Scaling Deep, focused on relationships, context, connections, collective learning, individual healing, and new centers of power, can transform the social and environmental change sector in ways that traditional concepts of scale notably as hurried growth based on quantifiable outcomes cannot.
In business, to “scale” means to become larger, to grow. Scaling has been adapted to the social and environmental sectors in the concepts of scaling up (influencing policy) and scaling out (spreading business models). The focus on scaling up and scaling out has shunted aside a different type of scaling the transformational act of Scaling Deep.
Scaling Deep is intended to shift the mindset of organizations from traditional and outdated ways of doing things based on dominance, hierarchy, and harmful systems to new ways of being and doing built on relationships, collaboration, and innovation. This requires transformational work at both the personal level and the broad cultural level. It requires a shift in the way people and organizations lead, organize, manage, and measure success.
After years of formal and informal research, systemic chan,, get, and social entrepreneurship consultancies The Systems Sanctuary and Ashoka Canada sought a better understanding of how practitioners applied the Scaling Deep paradigm. The partnership’s researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 25 leaders from around the world, located in different systems and regions including Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, as well as Indigenous lands. The interviewees included academics, social entrepreneurs, leaders in large and small organizations and other coalition builders and systems change leaders.
Scaling Deep contrasts with traditional scaling in that the focus is on slowing down andgetting betterr at t what one does already rather than measuring success by growth and more growth. Another slowing-down facet of Scaling Deep is the orientation towards emergence and long-term perspective that is, to take the time to let change emerge from the new Scaling Deep mindset and approaches.
The following Scaling Deep strategies, and the practices or methods to implement those strategies, are drawn from the experiences of the participants:
Create the conditions for healing. This strategy focuses on personal healing and transformation. It is a strengths-based approach, based on personal reflection and empathy, and thinking of one’s heart and one’s spirit in the work. As it is rooted in human experience, inner reflection, and even the spiritual element, Scaling Deep can be difficult to measure.
Implement connection-based practices. Fundamental to organization-level Scaling Deep is the recognition of the holistic and interconnected nature of systems. This requires appreciating different contexts cultural, regional, and community, and working across differences including intergenerational work. It also recognizes not just human-centered relationships but relationships with the earth and the non-human.
Work in emergence. Scaling Deep rejects linear, unidimensional ways of working through tasks and projects iffavorf continuous iteration, adaption, and non-linear and multidimensional work. Learning from history and taking the long view are fundamental practices that support emergence. An emergence approach leads to durable change cascading down through the organization.
Encourage and enable collective learning. Focusing on knowledge exchange, education, training, reflection, and experiential learning all reinforce collective learning capabilities, leading to collective intelligence and informed action.
Shift power. Scaling Deep fosters new and multiple power centers of gravity, leading to new collaborations and alignments. Disrupting the status quo and decentralizing dominant power structures leads to alternative approaches and perspectives outside the dominant cultures and systems.
Shift patterns and engage in fundamental reframes. To achieve broad cultural change based on not just care but also love, and to validate the vital role of relationships requires new habits and routines that move past hierarchical leadership and management structures.
Shift narratives. Stories are important levers of transformational change. Scaling Deep calls for new narratives that offer new visions and perspectives. These new narratives don’t have to travel through the hierarchy: stories that shine the light on non-dominant perspectives and engage creativity and the arts have an immediate reach.
For the participants interviewed, Scaling Deep had the highest potential to create profound, transformative, and enduring change through the encouragement of new mindsets, ways of working, and perceptions. Scaling Deep engenders not just a shift in practices but a shift in values and culture, emphasizing the need for healthy ecosystems based on such elements as collective intelligence, dispersed power, and care and love as central ethics.
However, practitioners have found some barriers that must be overcome including deeply ingrained biases, assumptions, and beliefs; funding constraints due to the emerging, long-term, cultural nature of Scaling Deep; belief in a business mindset that is transactional, short-term, and based on measurable outcomes; business metrics that encourage scaling up, large numbers, and broad impact; and an emphasis on speed that is the opposite of the Scaling Deep’s slowing down mindset. These barriers highlight the challenge of Scaling Deep, but also its potential transformational impact.
Tatiana Fraser’s profile at LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatiana-fraser-1779a625/?originalSubdomain=ca
The Systems Sanctuary website
Ashoka Canada website
The Art of Scaling Deep: Research and Summary. Tatiana Fraser. Research report from The Systems Sanctuary (September 2023).
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