Practical Guide to System Change:
tips, tales and tools for aspiring change agents
Everyone has the power to make change happen!
Golden Key was a partnership committed to making systemic change happen; improving the lives of people facing multiple disadvantages.
This resource was developed by the Golden Key programme. It explores learning from across Golden Key’s community of individuals, teams, groups and organisations who have taken action on system change; it broadly outlines some of the common themes and approaches within this work.
It was not designed to be read in any particular order; pick and choose the bits that feel most useful to you. You don’t have to have any specialist knowledge or experience of system change to use this resource. However, if you would like to get a grounding or refresh your understanding of systems thinking theory why not try this free Introduction to Systems Learning online course from the Schumacher Institute.
We held the belief that everyone has the power to make change happen and anyone who is motivated to create change can. We hope that this guide will help you in your system change journey.
Benefits:
Based on learning from individuals, teams, groups and organisations across the Golden key partnership who have taken action on system change
Split into thematic areas for easy navigation
Written in easy to understand short chapters with worksheets to help you put theory into action
Designed with standalone chapters so you can pick and choose the bits that feel most useful to you
“Systems Thinking has given me the space and permission to gently challenge any blocks that I come across both professionally and personally. To ask ‘why does it have to be that way, why can't we try another way?’ It’s definitely given me so much confidence in my thinking and my approach to any challenges or uncomfortable situations.”
— System Change Champion
Download the Practical Guide to System Change
Our Practical Guide to System Change is free to download.
Download the Action experiment cycle
Our action experiment cycle is free to download.