training

How my systems practice and my hobby follow a similar path

/ Pauline Roberts / Leave a comment

I am not a professional photographer, not by a long way, but it is my hobby and I thoroughly enjoy it.

It struck me how my hobby and my systems practice take similar paths. When I started out with photography I bought a good all round lens. One that would do macro photography and distance and in particular I wanted to photograph birds. Nearly 20 years on I still use that trusty lens. I know it inside out. I know how it performs. I know when to push it and when not to. It almost becomes a part of me as I scan the landscape for an interesting framing. It was a long time before I would move on from that lens and that was purposeful. I wanted to make sure I could master every setting it had to offer. I didn’t just want to use the easy, pre programmed settings but I wanted to savour everything it had to give. To understand it in depth. I had done the same in the past with a basic bridge camera, mastering it by continuously tinkering until I knew it inside and out. I was not frightened of getting things wrong. When they did go wrong I tried again until I got a result I liked. I never viewed it as failure, just learning and I loved the learning process. Getting a bad picture was just as satisfying because it taught me something else about me, the camera and how we operated together. It was exciting if things went wrong because it taught me what not to do next time.

Taken with a humble bridge camera in 2007-2008

My systems practice is the same and I use the same tactic when I train others: master the basics. Master them until you know them inside out. Learn when systems concepts and ideas are applicable and when they are not. Learn what they look like and feel like when they show up in public services or in a community setting. It takes years to master such concepts. I mean to really master them. If someone comes along and tells you they have mastered them in great depth only a few years, I would say that they probably haven’t mastered them at all. I started formal education in systems thinking in 2006. Today, in 2025 I still remind myself to go back to the basics and gain greater mastery of them.

My ethos when training and educating others is to encourage people to gain the best insights about the basics of systems thinking that you can and never stop learning. True application isn’t about using someone else’s approach but understanding the basics and developing your own approach, relevant to your own context. If you do use someone else’s approach, you can guarantee that you won’t get as much value from it without a strong understanding of basic systems thinking concepts and ideas.

Nowadays, my focus is on encouraging others on a path to deeply embodying systems thinking.

It is just like my photography – on an journey of deep and enjoyable learning.

We can educate and train but can we employ systems thinkers?

/ Pauline Roberts / 2 Comments

Over the last couple of months I have had a series of discussions with several students about their future as they move forwards with their systems practice. They are keen and eager to step forward in the world as systems thinking practitioners. There is only one problem……where do they get employment or how do they set up as independent businesses?

True, there are more jobs coming through for systems thinking practitioners nowadays, but still nowhere near enough. The field is dominated by gangs and cliques who look after one another and in some respects, systems thinking has gone feral. Generally, those not working in the field cannot tell the difference between  those who look good and those who are good.

There is another issue at play, also. Organisations may say they want to employ systems thinkers but they give less thought about how they will accommodate them in an organisational context. By definition, systems thinkers think differently. They are excited by things others often cannot even see. They sometimes do not conform to the norm, preferring instead to be a bit of a maverick. They might hate routine and norms. If they are anything like me, they hate wasting time on trivialities. There has to be purpose and meaning in what they do. You cannot put them in a box, or you can be assured that they will fight their way out of it in record time.

I have experience of this myself. I don’t fit! Anywhere! I struggle with formal office environments where people tend to spend more time controlling each other (even though they think they don’t) and moulding everyone to a norm. Sometimes, it creeps in, bit by bit and before you know it you are one of the dull hidden gems, bored and despondent, looking for a way out.

This was one reason I went into consultancy and tutoring. For a different slant in my career. I soon, however, came up against the bitter competition in consultancy and witnessed more unethical practice than I ever want to see again.

So, what do we do? We educate and train people in systems thinking and then they don’t fit anywhere. To date, there are not enough employment avenues to accommodate them.

Then people ask how I managed to step into the world of systems thinking. When they hear how hard it was and what it really takes to stay afloat, some think twice about it. It was and is hard. Very hard. No-one sees the 18-20 hours days, 7 days a week, week after week, just to make ends meet. They don’t see the 4am starts and 5.30am trains when they read about your exploits online. They don’t see you leave the house at 4am and not return until midnight. They don’t see your fridge with empty shelves because you haven’t even had time to buy milk and the basic groceries for the last fortnight. I cannot express just how hard it can be and how dedicated you need to be to make it work.

How do we change this? How do we make room and employment for systems thinkers? Personally, I still think it is too soon. The outlets are not generally there. Yes, there are some outlets, but for the amount of practitioners we are educating and training, I hear of a far greater percentage who feel lost when it comes to their career, seemingly with nowhere to go that will accommodate the way we have educated them to think.

I do think the bigger systems thinking organisations who champion the discipline have a part to play here. How can they use their power to make a pathway for others to enter the field? What can they do to support those who want to fully step into it?

Some say that systems thinking is not a profession. It is a way of thinking that you use when doing other things. For example, you may be a health commissioner and you use systems thinking to enhance your commissioning practices.

Is it too early then? Is systems thinking still not in the place of it being a profession in its own right? There is an apprenticeship now but it is still very early days. In years to come it might be easier. People might have generally started to understand who and what systems thinkers are.

In the meantime, what do those of us in the field do? We are paving a way that will be easier for those who take the journey after us. At the moment though, the stories I hear in the field are of frustrated people who can see what they want but cannot quite put their hands on it.