Practice | Measure of performance | How do I know if I do it well? |
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Fathering | Nature of communication with my daughter | We talk regularly and usually enjoy our conversations – my daughter gives me feedback and I listen (mostly!) |
Emotional quality of our relationship | I feel loved and understand this is reciprocated | |
Extent of mutual respect | Manifest through mutual engagement in each others work/ideas | |
Extent of trust | By my daughter never feeling the need to have my permission to do something and by the lack of actions that betray my trust | |
Researching | Grants obtained | Am fully committed with a number of large grants in last three years |
Papers published | Two per annum is target which I usually meet | |
Invitations to talk/participate | These continue to arrive | |
Extent of personal satisfaction | I enjoy myself when researching – but find admin distracts me | |
Usefulness to others | More difficult – based on feedback and personal judgement |
Traditional Western conception of the disembodied person | The conception of an embodied person |
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The world has a unique category structure independent of the minds, bodies or brains of human beings (i.e. an objective world). | Our conceptual system is grounded in, neurally makes use of, and is crucially shaped by our perceptual and motor systems. |
There is a universal reason that characterises the rational structure of the world. Both concepts and reason are independent of the minds, bodies and brains of human beings. | We can only form concepts through the body. Therefore every understanding that we can have of the world, ourselves, and others can only be framed in terms of concepts shaped by our bodies. |
Reasoning may be performed by the human brain but its structure is defined by universal reason, independent of human bodies or brains. Human reason is therefore disembodied reason. | Because our ideas are framed in terms of our unconscious embodied conceptual systems, truth and knowledge depend on embodied understanding. |
We can have objective knowledge of the world via the use of universal reason and universal concepts. | Unconscious, basic-level concepts (e.g. primary metaphors) use our perceptual imaging and motor systems to characterise our optimal functioning in everyday life – it is at this level at which we are in touch with our environments. |
The essence of human beings, that which separates us from the animals, is the ability to use universal reason. | We have a conceptual system that is linked to our evolutionary past (as a species). Conceptual metaphors structure abstract concepts in multiple ways, understanding is pluralistic, with a great many mutually inconsistent structurings of abstract concepts. |
Since human reason is disembodied, it is separate from and independent of all bodily capacities: perception, bodily movements, feeling emotions and so on. | Because concepts and reason both derive from, and make use of, our perceptual and motor systems, the mind is not separate from or independent of the body (and thus classical faculty psychology is incorrect). |
Verb | How I understand these activities now | How my understanding has/has not changed |
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Become aware of… | ||
Review… | ||
Appreciate … | ||
Distinguish … | ||
Distinguish … | ||
Consider…. | ||
Review… |
Horse's Ass The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the English people build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts. So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification (military specification) for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Military specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.
Systemic thinking | Systematic thinking |
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Properties of the whole differ, they are said to emerge from their parts; e.g. the wetness of water cannot be understood in terms of hydrogen and oxygen. | The whole can be understood by considering just the parts through linear cause-effect mechanisms. |
Boundaries of systems are determined by the perspectives of those who participate in formulating them. The result is a system of interest. | Systems exist as concrete entities; there is a correspondence between the description and the described phenomenon. |
Individuals hold partial perspectives of the whole; when combined, these provide multiple partial perspectives. | Perspective is not important. |
Systems are characterised by feedback; may be negative, i.e. compensatory or balancing; or positive, i.e. exaggerating or reinforcing. | Analysis is linear. |
Systems cannot be understood by analysis of the component parts. The properties of the parts are not intrinsic properties, but can be understood only within the context of the larger whole through studying the interconnections. | A situation can be understood by step-by-step analysis followed by evaluation and repetition of the original analysis. |
Concentrates on basic principles of organisation. | Concentrates on basic building blocks. |
Systems are nested within other systems – they are multi-layered and interconnect to form networks. | There is a foundation on which the parts can be understood. |
Contextual. | Analytical. |
Concerned with process. | Concerned with entities and properties. |
The properties of the whole system are destroyed when the system is dissected, either physically or theoretically, into isolated elements. | The system can be reconstructed after studying the components. |
Systemic action | Systematic action |
The espoused role and the action of the decision-maker is very much part of an interacting ecology of systems. How the researcher perceives the situation is critical to the system being studied. The role is that of participant-conceptualiser. | The espoused role of the decision-maker is that of participant‑observer. In practice, however, the decision maker claims to be objective and thus remains ‘outside’ the system being studied. |
Ethics are perceived as being multi-levelled as are the levels of systems themselves. What might be good at one level might be bad at another. Responsibility replaces objectivity in whole‑systems ethics. | Ethics and values are not addressed as a central theme. They are not integrated into the change process; the researcher takes an objective stance. |
It is the interaction of the practitioner and a system of interest with its context (its environment) that is the main focus of exploration and change. | The system being studied is seen as distinct from its environment. It may be spoken of in open‑system terms but intervention is performed as though it were a closed system. |
Perception and action are based on experience of the world, especially on the experience of patterns that connect entities and the meaning generated by viewing events in their contexts. | Perception and action are based on a belief in a ‘real world’; a world of discrete entities that have meaning in and of themselves. |
There is an attempt to stand back and explore the traditions of understanding in which the practitioner is immersed. | Traditions of understanding may not be questioned although the method of analysis may be evaluated. |
Assessments change through history.[…] A major blindness we often observe in people is the almost exclusive attention they pay to learning particular skills as a way to become effective and successful in the future. However, they do not pay much attention to the fact that the standards to assess effectiveness in the future may be very different from the ones used today.[…] Actions by themselves never generate effectiveness. Only actions that comply with existing social standards can produce it.[…] A good example […] is the importance granted today to ecological concerns. Based on historical changes in standards of effectiveness, procedures that were considered extremely effective in the past are now discarded because they do not meet ecological standards.
Whenever I reflect on these two alternatives, I am surprised again and again by the depth of the abyss that separates the two fundamentally different worlds that can be created by such a choice. Either to see myself as a citizen of an independent universe, whose regularities, rules and customs I may eventually discover, or to see myself as the participant in a conspiracy [in the sense of collective action], whose customs, rules and regulations we are now inventing.
Our first decision was to challenge the tender document.[…] When asked to present our proposals to the tender panel we ignored the presenter/audience structure in which the room had been arranged by drawing chairs up to the table and conversing with the client group. We began a discussion about the way those present were thinking about organizational and cultural change and emphasized the unknowability of the evolution of a complex organization in a complex environment. Instead of offering workshops or programmes we proposed an emergent, one step at a time contract […] to discover and create opportunities to work with the live issues and tasks that were exercising people formally and informally in the working environment. […] we were subsequently told that the panel's decision to appoint us was unanimous. (Shaw, p. 10, 2002)
We were told by one of the directors, ‘Everyone else made a presentation based on knowing what to do. You were the only ones who spoke openly about not knowing while still being convincing. It was quite a relief’. Our success in interesting the client group in working with us seemed to be based on:
This approach helped to contain the anxiety of facing the real uncertainties of such a project together. It was an example of contracting for emergent outcomes.
Way of being aware | Advantages | Potential traps when missing |
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surface traditions | you know what theory informs your practice; you can actively choose new theoretical frameworks; allows surfacing and questioning of many hidden assumptions | you remain unaware of your own prejudices; you have theories that are not suited to the context |
epistemologically aware | increases the choices you have as a practitioner; alters your approach from one of discovering or describing systems to constructing or designing systems of interest | conflict (including passive aggression) arises when your truth claim (perspective) is asserted over someone else's; collaborative action is more difficult |
appreciate observer | avoid mistaken reliance on objectivity; enables a richer appreciation of what is involved in human communication | avoid taking responsibility for actions; avoid being ethical |
embody systems thinking | you are more readily able to contextualise your practice, you can adapt it to novel situations; you appreciate the history of the situation in which you are practising | your actions are confined to the theoretical rather than constituting praxis (combining theory and practice) |
incorporate ethics | is an act of being responsible; can increase the choice available to stakeholders | you take responsibility for others without their agreement |
In the swampy lowland, messy, confusing problems defy technical solution. The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or society at large, however great their technical interest may be, while in the swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern. The practitioner must choose. Shall he [sic] remain on the high ground where he can solve relatively unimportant problems according to prevailing standards of rigour, or shall he descend into the swamp of important problems? (p. 28)
all professional practitioners experience a version of the dilemma of rigour and relevance and they respond to it in one of several ways. Some of them choose the swampy lowland, deliberately immersing themselves in confusing but critically important situations. When they are asked to describe their methods of inquiry they speak of experience, trial and error, intuition or muddling through. When teachers, social workers, or planners operate in this vein, they tend to be afflicted with a nagging sense of inferiority in relation to those who present themselves as models of technical rigor. When physicists or engineers do so, they tend to be troubled by the discrepancy between the technical rigor of the ‘hard’ zones of their practice and apparent sloppiness of the ‘soft’ ones. People tend to feel the dilemma of rigor or relevance with particular intensity when they reach the age of about 45. At this point they ask themselves: Am I going to continue to do the thing I was trained for, on which I base my claims to technical rigor and academic respectability? Or am I going to work on the problems – ill formed, vague, and messy – that I have discovered to be real around here? And depending on how people make this choice, their lives unfold differently (1995, p. 28).
The computer press is littered with examples of […] information technology fiascos or near disasters. An example is the computer-aided despatch system introduced into the London Ambulance Service in 1992. The £1.5 million system was brought into full use at 07:00 hours on 26 October and almost immediately began to ‘lose’ ambulances.[…] The system reverted to […] manual methods on 4 November when the system locked up altogether. (Fortune and Peters, p. 33, 1995)
One of the striking things about public policy […] is that so many of the most pressing problems are ones that cut across departments, cut across disciplines; issues like social exclusion, the environment, the family. [So] my fifth point is about thinking systemically. (Geoff Mulgan; ex Demos, Director PIU, UK Cabinet Office) (Mulgan, 1998)
One of the more remarkable aspects of British debate is how little analysis is made in […] systemic terms. (Will Hutton, journalist and former editor of The Observer, a London Sunday newspaper) (Hutton, 1995)
I felt that a concern for and systematic study of the social and environmental aspects of technology was essential. Certainly environmental problems were approachable only by means of systemic and interdisciplinary methods and I felt convinced that any Faculty of Technology that did not concern itself with such problems could not claim to be either modern or responsible, whether socially or academically. (Geoff Holister, founding dean, Faculty of Technology, The Open University) (Holister, 1974, pp. 149–152)
Education for sustainability is the continual refinement of the knowledge and skills that lead to informed citizenry that is committed to responsible individuals and collaborative actions that will result in an ecologically sound, economically prosperous, and equitable society for present and future generations. The principles underlying education for sustainability include, but are not limited to, strong core academics, understanding the relationships between disciplines, systems thinking, lifelong learning, hands-on experiential learning, community-based learning, technology, partnerships, family involvement, and personal responsibility. (President's Council on Sustainable Development, USA, under the Clinton administration) (President's Council on Sustainable Development, 1996)
What decision-makers deal with, I maintain, are messes not problems. This is hardly illuminating, however, unless I make more explicit what I mean by a mess. A mess is a set of external conditions that produces dissatisfaction. It can be conceptualized as a system of problems in the same sense in which a physical body can be conceptualized as a system of atoms.
Characteristics of traditional OR | Alternative characteristics for OR |
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1 Problems and opportunities are formulated in terms of a single objective that can be optimised. Trade-offs are made by reducing variables to a common scale. | 1 Does not seek to optimise. Done by seeking alternative solutions that are acceptable on different dimensions without trade-offs. |
2 Has overwhelming data demands, which leads to problems of distortion, data availability and data credibility. | 2 Has reduced data demands because of integrating qualitative and quantitative data with social judgements. |
3 Subjected to demands of science (scientisation), assumed to be depoliticised and that consensus exists. | 3 Strives for transparency and simplicity so as to clarify terms of conflict. |
4 People are treated as passive objects. | 4 People are regarded as active subjects. |
5 Assumes a single decision maker with abstract objectives from which concrete actions can be deduced for implementation through a hierarchical chain of command. | 5 Facilitates planning from the bottom up. |
6 Attempts to abolish future uncertainty and pre-take future decisions. | 6 Accepts uncertainty, and aims to keep options open for later resolution. |
If I hold a rock, but want it to change, to be over there, I can simply throw it. Knowing the weight of the rock, the speed at which it leaves my hand, and a few other variables, I can reliably predict both the path and the landing place of a rock. But what happens if I substitute a [live] bird? Knowing the weight of a bird and the speed of launch tells me nothing really about where the bird will land. No matter how much analysis I do in developing the launch plan … the bird will follow the path it chooses and land where it wants.
Are the characteristics of a mess [or a difficulty] part of the situation or a function of the choice the practitioner makes?
Through its capacity to process what is too complex for the unaided mind, the computer enables us for the first time to simulate reality, to create models of complex systems like large molecules, chaotic systems, neural nets, the human body and brain, and patterns of evolution and population. (p. 193)
Simple systems | Complex systems | Complex adaptive systems |
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Have predictable behaviour; e.g. a fixed interest bank account. | Generate counterintuitive, seemingly acausal behaviour that is full of surprises; e.g. lower taxes and interest rates leading to higher unemployment. | The elements of a system can change themselves. |
Few interactions and feedback or feed forward loops; e.g. a simple barter economy with few goods and services. | A large array of variables with many interactions, lags, feedback loops and feed forward loops, which create the possibility that new, self-organising behaviours will emerge: e.g. most large organisations, life itself. | Complex outcomes can emerge from a few simple rules (this relates to initial starting conditions and the idea that complicated targets and plans may stifle creative and adaptive ability). |
Centralised decision making; e.g. power is concentrated among a few decision makers. | Decentralised decision making – because power is more diffuse, the numerous components generate the actual system behaviour. | Small changes can have big effects and large changes may have no effect – i.e. non-linearity operates (e.g. in the UK a small band of lorry drivers interconnected by mobile phones almost brought the country to a standstill by blocking petrol deliveries to service stations). |
Are decomposable because of weak interactions; i.e. it is possible to look at components without losing properties of the whole. | Are irreducible – neglecting any part of the process or severing any of the connections linking its parts usually destroys essential aspects of the system behaviour or structure. There are dynamic changes in the system and the environment. | Thrive on tension and paradox. (It is argued that healthy organisations exist on the edge of chaos – a region of moderate certainty and agreement). |
Are embedded within larger complex systems, and are made up of smaller complex systems. |
Churchman's 1971 nine conditions for a purposeful system (S) | Churchman's 1979 three groups of three categories for a purposeful system | Ulrich's 1983 sources of influence informing a purposeful system |
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Group 1 | ||
3 Are the clients, the stakeholders of S identified people whose interests and values will be served by the system? | social role: client | sources of motivation: whose purposes are served? |
1 Is S teleological? Does it exist to serve a purpose? (teleology means to have a purpose) | role specific concerns: purpose | |
2 Does S have a measure of performance? Are expected performances identified and are relevant measurements available, and are they carried out? | key problems: measure of performance | |
Group 2 | ||
6 Does S have identified designers who serve the interest and values of the stakeholders? How are these interests and values known to the designers? Who is involved in validating the design? | social role: decision maker | sources of control: who has the power to decide? |
4 Does S have teleological components that co-produce the expected performance of the system? Do these components have measures of performance that are related to the performance of S? | role specific concerns: components | |
5 Is the system's environment clearly defined? Is the relationship, the mutual interaction patterns between the system and its environment, defined? | key problems: environment | |
Group 3 | ||
7 Does S have a decision-maker? (The client stakeholders, the designers, and the decision-makers can be the same.) | social role: planner/designer | sources of expertise: who has the know-how? |
8 Do the designers intend to change S so as to maximise its value to the client/stakeholder? Do they maintain fidelity between the preferred/ideal design and the operationalised design? | role specific concerns: implementation | |
9 Is there a guarantee that the designers’ intentions are realisable? | key problems: guarantor |
The hard systems thinking tradition | The soft systems thinking tradition |
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oriented to goal seeking | oriented to learning |
assumes the world contains systems that can be engineered | assumes the world is problematical but can be explored by using system models |
assumes system models to be models of world (ontologies) | assumes system models to be intellectual constructs (epistemologies) |
talks the language of ‘problem’ and ‘solutions’ | talks the language of ‘issues’ and ‘accommodations’ |
Advantages | Advantages |
allows the use of powerful techniques | is available to all stakeholders including professional practitioners; keeps in touch with the human content of problem situations |
Disadvantages | Disadvantages |
may lose touch with aspects beyond the logic of the problem situation | does not produce the final answers |
accepts that inquiry is never-ending |
One feature never in doubt was the fact that SSM is methodology (the logos of method, the principles of method) rather than technique or method. This means that it will never be independent of the user of it, as is technique. (Checkland and Scholes, 1990)
I think what was innovative at the time was the fairly strong warning about inappropriate application of the HS-method and the inclusion of a soft stage 1, under ‘system description’. The existing ‘method for system description’ was incorporated into this first stage for reasons of consistency in our courses, but I think it was a mistake – not a robust enough method. Thinking back, it would have been a good idea to use the early stages of the soft systems approach (Checkland's SS-method) as a preliminary to HS-method decisions on ‘what are the objectives’ but we would never have got away with it. Peter Checkland was external assessor and he was against any softening of the HS-method. I think this aspect is still innovative. There is not much sign, given the huge amount of misapplication of HS-method, particularly in the public sector, e.g. the whole measures of performance industry, that the points we were making in T301 have got through to anybody.
In 1996, I worked with an Indian researcher from an Indian agricultural research centre on a project concerned with monitoring the uptake of recommendations about fertilizer use by small farmers in remote regions of southern India. He was in a complete fix about how to do this and had problems scoping the problem. We started off with SS-method and got a picture of why current monitoring did not work. This boiled down to farmers being busy when monitoring people turned up during the working day and the fear experienced by officers of the local research centre about being spied on by staff from the research centre. When he finished his SS-method and produced an activity plan it indicated the need for some quantitative modelling of the current situation as a base-line survey. He then used the HS-method to identify how such a survey could be conducted and what it should measure.
[my] work has focused on improving organisations of all kinds […] In this work […] above all I have been influenced by Stafford Beer. It all started in the early 1970s when, as a young graduate, I was working at the national Development Corporation of Chile. Those were difficult days for the country. The people's will was for change and to make it happen they had elected Salvadore Allende to the presidency. Stafford Beer was invited to Chile and for two years he supported a very important transformation process [as foreign advisor on the organisation of the public sector of the economy]. Though many of us will know the sad end of Allende's government, naturally [the experience] left many seeds for personal transformation.[…] When Stafford arrived in Chile he had with him the manuscript of Brain of the Firm, his latest book (Beer, 1972). This was the first of three books in which he developed the viable system model (Beer, 1979; 1985). This is the model underpinning recursive organizations […] I was captivated by this model […] and it has held my interest ever since.[…] It is becoming a most powerful paradigm to support the development of fair and effective organizations. (Espejo, 1997, p. 1–2)
We embarked […] upon a programme so ambitious as to have had at least a chance of revolutionizing the form of government on a cybernetic basis that would match the revolutionary political intentions of that democracy. […] I emerged from the experience very much changed. I changed in my awareness of myself, of my fellow men, and of political realities. […] I changed also as a technologist, in terms of confidence. For I now know that it is possible to do what I have advocated for so many years – things which many used to say, and some still do say, are impossible. (Beer, 1981b).
[…] building a computer simulation model to describe the behaviour of any particular system under study, followed by experimentation with the model in order to derive suitable policy options for modifying the behaviour of the real system. (p. viii)
To put it slightly differently: Linux can win if services are open and protocols are simple, transparent. Microsoft can only win if services are closed and protocols are complex, opaque. To put it even more bluntly: ‘commodity’ services and protocols are good things for customers; they promote competition and choice. Therefore, for Microsoft to win, the customer must lose. The most interesting revelation in this memo is how close to explicitly stating this logic Microsoft is willing to come. (From website: http://sagan.earthspace.net/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/)
We seek to understand Complex Responsive Processes of relating… [as a process of personal transformation]. This means, for us, that the relational processes of communication, within which people accomplish joint action, are actively constructing the future as the living present and that [the] future is unknowable in advance. Throughout, the process is characterized by the paradox of the known-unknown and in it emerges the aims people formulate, the goals they set, the intentions they form and the choices they make. What is being expressed here is individual and collective identity at the same time.
The consultant with a traditional perspective | The consultant with a complexity perspective |
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Designs and implements an educational strategy to realise planned change intended to improve the organisation's position in its environment. | Stimulates conditions of bounded instability in which the organisation co-evolves with its environment through self-organisation. |
Understands organisational change in terms of temporary transitional instability between system-wide stable states. | Understands change dynamics as unfolding in the ongoing tension between stability and instability in which islands of order arise and dissolve. |
Contracts to deliver a pre-determined objective or outcome. | Contracts for a step-by-step process of joint learning into an evolving and unknowable future. |
Sees large scale project plans and political and ideological control strategies as useful only in circumstances closer to certainty and agreement. | Dissuades managers from using inappropriate forms of control to manage the anxieties raised when operating far from certainty and agreement. |
Chooses an effective marginal or boundary position from which to diagnose the state of the system as a whole. | Becomes an active agent in the life of the organisation, by participating in its shadow and legitimate systems to engage in complex learning processes. |
Tries to create an intended change in people's shared beliefs, values and attitudes. | Seeks to stimulate and provoke conditions in which people's mental models are continuously revised in the course of interaction. |
Focuses on global, whole system change whether that of groups, individuals or organisations. | Focuses on feedback loops operating at a local level through which activity may be escalated up to system-wide outcomes. |
Designs and facilitates off-site meetings to develop strategies and plans and build teams. | Intervenes in the ongoing conversational life in organisations in which people co-create and evolve their action-in contexts or contexts in action. |
Collects data on generic system variables through surveys, interviews and other instruments to feedback the legitimate system. | Invites an exploration of the relationship between the system's formal agenda (what the legitimate system says it knows) and the multitude of informal narratives by which the organisation is working (what the shadow system knows). These feedback loops generate their own outcomes. |
Emphasises the need for alignment and consensus around clear directions. | Amplifies existing sources of difference, friction and contention, so that complex learning might occur, provided people's anxiety in the face of such learning is well contained. |
I just think the more people that do systems in the NHS the better. We'll all have a better understanding of what's going on. (Practice nurse) Systems thinking helps predict where disasters are going to happen. (Planning patient care) We had a particularly difficult situation with a patient causing significant managerial problems. So … we sat down and I described a [systems] model of trying to understand the issues and took my drawing. We still have the problem but what we now have is a management approach to the problem. (Managing patient care) One of the things I've been able to facilitate for them is to ask them questions that makes them think about what it is they're doing. So they say ‘let's do streaming’. Well, what do you mean by streaming? I'm [using] Soft Systems Methodology … to get people to think about what's the mess they've got now, what's the ideal system and how can we bring those two things closer together. (Patient journey mapping)
If you were trying to equip people for managing who were not managers, like doctors and nurses, how would you do that quickly and effectively? It seems to me that giving them ‘tools for thought’ – systems thinking – is a good way of starting. Giving them that structure and giving them the language is helpful. Because … you can speed up.