The two key aims WPI identified at this point as necessary to pursue were therefore:
- How can we establish WPI to better connect knowledge with impact?
- How can WPI generate a framework or overarching architecture to coordinate and empower private sector social change actors to better serve the problem?
Aim 1
Regarding the first aim, WPI believed that a potential way ahead was to build an all-encompassing body that would operate at the nexus of a think tank, incubator, and consultancy. This hybrid body would coordinate and integrate interdisciplinary understanding on the problem and then use this knowledge to guide, facilitate or empower implementation entities (e.g. social enterprises) in order to more effectively implement action against the problem. By integrating the full spectrum of processes – from the knowledge-generation through to the implementation – in one networked, collaborative process, more potent change would be enabled.
Some of the thinking at this point was that this aim might be pursued through a combination of network leadership and crowdstorming. Here, WPI would establish a knowledge with WPI as a central node. Through crowdstorming, WPI could reach out to the various sources of expertise in the network in order to integrate and shape the extant knowledge so that it could then be assimilated with the implementation entities.
Aim 2
Regarding the guiding framework that would better coordinate and channel the efforts of private sector social change actors, WPI believed that promoting a ‘modular agenda’ was a potentially promising path forward. Here, the various problem spaces/modules (for instance, regarding the wicked problem of forced migration, these would include refugee-host community integration challenges, protection gaps, etc.) that constitute the overall wicked problem would be delineated, and the interdisciplinary knowledge base necessary to understand and respond to the factors driving these problem spaces would be generated and promoted. By coordinating multiple ‘micro efforts’ (e.g. individual social enterprises) within their relevant modules to pursue their efforts according to a more cohesive, informed understanding, more effective change against these building blocks would build up over time to represent greater change against the overall wicked problem.
A further key issue this overarching framework would aim to ameliorate is the bounded rationality that naturally afflicts individual initiatives in the social change field. As Donella Meadows, one of the most celebrated systems thinkers, outlines:
“Change comes first from stepping outside the limited information that can be seen from any single place in the system and getting an overview. From a wider perspective, information flows, goals, incentives, and disincentives can be restructured so that separate, bounded, rational actions do add up to results that everyone desires. It’s amazing how quickly and easily behavior changes can come, with even slight enlargement of bounded rationality, by providing better, more complete, timelier information.
The bounded rationality of each actor in a system—determined by the information, incentives, disincentives, goals, stresses, and constraints impinging on that actor—may or may not lead to decisions that further the welfare of the system as a whole. If they do not, putting new actors into the same system will not improve the system’s performance. What makes a difference is redesigning the system to improve the information, incentives, disincentives, goals, stresses, and constraints that have an effect on specific actors.” – Donella Meadows
The motivation for this framework approach and coordinating architecture came from WPI’s belief that a new paradigm needed to be added to the field of social change. So often when thinking of social change, the immediate thought is to look for a new addition, like a new social enterprise, to try and achieve progress. New initiatives like these are a crucial element. However, progress and increased performance is often served not by solely focussing on adding something extra, but by getting rid of existing inefficiencies and practices that are hampering the system.
Constantly adding new elements without focussing on improving the function of the system isn’t serving the field of social change in an optimal way. Many answers are already out there, and much knowledge is currently lying unused. Accordingly, for WPI, the imperative seemed to be how could we better use and improve what already exists. By improving the system and enabling a more structured approach, with one possible aspect of this being through implementing the above modular structure, existing actors would be more empowered and new additions would be better able to serve the larger goal.