systems practitioner

Protecting your innovative work

/ Pauline Roberts / 3 Comments
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

As a systems thinking practitioner who has developed original ideas and work, the notion of Intellectual Property (IP) has often been at the forefront of my mind. I have fallen down some ‘holes’ in the past where I have overshared work and am now suffering the consequences. I have, however, been savvy enough to register my work with UK copyright services at multiple stages of its development. For example, the development of Creating the Conditions for Change© was registered right back from when it was in the early stages of ‘Situation problem structuring using a blended systems thinking approach’. This includes the development of my systemic inquiry framework, which is the most downloaded document from my website, closely followed by the Creating the Conditions for Change© booklet and Creating the Conditions for Change© progress update booklet. My narratives are registered, as are my diagrams and my workshop designs. A wise person, back in 2016 when I started my business, told me to log them at various stages of development to demonstrate how the work has progressed, which I did.

I would like to give newer practitioners some advice about protecting your own original ideas and work. You are surrounded by people who can benefit from your ideas, so you need to be as savvy as them about the value your work holds.

A useful blog

Firstly, I would recommend this blog by Professor Inger Mewburn (2022) that I have recently come across. It is about PhD students, but the precautions are somewhat relevant to systems practitioners creating original work/ ideas: https://thesiswhisperer.com/2022/04/05/defending-the-originality-of-your-phd-research/

Originality

As a practitioner, it is entirely feasible for you to independently create original work. In the world of academia, people would be worried about someone taking the ideas and publishing them first, therefore taking away the claim of originality. As a practitioner, you must also consider this. Practitioners are generally not affiliated with a university. Therefore, publishing your ideas is more difficult, particularly if you want them to be open access. This can have huge costs which render this option not feasible. Therefore, it is entirely possible for you to create original work and ideas, share them (because you want people to benefit from them) and then someone write up a version of them academically. The barrier to writing up officially for practitioners is something I had not contemplated when I first started out, so this is something practitioners should be aware of.

Sharing your ideas

So, does this mean that we should not share our ideas? No, it doesn’t mean that. It just means that you need to be careful if you want to protect your work. As stated in the blog above, ‘You can’t protect an idea under copyright law – you can only protect a form it takes’ (Mewburn, 2022). Even if you write your idea down, it doesn’t stop others from taking it and running with it themselves, but it can help you to evidence copying if you need to do that at any stage.

What if you want to take your ideas into an academic context – i.e. a doctorate?

As stated in the blog, if you have over shared, it would be difficult to then shift your work into a more formal academic form (i.e. a peer reviewed journal) (Mewburn, 2022). As a practitioner, if you do not immediately go down an academic route, prepare to have your ideas used and written up by anyone. Of course, we can choose to share our work openly and ask people to develop our ideas but there is one precaution – many practitioners have asked me about becoming a consultant, as I have. To do this, it is your original ideas that give you your unique selling point. You have to market them but once you have, they are open for anyone to run with. The answer – do not over share. Give only that which is required to spark interest and keep the more developed things to yourself if you aim to use them in consultancy or if you want your ideas recognised. In the past, I have ‘thought out loud’ far too often because I did not know the pitfalls.. Yes, you are stuck in a bind: you want your work to be recognised, so you share, and then you risk losing control of it. Make your choices wisely.

Collaborating with others

Again, as the blog states, in academia there are rules around collaboration so that the creator of the work is recognised as such (Mewburn, 2022). As practitioners, we have no such protection. One of the ways people can be exposed to your work is by claiming to want to collaborate with you (or they want you to do a talk about your work). Once you have let your ideas out, your competitive advantage disappears, especially if others have larger work networks than you. My advice to practitioners is to ‘beware the love bombers!’. When you are a new practitioner, you want to be seen, so are likely to be more willing to fall for the requests for collaboration or for talks and sharing. If you share, do so wisely. Not everyone is your friend.

Summary

This is the start of work I am doing to bring awareness to systems thinking practitioners about the pitfalls of creating original ideas and work. I have made the mistakes so that you do not have to. In short:

  • Write you work up. I took my blogs and turned them into a self-published book to secure my ideas into one place.
  • If you think you want to make money from your ideas, copyright them. In reality, it is unlikely to stop others taking them but it does give you an evidence trail if you should ever need it.
  • Don’t over share. If it is valuable, be wise about who you share it with.
  • If you think you might want to go down an academic route, do so sooner rather than later. Learn about the idea of ‘original work’ and take any precautions you might need to take.
  • Beware of collaborations where the power dynamic is imbalanced. If you cannot keep control of how your own work is used in the collaboration, then the power dynamic is imbalanced.

Systems thinking practitioners can be leaders in the field but we need to be savvy about the pitfalls that can harm us.

Reference

Mewburn, I (2022) ‘How to stop your ideas from being ‘stolen’’ Available at: https://thesiswhisperer.com/2022/04/05/defending-the-originality-of-your-phd-research/ (Accessed 18/01/25)

Systems thinking practitioners – thinking of writing a book?

/ Pauline Roberts / Leave a comment

In May 2023, I released my book, ‘Crossing the bridge: A practitioner’s learning journey into systems thinking and Creating the Conditions for Change’. It is a clear, non-technical and practical guide to how to start applying systems thinking ideas in an organisational setting, which I self-published through Kindle Direct Publishing.

Putting systems thinking into practice can be like crossing a precarious bridge. We never quite know when it is going to collapse below us. Even our best efforts can see us come up against unexpected challenges and obstacles. We need to practise, iterate, and practise again. It is often a jaunt into the unknown and part of our systems thinking practitioner skillset is to have trust in the journey. On this occasion, the journey I had to trust was the journey towards writing a book. I would like to encourage other practitioners to get their stories heard. As such, I’m going to summarise some insights from the process that might be useful to you.

Why did I decide to write the book?

This is an easy one to answer. I was acutely aware that the extent of my systems practice experience was valuable. My blogs were being viewed by thousands of people across the world. However, not having a PhD meant I had no affiliation with a university (despite working for one) and therefore, no ‘official’ way to share my insights. I was also contacted by someone who alerted me to attempts being made to dampen my voice. They gave me some wise advice which I immediately put into practice. I contemplated that anyone trying to keep me quiet was clearly scared. That meant not only did I have something to say but that it was potentially powerful. Instead of getting angry about what I heard, I decided instead to channel my energy into making sure the story of my deep learning journey was recorded. Hence, I wrote the book. Those who tried to harm me were the catalyst for the energy it took to engage in the writing process. This is my first point for you – writing a book takes sustained energy. If you have passion, use it creatively to encourage yourself to embark on the journey.

Getting started

What are you passionate about? What do you want to say? This is where I started. I was passionate because I was not about to let anyone erase my story or the link between certain insights and my learning. I knew what I wanted to say and immediately made a note of the key messages I wanted to share. I also considered  how I wanted people to feel when they read the book. I made a note of the key ethos of the book and the style of writing I wanted to engage in.

Theory/ practice/ story? What is your book?

This was quite hard to pin down and took a few iterations. I knew I wanted an engaging story. I also wanted people to see where my insights had come from and with that, to experience the learning journey that I had been on. I wrote a short description of the book, then a longer paragraph, then what I wanted it achieve, who my target audience were, what questions I sought to answer and the style and tone I would use.

Giving your book structure

Once I had the key ethos of the book, I started to decide on the structure. I had it in my mind like three acts of a play. Within each act were a series of chapters. I penned out the acts, the chapters, what messages I wanted to give in each chapter. I then decided which stories about my learning journey would give the key messages I wanted to share. Then came the number of pages and wordcount, so I could gauge whether I had enough content.

Using previous writing in the book

If you are self-publishing, as I did, you are in control so you can use what you want. I used a lot of my past blogs. Blogs can give valuable insights away and yet rarely do they get attributed to the author. I wanted to put mine together in a more formalised way. I also included some new content, for those who follow me and would be looking for something new/ additional. Don’t let your thoughts or writing go to waste – turn them into something.

Use an editor/ copywriter/ all-round advisor

I was extremely lucky in this respect. A good friend and ex colleague was now offering this service. We had worked together. She was part of my journey. There really was no better person to guide me. I would advise that even if you are self-publishing, this role is critical. Choose wisely. I got advice on style, making messages clearer, structure and most importantly….where I did not make sense to outside eyes and ears! It is easy to get so wrapped up in your writing that it only makes sense to you. The money this element costs is worth every penny and I would never embark on writing another book without this support.

Getting others to read your work

I also got friends to read the draft book. Friends who were not in my world of work. I didn’t tell them much about the book before they read it. I wanted to know what came across to them. Reconciling their feedback with what I had intended the key insights to be was crucial.

It is a long process

Writing your book is the easy part. Organising it, formatting it, getting it reviewed, making changes, tweaking, changing, repeating the formatting is a long process. You have to be dedicated and not be afraid to deal with the details. I always knew I could write the book (I have been writing short stories for years and love to write). I never thought I could understand the requirements of the self-publishing process. This was where my editor and advisor was an absolute gem. She helped me locate materials to guide me through the process.

Will people buy your book?

Don’t expect huge sales if you self-publish, especially if you are aiming at a specialist market, as I was.  I got an early influx of sales and then it tailed off to a steady trickle. I don’t think I need to say here that you do not benefit from the full price of the book but instead receive a royalty. Unless you are a well known writer selling thousands of books, it isn’t going to make you money. It is better to be doing your writing for other reasons.

Was it worth it?

100% yes. I felt myself develop and grow during the process in two different ways. Firstly, my systems practice grew and developed as I went through the reflective process and recognised how far I had travelled. Secondly, writing a book itself was new to me and so I develop new skills along the way. For me, it was a life changing experience that I enjoyed and when I have the time and space, further books will emerge.

Why is it important that systems practitioners write books

I believe practitioners are the ones with the great systems thinking insights and in some cases, I know this for sure. They do not, however, have enough recognised outlets to share them. Without an affiliation to a university, academic publishing can be difficult. It is not acceptable, in my perspective, to believe that it is only academics who create, have insights or lead in the field. This is not always the case. They just have more outlets (journals etc) to make it look like the case. In my work and experiences, practitioners are at the cutting edge of systems practice. They are insightful, creative and moving things forwards. They just need the outlets to put their stuff out into the world. Self-publishing was, for me, one of the easiest ways to do it.

My final message

This is a short and direct message: If you are at all interested in writing, do it. Don’t hesitate and enjoy every minute of it.  

Set your creativity free

/ Pauline Roberts / Leave a comment

Visionary thinking and creative insight does not always come from being an academic. I have spoken and written many times about the creativity and insight of those applying systems thinking in their everyday work. They generally aren’t sat at computers writing journal articles, paying for them to be published or going through grueling peer review processes. They aren’t always the ones spending hours writing books or even blogs like this one. They are just getting on with things and generating incredible insights along the way. They are not just the thinkers or the creators. They are the ones who can turn abstract ideas into reality, a skill in its own league, the significance of which is often overlooked.

Sadly, no matter how much experience you have, how good you are at your craft, how many qualifications you have, if you do not enter into the archaic labyrinth that is academic publishing, you generally don’t exist and nor will you ever. You will never be quoted, referenced or referred to because it isn’t the done thing in academia to make reference to the work of a ‘non-academic’. So, as a practitioner what do you do? Keep your insights to yourself? Just use them for personal use and don’t share? I guess that would be the easy way but I do not think it is the right way. I think all of the systems practitioners out there who do not sit in an academic context need to have their insights, creativity and wise and sometimes daring application showcased.

I would love to see a ‘festival of systems practice’ that was not devised, designed, engineered, hosted or controlled by people with an academic or even a consultancy background. Consultants often collaborate with academics, which I discuss in the book ‘Crossing the Bridge’ (2023). Together they have dominance in the field. A festival of practice for internal agents is what is on my mind – those using systems thinking in the work place, usually without the title of ‘systems thinking practitioner’ and/ or without projects specifically badged as systems thinking. A festival that demonstrates their embodiment of systems thinking concepts and ideas. I can, however, already envisage the unintended consequences of showcasing such creative brilliance. I would, however, like to see it not just happen, but become the established norm with a new system of recognising new insights generated by the systems practitioner. Insights which do not have to be written up in an antiquated, cumbersome process of academic publishing.

Reference:

Roberts, P (2023) ‘Crossing the Bridge: A practitioner’s learning journey into systems thinking and Creating the Conditions for Change’ UK: Kindle direct publishing

This is my 100th blog on being a systems thinking practitioner and the insights the application and my journey have created.

Systems thinking practitioners – who are they?

/ Pauline Roberts / 4 Comments

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.

Reflecting on being an evaluator

/ Pauline Roberts / Leave a comment

This year I have completed a three year evaluation of a community organising project. It was an interesting journey where I took a developmental evaluation approach with systems thinking.

Part of my considerations was to create effective conditions for the evaluation to be successful. My role was not as a first order, objective, dispassionate observer. I was an interconnected, embedded empathic member of the project team. I was the friendly challenger and critical friend. I was keen to demonstrate that I had as much care and passion for the project as the people living in the area in which the project was being carried out.

Being embedded within the evaluand

Being embedded with the evaluand was not an easy task. All of my interactions were online due to my geographical distance from the project. This meant I could not physically feel the atmosphere or walk around talking to people for myself. I was also unable to reach the wider community.

The challenges of the Covid 19 situation

Due to the constraints of the Covid 19 lockdown, I maintained contact with the evaluand via telephone, email and computer platforms such as Zoom. I attended meetings remotely and was accepted by the evaluand as a member of the team. Meetings attended on Zoom were particularly useful, as I was able to observe the dynamics in the room as well as hear the conversations.

Some of the remote ways of connecting with the evaluand were not successful. For example, I tried to run a focus group but only had one attendee. I also set up some creative and interactive exercises to draw out different perspective from the group on a Miro electronic whiteboard. I was not, however, able to get any input into this.

Working with the evaluand

During the evaluation, I was acutely aware of the pressures on the individuals involved in the project, especially around family commitments and work, so engaging without causing any additional stress was something I was particularly mindful of. What I found worked quite well were very short one-to-one phone calls or Zoom meetings. I found I could work these around the schedules of the evaluand and the interactions were not too taxing or imposing on their day. It also helped to maintain regular contact – little and often.

Providing reassurance to the evaluand

It was key to give reassurance about the positive elements of the project to the evaluand. They were doing some excellent work on forming relationships, working at multiple levels of recursion and building their own systemic sensibilities. I was able to reflect back scenes demonstrative of trust developing between members of the evaluand during meetings as stories and feelings were shared. I was also able to reflect back my observations of inner confidence growing as community leaders diligently led campaigns. There was also a role in offering a different perspective and/ or a different framing to the situation, bringing another dynamic into our collective consciousness for consideration.

Building trust with the evaluand

A condition for effective evaluation was trust. Trust between different members of the evaluand and trust between myself, as the evaluator, and the evaluand. I had one-to-one discussions with individual members which were confidential. I only disclosed that which they were happy for me to share.

Encouraging reflective conversations that enabled learning

The nature of the reflective conversations was that they were done with respect, rather than hard challenge.

Challenging my own evaluation practices – personal frames of reference and traditions of understanding

Personally, I bring several frames of reference into my evaluation that I need to be mindful of. They are that of a systems practitioner, a system changer and of my own experiences of creating the conditions for change and witnessing what I feel works and what does not. I also bring the frame of reference of a project and programme manager, a public service manager and an educator. All of these frames are involved in my perceptions of the project. I purposefully reflected on these and their potential impacts throughout the project, as I assisted the evaluand as they created value in the project.

Projection, perception and bias

With the above in mind, I was as careful as I could be of not projecting my feelings from other work I was involved in onto this project. I was consciously aware of my traditions of understanding and my frames of reference. I was trying hard not to be falsely positively biased. However, I acknowledge that I will have unconscious biases and areas of unknown that will impact on my evaluation practices.

Embodying STiP

It was imperative that as an evaluator, I worked with authenticity and integrity. I intended the evaluand to experience me as a person, not as a label as an evaluator. I put in significant effort to communicate in a way that worked for the people involved. I rarely, if ever, mentioned that I worked for a University. At times it was important to let the evaluand know that I was not employed by the commissioner of the evaluation but I was working on behalf of the project team, to help them as they enabled their project

Were the evaluand helping to shape the evaluation?

This was difficult due to the distance between us and there was the potential for more creative interaction. The evaluand were, however, shaping the evaluation because they are people and changeable and therefore, I flexed and blended with how they were moving and changing. They change, I change. I change, they change.

What was the impact of the evaluator being embedded in the project?

This is something only the evaluand can answer. Personally, I felt that the first couple of years of the project were more successful. In the final year, it felt like other pressures, such as the risk of losing funding before the project had achieved its goal, were at the forefront of people’s minds.

Did I enjoy the experience?

I enjoyed meeting and being involved with the evaluand. I liked their passion and their determination to move forwards. They achieved some great things. By the end of three years, it was definitely time for the evaluator to step back out and let them carry on with their excellent work.

The evaluation

You can find the evaluation on the community organising web page: http://www.citizensmk.org.uk/campaigns/fishermead-citizens-alliance/#:~:text=Born%20of%20the%20existing%20Citizens,Fishermead%20residents%2C%20not%20outside%20experts.