How a Garden Can Teach a Lesson About Systems Change
This summer my family and I took a trip to one of my favorite beaches, St. George Island in Florida. It was part annual corporate meeting and part family vacation.
Luckily for us and the island (not so much where it did hit), the recent hurricane tracked east and so the beach was relatively seaweed free and after a few days, the waves were calm.
I did some work, some planning, and played with the grans.
Then I came home to this.
GIANT okra.
Apologies to anyone not familiar with or who hates okra. I love it. (If you hate it because you think it’s slimy, you aren’t cooking it right).
Here is the thing about okra. You check it one day and its 2 inches long. You check it the next day, and it’s a foot long. Overgrown okra is hard, inedible. And that is what I came home to. Two bowls of inedible, giant okra.
I had forgotten to ask someone to tend the garden. I am admittedly a lazy gardener. I would much rather shove things in the ground and miraculously a beautiful fruitful garden will appear. But alas, that is not how it works.
Prep the soil, grow seedlings or plan seeds, fertilize, water, pull weeds, treat or deal with nasty bugs, fight the fungus, pick the bounty, and on and on and on……………..
The garden is a system. Neglect any part of it and things go sideways. Hence, my gigantic, inedible okra.
When I am out in communities talking to community coalition leaders about systems change, I often get blank stares. It’s a hard concept, and metaphors, like my garden example help a lot.
Systems change is not a new program, a definition I hear a lot. I mean, it could be, but just because it’s new doesn’t mean it will change anything in the system or help families in the long run. A feeding program, a backpack program, a tutoring program, a financial literacy program, mental health therapy is all great, and maybe, needed. But none of them alone will address the underlying issues needed to lift people out of poverty.
The garden you and I work in every day is a complex system and requires complex solutions.
What is your definition of systems change? Check out this excerpt from a group of Canadian leaders.
Here are a few questions for you. Is your initiative:
“Shifting, Changing, Transforming?”
Addressing root causes and working with multiple systems?
Digging to get to the social and political determinants of health?
Cultivating the conditions to support children and families?
So, friend, how does your systems garden grow? Write back and let me know.
Ann