Social Entity Pattern
Understanding a social entity's current state and readiness for transformation.
What you are seeing is the current state of this community’s state of sustainability.
Kurt Seemann1
Challenge: What is the social entity’s current system state?
Cluster: Participant Practice Patterns
Type: Essential Practice Pattern
Purpose
The purpose of the Social Entity Pattern is to inform practitioners and participants of the relevant social entity’s current system state and degree of readiness.
Pattern Description
Changing accepted and habitual practices is demanding for participants and stakeholders in a social entity, in terms of their energy, motivation, capability and readiness. Many change practitioners refer to the need for readiness as a factor in a successful change process.
The purpose of the Social Entity Pattern, then, is to activate reflective self-awareness within the social entity undergoing transformation and to inform practitioners and social entity participants of the current system state and degree of readiness for change. Such an assessment should be at the social entity scale as well as at the human scale within the entity.
People are not always ready for change, so starting where you are with the capabilities and strengths you currently have is the first order of transformation, followed by a conscious development of holistic capabilities for participants and practitioners to support a more holistic and adventurous approach.
Whatever the commencing system state, a transformation can be activated. However, this Pattern identifies capacity considerations - opportunities and constraints - that impact on the chosen transformation Pathway (see Pathway Pattern) and the way of commencing the Design Cycle in the Activating Phase (see Design Cycles Pattern).
Elemental Patterns
State: Look at any phenomenon from a system perspective, and what you see represents the current state of the system hosting that phenomenon. Of course, many phenomena will also be hidden from view: these will need to be “surfaced” as much as possible to create a richer view of the system at play, but in their own time. Because transformations are often provoked by some perceived problem or or unwanted pattern, the starting point of a transformation may be only symptomatic of the system state - this is why transformations should start “from where you are”; that is, from shared understanding of surface knowledge plus whatever emerges through participant sensemaking as the transformation process activates. This is more art than science; yet sensing the current state at the outset of change creates a working hypothesis that informs participants as action unfolds.
Structure: This Elemental sparks participants in a social entity to develop awareness of the different types of structure present and encourages them to see social entity structures as dynamic interacting systems rather than rigid constructs. We typically understand social entities through an organization chart - often on the wall of an office; or in a document such as an annual report or a human resources manual. Because of the ubiquity of such organization charts, our understanding of social entities also assumes they have been purposefully constructed; and once constructed we assume that change requires further purposeful construction. Further, because we usually experience such structures as fixed patterns of construction, the main pathway to change usually pursues a change in organization structure. This approach, however, does not account for the system effects - emergence, phase changes, hidden networks and levels of dymanic complexity. These deeper impulses are mediated by hidden and informal structures that emerge from self-organizing action amongst members of a social entity while carrying out business-at-hand. The reality of social entity structures requires an acknowledgement of synergies of patterns of purposeful construction and emergence.
Purpose: Social entities generally have a an ecosystem of vision, mission, goals, strategies and policies: collectively this can be said to represent a social entity’s purpose. Current practice in social entities is to communicate entity purpose generally to internal and external stakeholders alike, with the assumption that internal social entity stakeholders will inherently understand this general communication and how to apply it in their work. In reality, social entity strategies and policies tend to be less visible to internal stakeholders at the far reaches of the social entity and its least connected parts (or subsystems). This can present difficulties for a whole-of-entity approach, therefore ensuring better understanding of purpose through deep and practical communication is critical. Further, it is vital for the purpose to be re-examined and reconsidered at the point of activation in a transformation, as part of the Orientation and Understanding Elemental Patterns in the Design Cycles Pattern.
Character: The “character” or general “vibe” of a social entity is an expression of its general culture, which, in turn, can be a general indicator the social entity’s current state. A conservative or inward-loooking culture, for example, could be resistant to change; whereas a creative, open or innovative culture may embrace the transformation more readily. A limited character may be expressed as denial about the drivers of climate change and sustainability, and may be representative of a current state that is not ready for change. To apply this Elemental means gaining a quick initial sense of the social entity, to help frame a commencing hypothesis and on-going probes to further understanding of the state of readiness.
Coherence: A coherent social entity is one where the purpose is clear, participants understand it, and action taken is coherent with its purpose and character. Such a coherent alignment shows that a social entity’s people can participate in change with a high degree of understanding, motivation and autonomy. If coherence is present, transformation can activate with intensity and more fluidly. Coherence of purpose is both a system state and a goal of transformation and can be expressed fractally: that is, all the broad patterns of purpose should be present in all parts of the social entity for a high level of coherence. In practice, though, purpose is not always coherent across a social entity, due to a communication-based approach rather than a participatory sensemaking approach. Put simply, coherence of purpose emerges from holistic and authentic participation.
Readiness: Readiness is a desirable state to begin a transformation, but the practical reality is that most social entities are not ready for change, especially when external circumstances - both anticipated and disrupting - create pressure for change ahead of the entity’s foresighting, planning and capacity. Being unready does not negate the “start where you are” attitude; however, having a map of readiness, at the current state, and a learning-by-doing approach, will be enough to get started, as long as an informed and realistic prespective is held by the social entity and its members.
Energy: Human energy powers change, so sparking a social entity and energising its members at an appropriate level and pace of activity is fundamental. The leaders of the change process must manage human energy levels and harmonize them as appropriate for the different parts of the entity: their capacity, the degree of difficulty of relevant change processes; and to ensure that the speed of change activity in one part of the entity does not undermine activity in another part of the entity that may have to move more slowly. This requires good understanding of the degrees of complexity within the social entity’s systems.
Motivation: The provocation to begin a transformation may be initially sparked by extrinsic motivation: a response to a pressure state of opportunities and threats. Extrinsic motivation, however, is not a sustaining motivation. At some point of the transformation, the phases of embedding and sustaining need social entity participants to be intrinsically motivated - that is, each participant has a strong internal culture arising from a strong understanding of the importance of the change and an emotional connection created by cycles of action, reflection and learning through internalising of experience. The lack of intrinsic motivation on the part of participants is a critical reason why transformations aren’t sustained.
Capacity: People have capacity and capability to act in the world. They can also engage in lifelong learning to further develop their capacity to learn what they need to learn to do what they want to do. Social entities are no different: the learning and development that individuals engage in also contributes to development of the social entity as a learning organisation. Further, people learning and developing in the context of a social entity promotes emergent effects that benefit the entity by developing the capacity of the entity to grow, develop and change according to shared vision. The emergent capacity and capability of a social entity and its people is a substantial contributor to its readiness for change and its resilience when challenges appear.
Atlas Navigation
Go to the Elemental Patterns within the Social Entity Pattern:
State Structure Purpose Character Coherence Readiness Energy Motivation Capacity
Go to the Worldview Pattern within the Participant Patterns Cluster
Go to the Archetypes Pattern within the Participant Patterns Cluster
Version
Version 1.0 - 2 Jun 2024
Version 2.0 - 17 Jun 2025
Version 2.1 - 15 July 2025
Seemann, Kurt (cira 1995). Personal communication referring to the visual condition of housing, waste and water systems in the community in the context of socio-technical systems and sustainability on a visit to a remote Indigenous community, Western Desert, Central Australia.