To influence a system, empower stakeholders and create shared value.
Wicked problems persist because multiple forces across the different dimensions of society perpetuate them. To solve a wicked problem, a Grand Challenge must summon forces that can bring about a better outcome. It must activate a beneficial ecosystem.
I draw on the work of Erich Joachimsthaler, author of The Interaction Field: The Revolutionary New Way to Create Shared Value for Businesses, Customers, and Society.
We’ll look at this through the lens of a Grand Challenge I am currently engaged in with the Huntsman Mental Health Institute (HMHI) so we have a concrete, real-life reference point. The goal is the elimination of the stigma surrounding mental health and substance use disorder on a national scale over the next two decades.
We know from research that stigma exists on three basic levels:
- structural including laws, regulations, and policies, i.e., why does a 55-year-old woman in Utah have to get her doctor’s certification that she is fit to drive after a diagnosis of postnatal depression at age 25?;
- public including attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of individuals and groups, such as common portrayals of characters with substance use disorder in shows on streaming platforms as untrustworthy, disreputable, or filthy druggies; and
- individual self-stigma, or internalized negative stereotypes, as in, “I over consume alcohol so I must be a bad person.”
As we build our Grand Challenge to focus on these areas, it becomes clear that many players need to be involved. First to come to mind are those with the clearest roles in the ecosystem of mental health: care providers, medical experts, and well-known nongovernmental organizations like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention or the National Alliance on Mental Illness. We need them in order to succeed.
Active Participation Is the Goal
To influence the nature of the systems that hold stigma in place, we will also need to engage faith communities, advocacy groups and NGOs, community leaders, and trusted influencers. Beyond that, we need the participation of government at all levels and businesses large and small that work in the mental health sphere—the entities with the ability to address policies and deliver mental health to the workplaces of America, OSHA, and even the US military. And then there are the large professional societies like the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Society for Human Resource Management. These are all players in the ecosystem. How will we activate them in alignment with our common agenda?
The answer isn’t “command and control.” Most of the partners are already engaged in valuable initiatives to eliminate stigma. If the Grand Challenge backbone organization, HMHI, were to ask everyone to get behind that organization while it also leads the parade, the partners would resist suddenly being asked to be part of someone else’s initiative. The answer isn’t “ hub-and-spoke” either, HMHI being the hub. That would require these partner organizations to go through HMHI to get anything done, making HMHI a bottleneck. Again, this would undercut the effectiveness of the work.
Instead, HMHI is building an empowered network of organizations and activists and supporting them to find synergies with each other. This includes brokering relationships (eg, one organization wants to provide anti-stigma training to its staff and a consultants who is a subject matter expert provides that type of training). Faith communities and media organizations can work with trusted influencers without having to clear it with the HMHI. (In Spring 2024, 11 professional sports leagues–from the NFL to the NBA to the National Tennis Association–announced they would make resources and players available to collaborate on developing Public Service Announcements for social media, television, and other venues as just one avenue of collaboration.) The American Psychiatric Association can reach more mental health care providers and patients, without HMHI overseeing how they do that. The result is a fruitful ecosystem capable of supporting a myriad of activities generating national momentum towards the common agenda.
In fact, one of the hallmarks of successful Grand Challenges comes exactly when member entities begin generating alliances, programs, and content independently of the mothership, in this case HMHI. For example, The American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, which have historically been competitors, are working together very effectively on stopping stigma.
How to Activate an Ecosystem
Organizations and individuals in an ecosystem will go through walls for your Grand Challenge IF they feel they are engaged in meaningful reciprocity that generates value. Meaningful interactions occur in a Grand Challenge when they achieve progress for both the common agenda and partners’ own organizational missions. Reciprocity means that actors in the system are both giving and taking with each other’s best interests in mind. And value is about delivering a benefit that participants actually want, find compelling, and feel is worth the investment they are making.
To activate an ecosystem, help its actors see synergies among them that support the common agenda. Next, start building the infrastructure that will make it easier for them to find each other and identify synergies on their own. This might include communication channels, financial and other resources, and common measures that everyone can use to determine if they are succeeding both individually and together. Each of these—communications, financial strategies, and measurement—are among the working groups that come out of the Collective Impact model.
For example, to support more effective communications the online community, SST.community, which is open to anyone who wants to fight stigma, was launched in June. (Consider joining yourself!) Now collaborators can instantly find each other and partner without having to go through HMHI. Financial strategies are actively being shared among members, previously unheard of! And we are developing Do It Yourself metrics that can work with the national metrics to show overall impact.
Conclusion
Most importantly, the leaders across the ecosystem’s actors must share an equal commitment to the common agenda. That commitment opens doors to the relationships and resources all the organizations and individuals need to contribute. It fortifies the interdependence of relationships. It underscores the expectation for action without waiting for approval by a central authority. A beneficial ecosystem can affect even the wickedest problem.
Solving social problems is inherently SOCIAL-it happens in community. I’m looking for researchers, academicians, and those on the front lines who are battling overwhelming issues. The community will include leaders in all aspects of society: nonprofits, corporations, government agencies, independent agents, and thought leaders.
If you’re passionate about Grand Challenges or would like to be, visit my Medium account, where I am publishing on Grand Challenges. Let’s work together to address these sticky, systemic, complex, and wicked issues once and for all, for the sake of future generations of life on Earth.
Do you want to know more?
Email me – seth@visionaryleadership.com.
