Whole system change and the English New Model Army’s General Council meetings 1647-49

This paper concerns an early whole system approach to change. Between 1647 and 1649 a series of civil wars across England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland eventually led to the execution of the king, Charles I, and the only period of republican government under Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector. That military and political maelstrom turned the world upside down and produced an attempt by parliament’s New Model Army to generate an alternative constitutional structure to the status quo through an array of whole system meetings that saw the senior leadership of the army join junior officers, enlisted soldiers, and civilian Levellers, to negotiate as equals. Ultimately these General Council meetings failed but their influence can still be seen in the contemporary constitution of the UK. Why the meetings started, what happened within them, and why they failed, are all discussed within the context of system leadership. The conclusions have implications for the contemporary leadership of whole system change.