Groundswell: waves of change

The Social Age is about amplification: but it starts with one. One idea, one voice, one story. Or, as Freddie said, One Vision. In this case, let’s think about how organisations change: so a vision of a better future.

Ideas accrete community: people with similar views, similar ideas, maybe people who disagree, but who want to be part of the community that finds what the real story is. As communities form, become coherent and grow, they iterate and sharpen the ideas. They form a perspective: like a political party with a manifesto, often covering more than one area. And they share the story ever more widely.

It’s like coral growing by laying down new structures and layers, ever wider and deeper. But it doesn’t have to be by accident: if you are the person driving the change, you can curate your community. Identify the people you want in it, find out who is aligned, influential, trustworthy, and actively seek their participation. One at a time: but if we choose wisely, we get more than one.

Change does not rain down on us from on high, rather it’s stories are co-created and co-owned by the community. Or at least it is if you want it to stick…

Align our change story with that of amplifiers and we get an effect of momentum. Suddenly our reach is ever wider: craft your stories to be magnetic, co-created and let them be shaped by the community and we are suddenly in a space where exponential reach is attainable.

This is the space we need: critical mass to drive change. Start with the idea: build community, build commonality, allow the idea to iterate and grow and allow the stories to form. Build friends into the community who can amplify and contribute: remember, it’s co-created, not just our story amplified.

This is a model of organisational change in the Social Age: look at the work of the Healthcare Radicals in the NHS. Permitted to grow their communities, encouraged to shape the change.

It’s a model that works: drawing the organisation from the middle, not dictating change from the top.