Systems change is often talked about as if it’s about structures, strategies, or services. But at its heart, it’s about people. The system is living, in many ways it’s human.
At Miova, we connect place-based work, systems thinking, and strengths development to help people and organisations create meaningful change. Each of these ideas reinforces the others: place reveals the system, systems thinking shapes the conditions for change, and strengths bring the human energy that makes it all work. One way to think about it is, systems don’t really change until people do. And when people understand their strengths, they can find the ways to best infleunce the system in roles most suited to them.
Place is a Mirror for the System
Not long ago, in one of our place-based programmes, a local partnership came together to tackle inactivity in their community. Their initial instinct for the work was around new initiatives, maybe a refreshed communications campaign. But when we gathered around a whiteboard to map the system, the real picture emerged.
Local charities were trying to reach the same groups in different ways. Health professionals were frustrated by short-term funding cycles. Community leaders felt unheard in strategic forums. And individuals, parents, volunteers and youth workers, were quietly holding neighbourhoods together.
What started as a conversation about “getting more people active” became a window into the wider system: the web of relationships, resources, and power dynamics that shape how things actually happen.
That is what place-based work is. It reveals the interconnectedness and complexity of the system. When you work closely in a place, you start to see the invisible threads: who talks to whom, who holds influence, where trust exists and where it does not. You see how national policies play out locally, how history shapes attitudes, and how lived experience informs change.
Place-based change, then, is not just about local delivery. It is about seeing the whole system through a local lens – noticing patterns and interconnections, not just designing interventions. Working in place means zooming in and out to understand how individual actions are connected to broader conditions.
And crucially, it reminds us that systems are not abstract structures. They are made of people – people with hopes, people with habits, and importantly, people with strengths.
Shaping the Conditions for Change
When you work “in place,” you quickly realise that no single organisation or programme can shift outcomes on its own. The issues we face – whether inactivity, health inequality, or social isolation – refuse to stay in one box or sector, because they’re not simple or complicated problems to be fixed. They’re complex challenges to be understood and explored for change to happen.
This is where whole-system thinking becomes essential. It moves us from fixing parts of the system to shaping the conditions that enable the whole to work better.
Instead of only asking, “How can we improve this service?”, we start asking, “What gets in the way of people and organisations working well together?”
Often, the answer is not found in strategy documents or funding models, but in relationships, trust, and shared purpose. Whole-system change is about building the connective tissue – the relationships and feedback loops that make collaboration possible.
This is where systems leadership comes in. Systems leadership is not about authority or hierarchy. It is about how people choose to show up in complexity – how they make sense of what is happening, connect across boundaries, and act with curiosity rather than control. It happens when people in different roles, sectors, and places take responsibility for the health of the system itself.
In practice, this looks like:
- A leisure provider listening deeply to community voices before designing programmes.
- A council officer convening partners without needing to own the agenda.
- A GP referring a patient not to a clinic, but to a walking group led by local volunteers.
Each act might seem small, but together they shift the conditions in which the system operates. They make collaboration normal, not exceptional.
Strengths are the Energy of the System
So where does strengths development fit into all this?
In many ways, CliftonStrengths provides the human counterpart to systems thinking. If systems thinking helps us understand how structures behave, strengths help us understand how people behave within them.
Strengths give us a shared language for how individuals show up in systems – what energises them, how they build relationships, and how they approach problems. When people know and understand their strengths, they can find the role that best suits them within the complexity of a system.
For example:
- Someone with Relator and Connectedness themes naturally builds bridges. They might see how people and ideas link together and feel comfortable working in the spaces between groups.
- Someone high in Strategic or Futuristic can help teams stay adaptive. They often navigate uncertainty and hold a long-term vision even when the path is unclear.
- Those with Empathy or Developer seem to foster trust. They pay attention to people’s experiences and help others grow, strengthening collaboration across the system.
In systems change, those strengths are not just personal development tools. They are system enablers. They create the relational glue that makes cross-boundary working possible.
When individuals understand and value their own strengths – and those of their colleagues – the dynamic shifts. Meetings become less about defending positions and more about appreciating contributions. People stop competing for influence and start co-creating change.
Systems Thinking and Strengths are Two Sides of the Same Coin
Systems thinking and strengths both invite us to see ourselves as part of something bigger and recognise that our individual choices ripple through the system around us. They remind us that change is not just structural, but human.
At its core, systems leadership is about creating the conditions for others to lead too. It is distributed rather than centralised, and that depends on self-awareness: knowing when to step forward, when to step back, and how your own energy can serve the whole.
This is where understanding strengths becomes powerful. It builds confidence in what you uniquely bring, and humility about where you need others. It shifts leadership from being an individual act to a collective practice – one where people lead from where they are, in connection with others.
In our work, we often see that the most effective systems leaders are not those with the most authority, but those with the most curiosity. They ask good questions. They listen for patterns. They connect people who might not otherwise meet. Their leadership creates space for others to lead.
When people across a place understand not just their own strengths but how those strengths interact, leadership becomes a shared resource. Each person contributes to a collective intelligence that helps the system adapt and grow. In that sense, strengths do more than describe people – they describe the energy of the system itself. They reveal where momentum already exists, where connection can flourish, and where new possibilities might emerge.
The System is Only as Whole as Its People
If place-based and whole-system work both depend on people, then understanding people – and how they work together – is the foundation of change.
Too often, systems change efforts focus on structures: governance, strategy, funding. All important, but not sufficient. What really shifts systems is what happens between people – the conversations, trust, and shared sense of purpose that grow over time.
CliftonStrengths helps to name and nurture those human dynamics. Systems thinking and leadership helps to channel them into collective action. And place-based work gives us the context for these ideas to come alive.
We need to recognise that every policy, every strategy, every plan is ultimately enacted by people. Designed for relationships as much as for outcomes. Create systems that are adaptive because the people within them are self-aware, connected, and energised.
Imagine if every place-based partnership began not with a needs assessment, but with a strengths assessment. What if we started by asking, “What energy already exists here? What do we each bring to this system?”
The conversation would sound different. The strategies would feel different. The outcomes might be different too.
When people understand themselves and each other, collaboration becomes easier. Trust grows. Boundaries soften. And that is when real change happens – not because the system was redesigned on paper, but because the people within it started to see themselves as part of something larger.
So perhaps the invitation is this:
What might change if every place-based partnership began by understanding the collective strengths of its people?
What if we designed systems as though people – with all their complexity, creativity, and care – were our greatest asset?
