ABSTRACT
What does a ‘systemic’ improvement look like? And what makes it work? Day-to-day examples of effecting change in health improvement, flood defence and running meetings are used to identify different means of applying systems thinking – these range from an explicit ‘toolbag’ and open-minded ‘lateral’ leaps to the value of ‘multiple perspectives’ and rules for office interactions. The case is made that using systems thinking in practice (STiP) is not ‘rocket science’; it can be used in everyday situations all of the time. Using ‘I’ statements and active listening – simple theory-informed practices – to make feedback work better in human communication is a case in point. Finally, the ‘cobra effect’ from Delhi is reworked to show how that particular public policy challenge would have been resolved using STiP.
