# Developing a Narrative for Systems Change - Workshop Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA1BwdI1P3E Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/rA1BwdI1P3E Generated: 2025-12-18T17:09:39.529+00:00 --- ## 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. ## Detailed Analysis The workshop aims to teach participants how to develop compelling narratives for systems change using the SI narrative building canvas, which combines principles of storytelling with systemic analysis. The introductory video established that stories build shared understanding, legitimize institutions, and that changing the future requires telling different, coherent, and aspirational stories about new possibilities. The speaker detailed that system change narratives must address the ontology (sense-making), axiology (values), and teleology (direction) of a community. The canvas itself is structured around four stages—Context, Challenge, Transition, and Vision—applied simultaneously to the macro system and a micro persona/character, integrating the classical Hero's Journey structure where the audience becomes the hero and the narrative creator acts as the guide. Key advice included focusing on the audience's problems before solutions, dramatizing what matters through specific details, and ensuring the narrative allows others to see themselves as part of the change. During the interactive portion, groups applied the canvas to topics like the protein transition and food poverty, reporting that the tool was useful for achieving collective construction and clarifying plans, although time constraints limited deep exploration. ### Workshop Structure and Goals - Walkthrough of the SI narrative building canvas - Interactive work in breakout rooms - Discussion and wrap-up - Audience interests include building narratives with stakeholders and communicating complex issues. ### The Power of Narrative in Systems Change - Stories shape our world and can bring down or prop up systems - Narratives create coherence, engender empathy, and make possibilities feel probable - Old stories are incomplete in the Anthropocene, leading to overwhelm and a lack of direction. ### Storytelling Frameworks - Classical framework is the Hero's Journey (ordinary world, call to adventure, guide, special world, return with superpowers) - The canvas integrates this personal journey with a system-level framework of Context, Challenge, Transition, and Vision. ### Tips for Crafting System Change Narratives - Talk about the audience's problems first, not just the solution - Invite others to be part of the story, positioning yourself as the guide, not the hero - Dramatize the situation by focusing on and accentuating the details that matter. ### The SI Narrative Canvas Explained - Stage 1 (Context) sets the scene for the system and the persona's ordinary life - Stage 2 (Challenge) outlines threats, risks, and opportunities for both system and persona - Stage 3 (Transition) introduces new ways of working/thinking with the guide's help - Stage 4 (Vision) describes the realized future state for both levels, followed by a call to action. ### Breakout Session Feedback - Room 1 found the canvas useful for openly discussing a transformation project in fundraising - Room 2 worked on the protein transition and noted the value of collective conclusion reaching - Room 3 from disparate locations (Mongolia to Belgium) used the canvas to align on micro-challenges related to neoliberal municipal spending and its impact on youth. ### Key Takeaway on Engagement - A major learning is that people do not buy into a vision if they do not see how it addresses a problem they personally have; the story must connect to individual challenges to drive action.