We live in a time where complexity has become something of a magnet for smart people. There is something deeply satisfying about understanding things that others don’t quite grasp. When concepts like system innovation, transformative change, and mission-oriented development emerge, the most strategically curious flock to the conversations. It is tempting to take a seat in the discussions, to navigate between theoretical maps, new models, and interdisciplinary concepts.
But fascination in itself changes nothing.
Don’t forget experimentation and doing
This is particularly clear in system innovation. There is a strong tendency to get caught up in the chatter. To talk about how difficult everything is, to zoom in on the problem, to describe the complexity from different angles. That is of course important. But that doesn’t move systems. What moves systems is that you do something. And not just anything. But something that creates movement in several parts at the same time, that both experiments and collaborates, that listens and reshapes.
Switching between system innovation and regular innovation
So system innovation is not just about understanding, it is about navigating between knowing and doing. Being able to step between systemic principles and traditional innovation. One moment talking about long-term societal effects and the next starting a creative workshop that generates ideas with a low level of innovation but great unifying power.
A common misunderstanding is that system innovation is something that can be led in the same way as product development. But it is rarely a single linear process. It is rather a web of parallel movements that over time create a new direction. It rarely happens through one big disruptive idea, but through many small experiments that interact and sometimes collide. It is only in retrospect that you can see the pattern and understand the whole.
Get those who do not usually work together with innovation on board
An important difference between traditional innovation and system innovation is therefore mobilization. System innovation requires a completely different focus on activating people and actors, building relationships, practicing new ways of working and creating arenas where many people can think and do together. It also requires humility in the face of the fact that you cannot control all of the change. You can only create the conditions for it.
Here, the innovation management system becomes a useful framework. It not only captures the operational side of innovation, but also helps organizations clarify where in the unknown they want to be. If you have a strategy for being part of system innovation, you must also be prepared to deal with uncertainty, while being skilled at organizing learning, foresight and collaboration. Practicing foresight and scenario creation is therefore crucial. When change is complex, we must be able to imagine several possible futures and act based on them, even when we do not know exactly which one will become reality.
Another timeline for system innovation
It is also important to understand that sometimes you have to lower your ambition at the innovation level in order to raise your ability to think and act systemically. Small innovations can create the bridges that allow new relationships to arise, new needs to be formulated and old assumptions to be challenged. It is in these movements that real transformation begins to be built.
Ordinary innovation accelerates system innovation
For system innovation to happen, we must therefore leave the comfort of concepts and get out into practice. We must work with people, not just models. We must be prepared to fail, to revise, to learn. And above all, we must build cultures and structures that accommodate both long-term direction and everyday experimentation.
Systems don’t change because we talk about them. They change when enough people start doing something different. And that’s where the real innovation work begins.
