Some ways to discern:
- activity: practice vs. production
- approach: practice-based vs. results-based
- field: community of practice vs. institution
Practice-based approaches to systems change focus on the continuous development of practices, relationships, and capacities that enable the system to evolve over time. This approach emphasizes learning, iteration, adaptation, and ongoing engagement. It is less about achieving specific, predefined outcomes and more about creating the conditions for sustained, long-term change.
Key Characteristics
A practice-based approach to systems change emphasizes the importance of process, continuous learning, and ongoing engagement with the system. It values experimentation, iteration, and reflection as essential components of growth and adaptation. This approach focuses on building capacities, fostering relationships, and developing collective practices, seeing systems change as an emergent and evolving process rather than something that follows a linear or predictable path. Success is evaluated not by whether specific, predefined outcomes are achieved, but by the quality of the practices and capacities that have been developed over time.
Relevant Literature
- Peter Senge’s “The Fifth Discipline” (1990) discusses the importance of learning organizations, where systems change comes through the development of new mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.
- Donella Meadows’ work on Leverage Points emphasizes that the deep and systemic changes are often made by altering the structures of information, relationships, and practices that govern a system, rather than targeting specific outcomes.
- David Snowden’s Cynefin Framework: The Cynefin framework emphasizes the value of practice-based approaches in complex systems, where solutions emerge from iterative experiments and learning rather than being designed with a results-oriented mindset.
Comparison of Practice-Based and Results-Based Approaches
| Aspect | Practice-Based Approach | Results-Based Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Ongoing learning, practice, relationships | Predefined, measurable outcomes |
| Evaluation | Developmental, iterative, reflective | Metrics-based, goal-oriented |
| Change Process | Emergent, non-linear, co-creative | Linear, goal-driven, target-oriented |
| Complexity Handling | Adapts to complexity, uncertainty, and emergence | Simplifies complexity into measurable targets |
| Examples of Methods | Developmental evaluation, systems thinking, action learning | Logical frameworks, Theory of Change, logframes, RBA |
| Application Context | Complex systems, social innovation, place-based or regenerative work | International development, public policy, philanthropy |
Practicing a practice
An extract…
Why are we choosing to explore practice? Because we need to find ways to understand our participation. If there is something paradigmatically different in Regeneration, it is the reunion of human species with the greater integrity we are living in. There are for sure different ways to do this, but as mentioned before, we are attempting to come closer to life (and the way we intervene in it), and we must become more conscious about our participation in order to stretch our understanding and ways of acting. If we are about to look into practice we find it relevant to consider Alasdair’s McIntyres understanding in his book After Virtue:
“By a practice I am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity…” (MacIntyre, 1985, p.186)
The first thing that stands out in his definition is the fact that a practice is a form of activity, so there is a doing involved in it, and as we can discover in the work of the craftsman and in any other (architecture, farming, medicine, chess), we have socially established what these practices look like; we have formed an understanding of ‘what it is’. He also gives a high relevance to the goods that are internal to that activity, this means “…those which cannot be had in any way but by playing chess, or some other game of that specific kind”, that shouldn’t be confused with those external (prestige, status, money) that can be achieved in different ways, not necessarily to a particular practice.
There are standards of excellence, says McIntyre, that are particular to every human activity, they are even constitutive to that particular practice. There is a “way of doing things”, we recognize other practitioners through the recognition of particular knowledge, approaches and methodologies (or tools) used. The way we do things becomes something relevant then, not only because it speaks into the standards we pursue, but also because the variation of our approaches and practices can push the borders of a practice into new fields of exploration. As an example, imagine when machinery was introduced into farming, and all its new (and some unexpected) different impacts. Practice is something dynamic, that shapes how things are being done, and is also being shaped by those who engage in such activities (that’s why it becomes so important to move from a practice to a Practice). Over time there are new tools, new frameworks, new approaches and of course new experiences (owns and others). We are not alone, many others are dealing with similar situations and questions, stretching their own concepts and ways of dealing with challenges.
As we said before, Regeneration as a realm of human thinking and acting has found many expressions in different activity clusters (agriculture, business, economy). When we listen to the word Regeneration, a word that has now become visibly repeated and focused for some people as “the next step of sustainability”, we usually tend to think about the green. We mean that sometimes it is easier to find examples of our actions in the so called “natural world” (conservation, ecosystem restoration, agroecology and organic farming), since we are capable of experiencing the movement of life through our direct participation, through our eyes and hands. Social organisms that are also alive and therefore demand a different way of understanding and intervening, like those of the natural world, ways that enable that community or impulse to thrive by their own capacity to guide themselves through their own challenges.
In every practice well recognized and shared there is a thriving, an attempt to reach out into the world, as McIntyre points out, looking for those standards of excellence. On the way there is also the coining of the inner goods that are particular to that kind of practice. For gardeners their inner life emerging through practice is completely different than the one experienced by a writer, a runner, or a craftsman. There are nuances in the activities, in the reflections and especially in the way they relate to the “outer world”. A Practice (when we use a capital P it is because we are pointing to those who have been observed and recognized by its practitioners), offers a real possibility to dive into our very particular way of meeting the world. In the end it is through our expressions in the world that we build ourselves, hopefully doing what we love, hopefully being aware of how the world speaks back to us, inviting us to move on into ourselves at the same time we move more fully into the world.
It is not strange to find people who have already walked a long journey inside a Practice, speaking from another kind of grounding, with a sense of blurred division lines between knowledge acquired “outside” and the one built from within. It is a powerful thing to hear someone living the Practice they embody, they are not separated entities, practices live through human beings, they shape and are being shaped by them. Ask yourself about the way you touch the world, the kind of activities you carry on, how you express yourself through it, you might find yourself everywhere. Craftsmen do not only build something out of wood (that could be the outcome), they immerse themselves into a creative process where they give themselves fully, and in that surrender, they also shape their own muscle, their own tools and frameworks. Practicing a Practice is about our own life, and our own expression into the world, like the wildflower offers itself full to the mystery of which it is part of. It is about meaning and purpose, but it is also about action. How can we engage with ourselves, others and the world in such a way that we bring forth a world conducive of life? How do we create spaces that promote the flourishing of our human capacities? How can we deepen and strengthen a practice in these indelicate times?
Regeneration is the essential self-organization of life.
Fritjof Capra (2023)