We take an unconventional approach to systemic change
We help teams of diverse leaders from across a whole system—be it an organisation, a sector, or a society—work together to unlock the potential of their system. With our support, these teams create three types of outcomes:
Collaborative alliances: stakeholders shift from being unwilling or unable to work together, to building their capacity to work together across differences.
Systemic insights: stakeholders shift from seeing and understanding only part of what is going on, to broadening and deepening their understanding of what is happening and could happen.
Transformative actions: stakeholders shift from acting in a way that keep things the way they are, to acting—separately and together—to change what is happening.
1. Starting point
A diverse coalition of leaders thinks that their situation is unacceptable or unsustainable and that it cannot be transformed unilaterally, directly, or immediately
2. What is needed
Whole-system team
Experienced guides
Strong container
Requisite resources
Generative approach
3. Methods
- Events
- Processes
- Platforms
4. What is produced
Relationships
Insights
Capacities
Commitments
Initiatives
5. What emerges
The situation has been transformed through new alliances, narratives,
approaches, policies, and/or institutions
Success requires five ingredients
A whole-system team. The first prerequisite is a team of influential, insightful actors representative of the system’s many facets.
Skilled guides. Collaboration on problems characterized by overwhelming complexity, confusion, and conflict requires expert facilitation.
A strong container. In order to experiment with new ways of talking and acting, the team needs a structured space to do their work that is suitably set up.
The right resources. Social, human, and financial resources must be available at a scale that matches the scale of the challenge.
A generative approach. A creative, experimental method that engages team members’ whole selves—head, heart, and hands—enables breakthrough results.
Diversity is the solution, not the problem
All of our projects bring together stakeholders from across a whole system. Politicians, business people, community leaders, activists, police, journalists, artists, researchers, clergy, trade unionists, young people . . . Diversity may feel like the problem, but it is at the heart of problem solving. Progress results from skillfully engaging people with different perspectives and interests to collaborate on shared concerns.
Work at multiple scales
Reos Partners works at multiple scales: events of a few days, processes of several months, and platforms that operate for years. A single event can spark new relationships and insights, while a long-term platform can enable new capacities and initiatives—and ultimately, systemic transformation.
Proven ways to collaborate and learn
Reos Partners takes a custom approach to every situation. But we often employ a combination of two tested approaches: transformative scenarios processes and social labs. We also offer training and coaching to build the capacities and skills that enable enduring systems change.
Sometimes what stakeholders need to do is to meet and talk in a structured and creative way, in order to understand better what is happening, what is possible, and what they can do about it. In these cases we facilitate a transformative scenarios process, through which participants create collaborative alliances and systemic insights. We have led such processes to address issues related to democracy, drugs, education, food, forestry, governance, health, land, peace, and security.
In other situations, what stakeholders need to do is to go further, and not only think together but also act together, in order to change what is happening. In these cases we construct social labs, in which participants create collaborative alliances, systemic insights, and transformative actions. We have built and operated such platforms to address issues related to child nutrition and child protection, education, electricity, energy, gender-based violence, inclusive insurance, health, oceans, open contracting, sustainable fashion, sustainable food, and water.