Act in an Instant
By: Antoinette Klatzky
Tags: Leadership, Systems Thinking, Prototyping, Design Thinking, Insights

What is at the heart of a product or service? Some, or many, might say, great design. The art of a beautiful product or service can be stunning. The smooth fit in the palm of the hand or the way something slides into the pocket. All of the world around us is by design in some way or the other. Design thinking is used across a myriad of sectors and spectrums of society. In many ways, when we apply design thinking to our lives or to our reality, we can use it to shift small to large scale problems and create effective solutions to change our world for the better. And yet, over the Ecosystem Leadership Program (ELP) experience, we were reminded that our own process of using design thinking in Theory U for social systems change, is still a work in progress. Together, we have been evolving what is needed to be Ecosystem Leaders (earlier post on Ecosystem Leadership).

Principles of design thinking:

Recognize a problem

Ideate about that problem (brainstorm)

Prototype the strongest ideas

Get feedback from the user and iterate, iterate, iterate

There are fantastic outcomes to this method. There are many layers we’ve added on (using empathy and perspective and great tools from leaders in the field like IDEO). When I sat with Ronnie Duncan, discussing our time in the ELP and his life’s journey, part of which includes a career in marketing and advertising, he shared with me, “Design thinking is fantastic but it’s also a double edged sword.” For him, and for many, we find ourselves looking for efficiency and maximum output productivity. Once we have a process down, we want to take it to scale — problem solve, prototype, iterate, REPEAT. Get more productive, Get more efficient, take on more. ETC. Yet, when we do that, part of the spirit of the thing, the purpose of the action in the first place, begins to become less and less tangible. In my New York paced world, we call the outcome of this phenomenon: burnout.

Ronnie shared with us how in his journey into exploring Theory U and what Otto Scharmer, Julie Arts and Katie Stubley might call, Vertical Prototyping for Ecosystem Leadership, became his new way of being. He said, in the practice of it, “time became beautiful again.” The feeling was that “time became a dance” rather than seeing “time as a race.” So, what happened for Ronnie that shifted his perception of time? And, did it decrease his output?

During the third module of the ecosystem leadership program, we explored what lives at the core of Ronnie’s experience. We moved from a horizontal view on prototyping which shows up as being more linear — movement forward or along one line. The gesture that goes with it is someone pushing, pushing, pushing forward. It looks like someone pushing against the odds, pushing for output etc. The vertical aspect of ecosystem prototyping is more about tapping into our deepest sources of inspiration.

Principles of Vertical Prototyping

The Presencing Institute talks about moving down the iceberg. What we see at the top of the iceberg is always the symptom of what is going on, the reality is there is a huge amount hiding underneath the water. What lives under the water: patterns of behavior, structures, mental models and sources of inspiration. If we consider the prototypes that emerge towards the end of a U process, or as outputs in a design thinking process, we see projects, initiatives, events, products etc. What we look at in vertical prototyping is what lives underneath the projects, events, initiatives. Within the right hand side of the U as described in Otto Scharmer’s work, Theory U, we see another U to hold the vertical prototyping process.

Kelvy Bird’s Iceberg Image

Moving down the iceberg, we begin to put prototyping in a social context. Scharmer shared with us, using design thinking, in and of itself, does not actually give us what we are looking for in a social change process. It does not include the evolving story of who we are and the dimension of consciousness or source from which we are operating. We mapped this on nature as metaphor (as we do with using the word ecosystem). What we see are often the seedlings of the prototypes — these are above the water line and easy to see the outputs etc. The parts we don’t necessarily see are the seeds, soil, and as mentioned, source.

Seeds : Scharmer describes the seeds (I sometimes think of them as crystals that show up in the crystallization moment) as already existing in each of us. In some moments, Scharmer describes the seeds as being US. They are the initiation, manifestation place of the prototypes themselves. Often, the seeds will show up as a microcosm of the future — everything one needs for the full fledged prototype is inside of the seed but may not be visible yet.

: Scharmer describes the seeds (I sometimes think of them as crystals that show up in the crystallization moment) as already existing in each of us. In some moments, Scharmer describes the seeds as being US. They are the initiation, manifestation place of the prototypes themselves. Often, the seeds will show up as a microcosm of the future — everything one needs for the full fledged prototype is inside of the seed but may not be visible yet. Structures : Structures are the places we hold things like policy and funding — the flow of resources and the various aspects that allow us to flow (the riverbanks to the river). As Kelvy Bird demonstrates in the iceberg image, they are “how parts organize.”

: Structures are the places we hold things like policy and funding — the flow of resources and the various aspects that allow us to flow (the riverbanks to the river). As Kelvy Bird demonstrates in the iceberg image, they are “how parts organize.” Soil : Soil is the relational element. Stubley says, without the soil, the nature of the relationship, seeds can’t take root. Going back to the first module of the ELP, we talked quite a bit about building the container and about the depth of holding space. In a social change project, movement etc, there are multiple levels of container building: the first layer is about seeing, the second about holding and the third is about supporting. When we can see, hold and support one another, the soil has been tilled, we can root down more effectively and gather the nutrients we need to bloom. This is where you “set and activate the field.”

: Soil is the relational element. Stubley says, without the soil, the nature of the relationship, seeds can’t take root. Going back to the first module of the ELP, we talked quite a bit about building the container and about the depth of holding space. In a social change project, movement etc, there are multiple levels of container building: the first layer is about seeing, the second about holding and the third is about supporting. When we can see, hold and support one another, the soil has been tilled, we can root down more effectively and gather the nutrients we need to bloom. This is where you “set and activate the field.” Source: The place from which you and the system are operating. Referring to source is often a look at the awareness or presence from which we are acting in the world. Scharmer described tapping into source as “using open awareness capacity to source intention from eco (the whole) rather than ego. It has everything to do with openness, awareness, and presence.” Often we look at this as the source of inspiration, the sense of purpose, the place of highest potential.

The thing about vertical prototyping is that it really could be called a three dimensional prototyping. It is not just the downward motion of seeds, structure, soil and source to produce the seedlings. It also requires sun, seasons, stewards and a collective seeing. Stubley describes these aspects slightly differently than the way Scharmer shared them in the ELP module. However, at the end of the ELP, Scharmer was also restructuring his initial drawing with similar data points. Here’s what I’ve gathered (from them and my experience, so far).

Sun : The way Stubley describes the sun as the naming of the shared aspiration. She says of the word sun or sol, “We might call it different things but we know what it is… You can usually feel it in the system.” The most concrete example she shared was the way, in her work, they shifted the name of the shared aspiration from ‘managing homelessness’ to ‘ending homelessness.’ It’s somewhat similar to a collective intention but it’s almost higher than that- it’s what we know is possible. When the shared aspiration is named, often more people gravitate towards it and you find more pockets of team members rising up to address it.

: The way Stubley describes the sun as the naming of the shared aspiration. She says of the word sun or sol, “We might call it different things but we know what it is… You can usually feel it in the system.” The most concrete example she shared was the way, in her work, they shifted the name of the shared aspiration from ‘managing homelessness’ to ‘ending homelessness.’ It’s somewhat similar to a collective intention but it’s almost higher than that- it’s what we know is possible. When the shared aspiration is named, often more people gravitate towards it and you find more pockets of team members rising up to address it. Seasons : Everything in its season. Often we’ll have lots and lots of ideas, maybe even a few good ones. Sometimes it’s the right time to move them into action but more often it requires waiting for the idea to ripen and bloom at the right time. I learn this in the garden each year. The flowers are going to bloom when the season is right. One could have 4 prototypes rolling forward but it may take years for them to land and flourish.

: Everything in its season. Often we’ll have lots and lots of ideas, maybe even a few good ones. Sometimes it’s the right time to move them into action but more often it requires waiting for the idea to ripen and bloom at the right time. I learn this in the garden each year. The flowers are going to bloom when the season is right. One could have 4 prototypes rolling forward but it may take years for them to land and flourish. Stewards : the core teams. Ecosystem leaders connect the various hubs of teams that are working towards the common aspiration. Often many core teams will make themselves apparent.

: the core teams. Ecosystem leaders connect the various hubs of teams that are working towards the common aspiration. Often many core teams will make themselves apparent. Collective Seeing: There are almost two aspects to this one, which is landing on the right side of the U. It’s both the minimal viable infrastructure to let something come into fruition. You might think: what would be the least I would need to do or the lightest touch I could give it in order for it to move? Think of a parent lightly holding the baby as it learns to walk — not holding on but not completely gone either. Then also comes the self-amplification aspect. The the new story lives inside us and what we are doing is letting that come fully into fruition.

Three versions of mapping aspects of vertical prototyping

As mentioned, it can take years for the prototype to evolve to a point in which it’s ready to lift off. It may be the exact right idea at the wrong time. It might be the right time with a few missing pieces (rough soil — not enough of a network etc). It could also be that the prototype takes off and it’s right for the moment but then no longer needed after a while. Vertical prototyping is “not just about what you are doing — it’s about how you’re holding” (Stubley). Scharmer also reminds us that this process is “never ending. It’s not like I did this yesterday and now the rest is execution. It’s something I practice if not every moment, every day.”

It’s still necessary to know the ‘horizontal’ aspect of prototyping or design thinking. Having a fullness of knowledge is what allows us to act in an instant. The gesture required is almost the shape of a victory pose with a loose bend in the elbows. It’s not only about going downwards — it is a lifted, rooted continued forward movement.

Stick figure drawing of gesture overlaid on wise mother oak

It may appear to someone who hasn’t been involved that something is happening quickly. Anyone who runs an event knows it’s not just about the running of the event itself, it can take months or even years of preparation. When we move from co-creating (horizontal prototyping) to co-evolving, things can happen quite quickly but often they are evolving in their own time and at the rhythm of the ecosystem it is living within.

This version of prototyping is not about just adding on to the horizontal or linear movement forward. If one is moving something forward, these layers exist already. There are always underlying reasons, agendas or goals. The question is are those underlying ways of being or structures in service of the whole (the ecosystem) or are they in service of something else (ego)? These outcomes or outputs may seem disconnected (like eating a broccoli floret) but the truth is they are much more than they appear (the soil, structure, roots, leaves and stem of the broccoli plant). When all the parts are operating in concert, one can act in an instant. When all the pieces are not in place, flow is halted, stunted, low quality or un-sustainable.

Vertical Prototyping in Action

More than something to be written about, a phenomenon to be examined, described and taught to others, this type of vertical prototyping and co-evolution is what we need in the world now. We are facing unprecedented climate crisis (did you hear about the koalas??). Our clothing, our way of being on the planet itself, is causing the demise of our own earth home.

For the last ten years, clothing has been my entry point. It’s something we all use and yet it’s an industry destroying our planet. We know that the fashion industry is one of the largest polluters in the world. We also know that only about 8% of consumers will buy things based on their conscious awareness of sustainability — the other ~90% want guilt free consumption. We want and trust our industries to be handling the problems they are causing. On some level, we expect everyone else is doing their bit.

We no longer need to do less bad. We need to be doing good — which may mean a rethink of the whole system itself, not just an upgrade on some of the parts. In order to face the crises of our time, we need a deeper level of consciousness and a movement from ego to eco to be brought to all our actions. Over the last few years, I have come across numerous design thinking initiatives which assume we can design our way out of the problems we are facing. The truth is, without these elements of verticality, we will continue creating and producing the same results.

A dear friend Kenneth Hogg, one of the most clear, wise voices I know stems his wisdom from practice. He shared with us a key component of this type of prototyping. He asked himself (and us) what makes an ecosystem different? An ecosystem means a more subconscious connection between the parts, a more invisible connection. This is what he said:

“In a system the various component elements usually recognize they are part of a specific entity. (For example) School A gets why what is happening in School Z is relevant, or why what a pre-school facility or college is doing is also be of interest — there’s a conscious understanding of the connection. In an ecosystem often the connection exists at a more subconscious level. Take efforts to tackle child poverty, for example. The relevant parts of that ecosystem may not have a conscious appreciation of the systemic connections, such as what’s happening in education or housing or welfare or local employment systems. Of course they’re connected at an ecosystem level. As the people who are trying to bring this understanding (ecosystem leaders) you are holding something that the elements may not be holding for themselves. In ecosystem prototyping you are legitimising activity that may not otherwise be tolerated or promoted because it’s not seen to be part of the same thing. People may see it subconsciously or understand it once it’s made visible… When it’s made visible, you can see the obvious connections.”

We, as a collective, are just learning to really do this now. Systems thinking got us to a place where we could break down silos within an organization. That’s starting to happen (and could be much more widespread) with examples like EILEEN FISHER’s Vision 2020 to move towards 100% sustainability or commitments made in the BCorp movement. What’s next is ecosystem thinking — breaking down the walls. I return to New York with a renewed sense of what that means.

This coming year, 2020, an exploratory year for the Foundation I work within, we are attempting to host a sustainable fashion festival, a moment in time that may act as a container for movement forward. People have reminded me that we are not going to be about ‘boiling the ocean.’ I would venture to say, the oceans are already boiling and what we need now is the ability to address that very phenomena on a collective level. We need to link the priorities of all our work. As Gloria Steinem says, “we are linked, not ranked.” I would say this sentiment applies to us on an identity level and on a level of what is our work in the world. The hope is that we might see a blend of place based, regenerative actions across sectors which bring about positive impacts — reinventions or returns to old ways of knowing (banning single use plastic, bringing back a version of the milk bottle). In fashion, this may mean, shifting funding models, job creation and education— functions of society that may see themselves as separate but are, in fact, inextricably linked.

Scharmer closed our nine month journey together by reminding us: what we are about is civilizational renewal. It’s not something we started, or something we will complete in our lifetime but we have a key role to play in the deepening and holding of its evolution. As it pertains to my work, it means making more visible the unconscious connections and, when the season is right, in the holding and the deepening, to act, in an instant.