The better I understand some systems models, the less inclined I am to explain them unprompted. 

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The better I understand some systems models, the less inclined I am to explain them unprompted.

One of our Systems Thinking Practitioner apprentices put the problem neatly: as they get further into the models, they’re seeing more. More relationships, nuance, technical detail. Which means that when they try to explain the model to colleagues, it can get harder rather than easier.

People see the diagram, hear the terminology, realise there is quite a lot going on, and understandably think: ‘I haven’t got time to learn all this.’

This is one of the oldest problems in taking systems thinking into practice.

I’m increasingly interested in what competence actually looks like here.

One possibility is that we need to simplify the models. Find the three things you really need to know about the VSM, the quick version of SSM, the six-box version of whatever large theoretical apparatus we’ve just spent three days learning and practicing. There’s a place for that. I do it all the time.

But I think there’s another developmental move: you learn the thing properly. Get into the awkward detail. Understand why those distinctions exist. Find the bits which seemed unnecessarily complicated and discover that, annoyingly, some of them are complicated for a reason. Learn where the model works, where it doesn’t, what claims it’s actually making and where it’s silent.

And then, with enough practice, you need the diagram less; the model has started changing what you notice, the questions you ask, distinctions you make, where you look, what you leave alone. What worries you and what you feel might be missing.

You can still draw the VSM and explain Systems 1-5 and 3* if needed. In fact, I think being able to go back down into the technical machinery matters, or there’s a real danger that ‘making systems thinking accessible’ gradually turns into circulating a few attractively deracinated deepities.

Certainly an insecure uncertain teacher who can’t articulate the detail can create a similar practitioner – and that’s not good for anyone.

But the technical machinery doesn’t have to be inflicted on everyone.

The practical skill is titrating how much theory this person, this group, this problem, at this moment needs. Sometimes one distinction it is enough – sometimes the theory should be doing quite a lot of work while remaining completely under the bonnet.

Perhaps that’s a difference between knowing a systems model and having it available to you as a practitioner.

It also helps explain why this stuff takes practice. I reckon it took me about three years of repeatedly working with the Viable System Model before I really felt I owned it. Not before I could describe it,m but before I could forget about describing it and just use it. That feels like quite an important distinction for how we teach systems practice.

For people who use systems ideas in live work: when did a model stop being something you applied and start becoming part of how you saw?

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