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Mastering systems thinking in practice
Mastering systems thinking in practice

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4.1.1 Systems practice

Systems thinking seems to come more naturally to some people than to others who have to learn to think systemically. People trying systems thinking for the first time find it quite tricky in the early stages. The temptation to break down the situation into smaller bits is strong. The systems approaches you will briefly encounter in Week 7 take account of this and are designed to enable you to capture the complexity before you move on to exploring it.

This is what this course is about. It is an invitation to engage with systems thinking in such a way that you are better able to address the situations, complexities and opportunities that you encounter as you engage with the nitty gritty of whatever you do. Systems thinking provides tools-for-thought and the opportunity for a powerful way of looking at the world, whatever the context. The contexts stretch all the way from international issues such as global warming to the day-to-day problems that arise in work, in domestic life and in the local community.

Systems practice in the context of this course refers to the practice of systems thinking within whatever profession or calling you follow. You can be a systemic medical practitioner, a systemic wood turner, a systemic technician or a systemic manager by applying systems thinking, insights and approaches to the complexity that you encounter in any of these or other domains.