Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

22 Chapter1—For more information see www.low2no.orgcentury challenges, our government institutions often operatewith 18th century principles. Today’s challenge lies in rewritingassumptions inherited from previous eras of prosperityand creating ways of working across silos and other arbitraryboundaries—and quickly. The HDL Studio offers one modelfor filling in the gaps.While we are pursuing strategic design as a way to framechallenges, define opportunities and steward their implementation,this book touches only briefly on stewardship. This isa reflection of Sitra’s current experience in applying strategicdesign, which consists solely of early-stage efforts (such asthe Studios) as the logical starting point. We have benefitedgreatly from the proximity of the social innovation communityand others which are endeavouring to deal with the sameissues. As some of our efforts come to fruition, (including theongoing Low2No sustainable development project 1 ) we lookforward to publishing further material which shifts the focusfrom the refinement of strategic intentions to the stewardshipof implementation.“Tactics is knowing what to do when there issomething to do, strategy is knowing what todo when there is nothing to do.”—Savielly Tartakower, chess Grandmaster