Fruitful friction as a strategy to scale social innovations

Abstract

New approaches to overcome complex societal problems of today are the need of the hour, especially to enable the transition to a sustainable future (Concilio & Tosoni, 2019). Here, social innovations present new ways to tackle global problems on a local scale; that when put together, can create a transformation on a systemic level while shaping societal beliefs, routines and behaviours. Scaling these social innovations is important to enable the requisite large-scale transformations. This project builds on a specific scaling strategy that aims to shift cultural values, mindsets and beliefs- namely, scaling deep. Given that scaling deep is an abstract and intangible concept, the project aims to develop an actionable strategy that supports social innovators in their scaling journey. The key research question being: How can design be used to transform the abstract and theoretical concept of scaling deep into something more tangible and implementable in order to make it usable for social innovations? In the first phase of the project and this report, the phenomenon of scaling deep is explored from a theoretical and practical perspective. Qualitative research (carried out by using a research through design approach) reveals that engaging new stakeholders is one of the biggest hurdles for social innovators wanting to scale their innovation into a new context. Here, scaling deep is a means to overcome this hurdle. Literature review highlights ‘common ground’ and ‘community building’ as two key conditions for social innovators to achieve impact at a larger scale (Yee & White, 2016; Beers et al., 2006). However, at the individual or micro level, a change in mindsets (and frames) is necessary which starts with the awareness and articulation about these implicit concepts (Gupta & Govindarajan, 2002; Buchanan & Kern, 2017; Hay et al., 2007; Dorst 2011). Building upon these insights, scaling deep is further defined as an internal transformation process as well as a social process that focuses on alignment rather than forcing perspectives onto someone. In addition, friction, in the sense of realising conflicting frames, is seen as an enabler for change. This phenomenon is called fruitful friction. Here, friction is the notion of becoming aware of your implicit frame and realising the difference to other peoples’ frames, which is seen as a first step to create openness for change. These characteristics are captured in a conceptual framework, ‘Fruitful friction towards common ground’, in order to use fruitful friction as a strategy to scale deep. The framework proposes to deliberately trigger friction fruitfully as a lever for change to enable the emergence of common ground and allow social innovators to scale deep. In the second and third phase of the project and the last part of this report, the conceptual framework is translated into a design toolkit ‘Are we on the same page?’, making the strategy of scaling deep actionable. It triggers people to express their tacit perspective (frames) which facilitates the emergence and capturing of common ground. ‘Are we on the same page?’ is a process enabling toolkit that helps social innovators to conduct an online workshop using fruitful friction to reach a shared understanding with new stakeholders. In sum, this thesis unveils the potential of fruitful friction as a strategy to scale deep, allowing social innovators and their stakeholders to reach a common ground. The framework makes the abstract and theoretical concept of scaling deep more tangible; while the toolkit, helps social innovators to practically implement scaling deep into their projects.