Social Innovation and Resilience

Frances Westley Waterloo Institute of Social Innovation and Resilience

In this presentation I will…

!   Define key terms

!   Look at resilience as a property linked to adaptive capacity (represented in the adaptive cycle)

!   Look at resilience as something one wants to build indirectly through a pattern of invention for adaptation

!   Look at resilience as something one wants to reduce indirectly or directly through a pattern of innovation for transformation

!   Close with some questions for discussion

Some definitions

!   Resilience: the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks” (Walker et al. 2004; Folke et al. 2010).

! Resilience is about neither persistence nor change but about balancing and integrating both in an adaptive cycle

Routine Change (Persistence)

Growth r

Conservation K

Adaptation/Transformation Release Ω

Backloop

Reorganization α

Steve Carpenter,

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Stored

Released Variety Sameness

The birth, growth, destruction and renewal of a forest

Weak CONNECTEDNESS Strong

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Creative Destruction

1

The birth, growth, destruction and renewal of a forest

Weak CONNECTEDNESS Strong

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Release or Creative Destruction

1

2

Renewal/Exploration

The birth, growth, destruction and renewal of a forest

Weak CONNECTEDNESS Strong

Exploitation

3

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The birth, growth, destruction and renewal of a forest

Weak CONNECTEDNESS Strong

Exploitation

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Conservation 4

Resilience and basins of attraction

In comes agency….

!   Adaptability: the capacity of individuals within the system to maintain or manage its resilience through continuous invention and adjustments

! Transformability: the capacity to create untried beginnings from which to evolve a fundamentally new way of living when existing ecological, economic, and social conditions make the current system untenable (social innovation).

In comes innovation….

!   Social Inventions: any product, process, design, program or initiative designed to assist vulnerable populations or those serving them to adapt more affectively to social or ecological circumstances

!   Social Innovation: any product, process, design , program or initiative that profoundly changes the defining routines and laws, resource and authority flows, cultural beliefs and practices of a given social system. Social innovations transform intractable problem domains.

The adaptive cycle and invention/innovation?

An idea is born

The idea is developed

The idea is launched as a product, process or organization

An “established” innovation

Release or “Creative Destruction”

The psychosocial space called release or “creative destruction”

!   Key pressures - sensemaking and reconfiguration of resources

!   Associated changes -

!   Breakdown of trust, networks and meanings !   Confusion, lack of clarity, lack of direction !   Pirating ideas and resources; introduction of novelty !   People: those who thrive on crisis, on new beginnings are

happy here – others may be depressed or in mourning

Reorganization or exploration

The psychosocial space called reorganization or “exploration”

!   Key pressures: resource (funds, time, energy, attention, skill) availability - low connectivity - time pressure

!   Associated changes: !   multiple “random walks”, experiments, initiatives which

lead to little in the way of measurable outcomes !   people who learn by doing are happy here, others may feel

increasingly anxious about waste of time or directionless !   reflection moving to experimentation, lots of false starts and

sometimes frustration and mounting anxiety about inputs/output ratios

exploitation

The psychosocial space called “exploitation”

!   Key pressure- demand for delivery and productivity

!   Associated changes- !   The dynamic of start-up - high excitement as the

initiative takes form. Communication is still highly personal, roles flexible, integration through mutual adjustment.

!   With success and time, there is increasing need for organizing systems (communication, control, accounting), job definition and regulation.

!   Team-builders and the action oriented come into their own. Conceptualizers may feel a little uncomfortable.

conservation

The Psycho-social space called “conservation”

!   Key pressures - standardization of rules and procedures; demand for product

!   Associated changes !   A time of measurable returns and performance !   Increased demands for reliability and productivity !   Increased reliance on systems for monitoring and

rewarding efficiency !   Good management prevails- visionaries step aside or

move on?

Use of the adaptive cycle in change making

!   Where are you as an individual most comfortable? Least comfortable?

!   Organizational assessment: Which phase is each of organization/program? What does the combined picture say about where is in the adaptive cycle?

!   To what extent does the pattern of activities in any program area support the resilience of the broader system?

But what about the broader societal outcomes you are seeking: Adaptation or Transformation?

Crossing scales

Fig. 2

Resilience suggest the role of opportunity and of agency

2. Political

3 Cultural

1.

Economi

c

A. Institutional landscape

D. Scaling Up -Institutional Entrepreneurs

E. Scaling Out/Social entrepreneurs

National level

Can Plan be disseminated??

Institutional level

Changing the definition of citzenship

Organizational level

Success brings many demands

Individual level

Fatigue and questioning

Thinking like a movement: The PLAN Case

Resilience

1.Reducing the resilience of dominant regime

3. nibbling at the system to create a

window of opportunity

2. Building the

resilience of the

innovative alternative

Use of concepts of adaptation, transformation and cross scale interactions in strategic grant

making

!   Is the goal of the program to build the resilience of the system through building adaptive capacity ?

•  Or

!   Is the goal of the program to reduce the resilience of the focal system through building capacity for social innovation?

What is your goal? To maintain the resilience of the current system by adaptation?

!   Treat the “institutional” or environmental landscape as a given

!   Focus on the problem regime level

!   Look for opportunities to introduce new (inventive) programs , processes, initiatives that address the needs of the most vulnerable and builds the resilience of the whole

!   Social entrepreneurs key as providers of these inventive approaches

!   Re-engaging the voice of the vulnerable provides the diversity needed for invention

To transform the current systems

!   Treat the “institutional” or environmental landscape as mutable and needing change

!   Concentrate on connecting good ideas at the level of innovation niches to windows of opportunity at institutional scales and connecting the two.

!   Social entrepreneurs and institutional entrepreneurs are vital

!   Build the capacity for institutional entrepreneurship: system thinking, pattern recognition, networking, advocacy, brokering partnerships, selling ideas, building vertical social capital etc.