Summary
The Four Keys are four things that must change together for a whole system, such as care or policing, to change: its purpose, who holds power, how resources flow, and the pattern of relationships. Jennie Winhall and Charles Leadbeater set them out in ‘Building Better Systems’, a 2020 green paper for the System Innovation Initiative, as “far more powerful than thinking about technology and buildings, services and software”.
Systems resist change, they argue, because power, relationships and resources lock together around the current purpose; so “Purpose is the master key”. Their example is Karyn McCluskey, who asked how young men in Glasgow could grow up outside a culture of violence.
Rationale
Part 2 cites this paper for its three levels. Its ‘purpose’, the philosophy a system enacts, is close kin to a deep disposition, though we’re warier than its authors of promises to unlock.