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Transcript

ANDY LANE
Welcome to this course on mastering systems thinking in practice. What do we mean by 'practice' in this course? Practice or practicing is something everyone does. The dictionary definition of "practice' is to carry out or perform habitually or constantly-- to carry out an action.
Almost everyone has some role or number of roles in which they regularly encounter issues that need dealing with, improving, or resolving. For example, I'm a practicing father as well as a practicing academic. So a practitioner is anyone involved in practice-- in regularly carrying out a number of actions.
If I reflect on my own practice, I'm aware that I experience myself as something of a juggler, trying to keep a number of balls in the air as I practise, as shown in this cartoon. More specifically, this course, first implicitly and then explicitly, employs the metaphor of the systems practitioner as juggler-- juggling four particular balls marked as B, E, C, and M in the cartoon-- that I think need to be kept in the air for any form of effective systems practice.
The metaphor of the juggler keeping the four balls in the air is a powerful way for me to think about what I do when I try to be effective in my systems practice. It matches with my experience. It takes concentration and skill to do it well and makes me think about the context in which I am practising. Now it is your turn to start reflecting on your existing knowledge and assumptions about systems thinking in practice.

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