing’s ever going to be good enough. So, yeah, I think that’s probably why sometimes I feel really in a place of uncertainty and worry.’

‘I’m quite a reflective person by nature, and I think that lends itself to you being full of doubts and uncertainty [laughs] That’s why I’ve ended up in this place, which in my mind is the right place to be at the moment.’

The system is complex. Working on systems change often throws up more questions and uncertainties than solutions. It means being comfortable ‘sitting in the grey’.

Storytelling as a process

As well as reflecting on the stories themselves, the group also discussed the storytelling process. They all found storytelling to be a valuable process.

‘The improvisation and spontaneity of the storytelling process enabled us to access our own humanity rather than our professional persona.’

‘The process of reflecting on why we think we relate to systems is a learning exercise for us. It’s a learning tool to tell your story. It’s also a safe way to talk.’

‘I often feel nervous about saying things. This process has enabled my messy and unstructured way of talking, and its ok. I don’t have to talk in this perfect order.

Storytelling provided a reflective tool for the tellers, enabling them to access their human relationship with the system in a way that went beyond the theoretical.

They also found the stories generated through the process engaging, memorable and easy to access.

‘I remembered the stories in a way that I often don’t with more systemic, high-end language.’

‘I did genuinely hear your voices when I was reading it. It just reads better than a case study. The fact it starts with ‘Hi, um’, makes it interesting to read. There is something about the tone that’s worth holding onto.’

‘There are all sorts of things I could have talked about, but for me it’s important we don’t try to rewrite them. The freshness of what you say in a moment is more interesting to read than when it’s all tidied up.’

‘The unformulaic nature of stories made them more interesting to read.’

‘It was nice to have someone holding, editing the stories — bringing the voice there and structuring it — making it crisp and easy to access.’

The human nature of stories stands in contrast with the theoretical language often used to describe systems change. This raised questions amongst the group about whether ‘systems change’ in and of itself was the right term to describe work which tries to change the system.

‘So, the work I’m doing at the moment– I struggle to find a connection to it because some of it is so conceptional.’

‘Systems change people don’t get it. We’re not ‘doing’ systems change, we’re trying to change the system. It’s that system that causes harm. It’s about changing harmful systems, not about ‘systems change’.

‘Systems change depersonalises it, it makes it sound mechanical and like an insurmountable task.’

‘When we speak about the ‘systems’ as being responsible we give power to a faceless force that can’t be held to account for its actions. Instead, it should be about widening the sense of responsibility.’

This raised the question, what might be a more suiting term to describe our work to change the systems — human networks, human collaborations, human connections?

What Does This Tell Us About Systems Change?

As mentioned at the beginning of this document, the purpose of this piece of work was to try and use storytelling to shed light on systems change and how we might better communicate with others about it. While the stories are rich in content and bring many insights, the following key learning points can be drawn:

• Systems change is ultimately about social justice and activism — It is about taking action to make society fairer through helping to create a system which is more just.

• We can change the system through our own behaviours — While we may not be able to shift the system as a whole, we can influence our own part of it. A key way we can do this is through our own behaviours, placing importance on relationships and treating people like human beings.

• It is easier to understand and take action on systems change when we are able to pull back from it — Whether through assuming a different role, discussing the system within a group, or learning new terminologies, it is easier to see the limitations of the system and how we can influence change when we step outside it, and when we are not directly implicated in the consequences.

• It isn’t black and white — Working on systems change often means accepting that it is complex and being ok with a degree of uncertainty — sitting ‘in the grey’.

• It can be challenging — It requires us to be brave, patient and not to be afraid to go against the grain.

• Systems change doesn’t have to be theoretical — We all have experiences which shape our understanding and relationship with the system which are wrapped up in stories.

• There is strength in the collective — We need people to change their behaviour and use their agency to change the system from all sides and across all spheres. We also need to offer peer support and protection to allow for acts of disobedience from within.

What Does This Tell Us About How We Communicate About Systems Change?

• We don’t need to use theoretical language to talk about systems change — this process has shown how using human stories can enable us to root systems change in people, relationships and in everyday life.

• Key to this is communicating that systems change is ultimately a form of activism, fuelled by a desire for social justice and a fairer society.

• While the system is complex, the actions we can take to change it can, in fact, be quite simple – we can change our own behaviours and relationships, over which we all have some degree of agency.

• The process of reflecting on our own relationships to systems change is valuable in and of itself in helping us consider what systems change means to us and our place within it.

• Communicating about systems change is also about offering tools and spaces through which people can step back from the system. It can be more challenging for people to engage with systems when they are implicated in that part of the system itself.

• There is power in the collective.