Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvsoS5Paduk

I’ve been liaising with a number of systems thinking practitioners lately who are new to the field or may still be going through their training. Many are keen to know what it’s really like to be a systems thinking practitioner. It isn’t a well-known profession, although there have been systems thinkers in existence probably for the whole of history. It isn’t a well-known profession because in the past it hasn’t been classed as a profession. Putting the debate about whether or not it should be a profession to one side (I will leave that for another day) I can tell about the context of my work and that of other practitioners I know.

Firstly, I should say that the definition and context of our work is very wide and varied. We might be someone who works in an organisation, doesn’t have ‘systems thinking practitioner’ in their official title but uses systems thinking in their work and has embedded systems thinking habits into their own way of being. We might be a scholar, someone with or working towards a Doctorate, who studies and/ or practices systems thinking. We might be an academic who teaches systems thinking. We might be one of the few who have a job title that states ‘systems thinking practitioner’. We might be someone working on systems change who clearly works in a systems thinking informed way but doesn’t hold a formal title of systems thinking practitioner. We might be a consultant who has a qualification in systems thinking. We might be a bit of all of these things. Generally, though, a systems thinking practitioner, who works professionally as such, is both qualified (often to postgraduate level) and experienced in the field.

And how do we carry out or work? Well, this too is very wide and varied. I’ve heard a lot of systems thinking practitioners in training or those aspiring to be systems thinking practitioners in the future believe that we’re given special projects to do. That they’re labelled as systems thinking, have a beginning and end and we are given the time and space to enact them as we see fit. This might be true sometimes but generally, the reality can be quite different. This is especially the case if we work as an employee in an organisation and we don’t have ‘systems thinking’ in the title of our job (and most people don’t).  The reality is that we might work on several overlapping projects or programmes at the same time. We might be quickly moved around from project to project. We might start something and never get to finish it because the context has changed or because the actual change takes many years. We might be moved from department to department, from site to site from organisation to organisation. Just because you don’t have a separate systems thinking project, with a flag sticking in the top of it saying ‘systems thinking’, it doesn’t mean you’re not a systems thinking practitioner. I have tutored hundreds of people who have gained the MSc in systems thinking in practice who are now systems thinking practitioners but who have never had ‘systems thinking’ or ‘systems thinker’ in their official work title.

Usually a practitioner’s work is messy, boundaries change. We’re pulled in many different directions and at the same time. We might have to contend with a very frantic day to day operational management situation or a situation of high risk or anything where we have to give focused and targeted attention to something.  Our systems thinking comes into play if and when the time is right. Then, we might take one bit of one approach, apply it, swiftly move on, apply something else. That’s part of our skill – to know what’s useful and when.

We might have to compromise around how we use our systems thinking to flex to the developing situation. Our practice is all different and might play out in very different ways. Of course, some people are asked to do specific systems thinking orientated projects or pieces of work but in my experience these happen far less frequently than the day-to-day application of systems thinking in an organisation that you might do as part of any job.

Remember, systems thinking is not an exclusive club. Anyone trying to make it such a thing are probably working towards their own self-promoting goals.  Yes, there are qualifications that can give you the validation of your practice and these should be considered when hiring a systems thinking practitioner for a specific professional role. However, systems thinking is for everyone. It is a way of thinking that can be adopted by anyone who has the curiosity and determination to consider another way of thinking about complex situations.

Don’t be put off if you don’t have a specific ‘systems thinking’ titled project or piece of work. If you have the qualification and you can put systems thinking into practice, then you are in the same place as a lot of other practitioners. They key thing is to make it count. Apply systems thinking well and make a difference.

…and never give up.