Developing a Narrative for Systems Change - Workshop

Quick Overview

The workshop focuses on developing a coherent and compelling narrative for systems change using the SI narrative building canvas, which integrates elements of the classic Hero's Journey with a systemic framework covering context, challenges, transition, and vision.

Key Points: The session uses the SI narrative building canvas to structure storytelling for systems change, which involves understanding basic narrative structure and compelling an audience toward action. Stories are foundational for systems change because they provide a direct route to emotions, create meaning out of patterns, cohere communities, and engender empathy across differences. The canvas framework integrates the Hero's Journey structure (character facing a challenge with a guide) with a system-level view featuring four stages: Context, Challenge, Transition, and Vision. A key tip for narrative crafting is to focus on the audience's problems first, rather than immediately presenting the solution, and to invite others to be part of the story where the creator acts as the guide. The canvas requires considering two levels: the broader system transition and the personal transition of an actor/persona, as illustrated by the example narrative crafted for the SI network itself. Participants in breakout rooms applied the canvas to challenges like the protein transition and food poverty, noting its usefulness for collective sense-making and planning transformation projects. The video emphasizes that stories are intangible and nearly costless, making them an incredibly powerful vehicle to scale change, requiring a "shift in mindset" over minimal finance to start.

Context: This transcript captures an interactive workshop led by members of the wires team from the London hub, including Jos, who leads the Systems Innovation Network (SI), focusing on how to develop effective narratives specifically for driving systems change. The session begins with an introductory video explaining the importance of stories in shaping understanding and justifying institutions, followed by a walkthrough of the SI narrative building canvas which participants will use in breakout rooms to practice constructing these change narratives.