AI-driven disruption. Physical inactivity. Social isolation. Diversity, migration, climate risk and the future of the Great Barrier Reef. Imagine taking on all of these challenges at the same time.
It’s happening, in a way; the new Monash Masters of Behaviour and Systemic Change examines how systems and behaviour approaches can help make sense of complex challenges like those listed above. There are no simple answers, and that’s the point.
Individual or systemic change?
The course recognises that societal change requires both behavioural and systemic solutions. We need to understand what drives individual behaviours as well as the systemic structures that shape what’s possible, and the tools and frameworks to make long-lasting change to both.
Mapping is one of the key tools utilised to understand the relationships, forces and influences that bring about change. Things like:
- Feedback loops between policy, norms and everyday action
- Mismatches between values and lived constraints
- How small behavioural shifts might (or might not) cascade into wider change
- Where structural change is necessary but insufficient without attention to behaviour
Which raises some serious questions:
- Who holds responsibility vs who holds power?
- What happens when behaviour change enables progress but distracts from structural reform?
- Whose voices are missing from how problems are defined?
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Bringing it together
Stefan Kaufman is one the teachers in the course - drawing on 7 years as a founding partner of BehaviourWorks Australia in an environmental regulator, 5 years as BWA expert on multi-agency initiatives tackling behaviour and systems and 3 years focused on behaviour and sustainability transitions in the Sustainability Transitions lab (current home).
He says: “this is a really challenging space in all the best ways - the problems are urgent but with deep rooted and complex roots, and so the solutions aren’t simple. In their un-integrated forms, a behaviour lens and a systems lens focus on different things and can work at cross purposes.
But once we recognise that our great strength and weakness as a species is that we are so good at adapting to environments we create with our actions - and this is what is driving planetary crises, runaway technological change, and social and economic inequality traps - bringing these perspectives together in an insightful but actionable way is not a choice, its a necessity”
‘Uncomfortable in the best way’ is how one participant has described it:
As one of the students in this cohort, I can say the content of this unit exceeded expectations. The range of guest perspectives and industry expertise woven throughout the unit made the complexity of these challenges feel real, not just theoretical. Being pushed to move beyond surface-level solutions and actually sit with the messiness of systems thinking was uncomfortable in the best way.
Grateful for the space to explore, question, and grow alongside such a thoughtful group of peers and facilitators. Looking forward to carrying these perspectives and frameworks into my work! (Candice Foster)
Take AI for example; this hot new tech that enables us to do so much more impacts not only water and energy networks, it’s disrupting the very tech sector that invented it, and white collar work in general (add robotics - and its all work). Steering it somewhere better requires regulation, which requires leaders that can understand the consequences of uncontrolled technology, but who may themselves be funded by that same tech sector.
If you’d like to know more, follow this link.
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