In the preceding navigation point, we have explored and challenged systems, structures, processes and ways of working. In this fourth and final navigation point, Navigating Interdependence, we arrive at the obvious, even banal, point that, in the end, every structure and every system consists of the same thing: people. Therefore, in our endeavour to create societal change, much of our success comes down to our ability to affect human behaviour and relationships.

As we mess with existing systems in our effort to create new ones, we challenge existing power dynamics and relationships, which often provoke resistance and may lead to conflict. As Leadbeater and Winhall put it: ‘Conflict is an inevitable and important part of transition, and system innovators will not succeed if they are naive about the need to work with the resistance these efforts at change provoke’ (Leadbeater and Winhall, 2020). The messy work of meddling with people – their personal whims, ideas, values, deeply rooted habits and personal idiosyncrasies – is often the hardest, most frustrating, and yet (if you ask us) the most enriching part of the job.

This navigation point, Navigating Interdependence, is about what happens when we move our focus from the analytic gaze of the logics and structure of systems towards the practical interaction and interference with cultures and human behaviour. In our conversations with systems innovator and urban planner Dan Hill, he highlighted the importance of the word cultures: ‘I stress cultures to counterpoint the “systems” word, because systems can immediately sound very technical and problematically technocratic. Obviously, systems aren’t that. In reality, systems can be highly qualitative and complex’ (Hill, 2024a).