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What are they?

Conditions make things possible. They are the elements required for a new system to emerge, for example the affordability or desirability of a new technology, or the clarity of information about a new behaviour.

Why are they important?

Without these conditions, things will stay as they are. If we are working towards transformative change, then we need to start with the building blocks of that change. The enabling conditions make the change possible, and if we take action before they are in place, we risk having limited impact, or even making things worse.

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A garden requires patient labour and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfil good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.

Liberty Hyde Bailey

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Click on the arrows below to expand the questions which feel relevant and interesting to the change that you are working towards

Where to start

• What are the enabling conditions that you are trying to create?
• What happens when we try to create change without putting the enabling conditions in place?
• What enabling conditions have been part of tipping points in the past?
• How can we know if the enabling conditions are in place?
• What conditions, feedback loops and triggers have sparked rapid, positive system shifts?

Questions to go deeper

• How can we prepare to start thinking differently about changing systems?
• How do we map the social pathways for change?
• What enabling conditions might we not notice unless we think about change differently?
• How can we strengthen trust as the enabling condition for building self-efficacy on climate action?
• Why do many complex systems – cultures, environments, economies – seem stuck (or if good, "stable") despite lots of effort to change them? And why, when change does come, it seems to cascade (or if bad, "collapse") all at once?