It starts with an understanding of our current reality by identifying existing outcomes and structures. Then, the ToDC guides a reflection to find the underlying assumptions that support the current system, while envisioning a more desirable future and how these assumptions can be altered to achieve it. Finally, the theory encourages determining changes at multiple levels that can be made to fundamentally transform the current system into the desired one, recognizing that the deeper change is often more effective.
Theory of Deep Change
The Theory of Deep Change (ToDC) is a comprehensive framework for how to make deep, systemic changes in our societies.
The Theory of Deep Change separates the systems we study into four levels: outcomes, structures, goals and assumptions. If we think of these systems like a tree, the outcomes are the fruit of the tree, borne by the trunk as the structure of the system that provides all the physical support necessary to maintain the tree. The goals are the roots of the tree, which feed the structural trunk and give the system life. The assumptions are like the nutrients in the soil that are taken up by the roots and ultimately determine how healthy the tree, in this case, the system, can be. In keeping with the metaphor, rotten roots will produce rotten fruits.
Theory of Deep Change
Current Reality
Future Vision
Outcomes
Current outcomes are the visible events, behaviours and actions that we exhibit, observe and experience in our daily lives. They are symptoms of the way the current system functions, the rotten fruit that the tree produces.
Structures
Current structures are the mechanisms (such as infrastructure, governments, or cultural norms) that produce the current outcomes and allow them to persist.
Goals
Current goals form the purpose of our everyday actions. Though we are often unconscious of them, they influence the adverse or risky outcomes we experience.
Assumptions
Current assumptions are the shared, collective ideas in a society and the deepest beliefs about how the world works, which guide our behaviours.
Assumptions
New assumptions are those shared, collective ideas that we can adopt (through inner levers) to create different ways of seeing the world and guide new behaviors.
Goals
New goals form the desired purpose of our everyday actions, envisioned to influence our societies towards a safer, more sustainable and just future.
Structures
New structures are the mechanisms (such as infrastructure, governments, or cultural norms) we create (through outer levers) that bring our new goals into practice and influence our desired outcomes.
Outcomes
New outcomes are the visible events, behaviours and actions that we exhibit, observe and experience in our daily lives that resulted from the changed system; expressing new visions of what is possible.
Recognizing this, we can critically reflect on the present state of environmental change: our current systems create outcomes that hardly anyone desires, but by imagining a future with better outcomes, we can create radical change. As depicted in the ToDC framework, if we see that our current underlying goals and assumptions are producing negative outcomes that increase risk, to create fundamentally different outcomes and achieve a future vision, we need to start change at the roots.
The good news is that since the rules and functioning of our communities are socially constructed, they are entirely changeable – nothing is set in stone. Truly lasting, transformative change, comes from changing the underlying goals of the system by adopting new assumptions – better roots – and building new structures to produce more desirable outcomes – better fruits. In order to bring about the new assumptions and structures necessary to create a future vision, we conceptualized two entry points for change: inner and outer levers.
