Australia’s news cycle is often flooded with ineffective collaboration on major issues facing the nation, and this isn’t anything new. Despite a growing sense of urgency to act, Australia’s ability to make the future it wants has been stifled for decades. What’s holding Australia back from the desired future, and what’s needed to get there? Next25 Recoded has interviewed emerging and established leaders from across the country to find the answers, which will be released in the first Recoded report, launching next week.
The upcoming report explores different perspectives around important national themes including growth, identity, engagement, division, and more. It reveals deep insights about Australia’s current future-making system, and four areas for transformational improvement. Keep reading to find out what they are and how we got there.
Making the future Australia wants is a job involving all system actors. Our starting point is a simple systems map (see image) representing the key institutions from across Australian society that influence how Australia makes its future. It encompasses numerous actors including institutions, organisations, groups, and individuals, as well as the relationships, structures, processes, resources, and mental models that influence them.
Next25 is all about understanding and improving Australia’s future-making system. Recoded is designed to continually identify and explore system challenges and solutions that have catalytic potential to improve how Australia makes its future.
In order to improve how Australia makes its future, we first need an understanding of the system itself, including structures and patterns of behaviour that influence the decisions and actions that make our future. Without this deep understanding of the system, Australia will continue to flail about instead of being an active captain of its own ship.
To create this understanding, we interviewed established and emerging leaders from across Australian society. Interviewees included current and former politicians and public servants, business leaders (including CEOs and industry representatives), experts from across science, economics and academia, community leaders (including teachers, activists, social workers), and more.
By building an understanding of the system across these groups, we do not mean consensus or superficial alignment. Rather, we are interested in uncovering and examining diverse perspectives and experiences of the system.
In speaking with these leaders, our interviews explored:
How they define success for Australia
Who and what they believe most influences decision-making in Australia
Whether they believe change is required (and if so, the extent of change required)
What improvements they would most like to make to the system
One thing that stood out was how participants reacted to being invited to discuss big, complex issues. As some remarked, they found the process to be both “challenging” and “cathartic”, and many expressed their appreciation that Next25 is undertaking this type of “audacious” work:
“I think this interview has been fantastic because, basically, you never get an opportunity to tell people how you think the world should be. So, I think it's a very liberating experience to be asked to think about these questions and actually also have to commit to something versus just having a whinge about how bad everything is. I think it's an empowering experience to just run the interviews.”
“I think it's a fantastic conversation, and this kind of imaginative, exploratory piece about what are the opportunities and challenges that we face in the system and are really important and really exciting. I'm just really glad that you guys are convening this thinking, and having these conversations.”
“I think that it is absolutely fantastic that you guys are interested in helping us all build a better country. It's the most audacious, fantastic goal to have. There's nothing more important, but it's so audacious that most people can't be bothered. You know, it's like it's too big. It's too vague. It's too hard. So, I think it's fantastic that's what you chose to focus your foundation on.”
Through our interviews and analysis, we have identified four leverage points to improve the future-making system:
Embracing an inclusive Australian story and identity
Embracing new success paradigms beyond GDP
Embracing constructive national discourse to address growing division
Improving public access to decision-making
See the full report launching next week to learn more about these areas for transformation.
Next25 is a think and do tank, and this research is no exception. Over the next six months, we will facilitate a collaborative process involving people with diverse thinking and backgrounds to gain a deeper understanding of the leverage points and identify potential solutions. Just as we have done with Next25 Leadership, we will then work with system actors to bring a new solution to life to improve Australia’s future-making system.
But we can’t do this without the support of the system. If you are interested in joining or supporting this work, stay tuned for more information when the report is released.
We can’t wait to share the findings and insights from Recoded with you. Make sure you sign up to our mailing list so you don’t miss it.