Systems thinking practice: Mastery or Mystery ?

And now to address this tricky question of systems thinking practice:  Mastery or Mystery?

First I would like to describe why this question came about.  

Having revamped my course on systems thinking (creativity and problem solving, MN2515) in the last year (2025-2026), I was left with many questions about how to improve it.  Some of these questions however I remember from the past, perhaps when I was doing my PhD or writing about engaging in situations with the help of systems ideas and methods.  

One of such questions, which I remember also discussing with Gerald Midgley at the time, was about what elements, and their connections, were  needed to effectively conduct a systemic intervention.  He initially suggested a systems book where the facilitators, the people conducting or orchestrating the intervention, needed to reflect on his own values and expertise, and sentitively act according to what they thought was relevant to do in it.  This need could arise after gaining some practice (academic, professional) in the field of applied systems thinking.  

Later on, Gerald would write his own book on systemic intervention, highlighting the importance of boundary reflections in a process that he called knowledge generation.  In this process agents (individual or collective) would engage in such a generation, with the aim of arriving at and implementing improvements in a situation.  As part of this process, agents would also reflect in their own identities and their use of (systems thinking) methods.  Decisions about both of these elements (as well as what or who were considered relevant in a situation) would necessitate of critique on the boundaries that they privilege.  Critique and action would then be continuously intertwinned. 

In terms of practitioners' identities, these could also be 'shifting', and practitioners could be then use the language of boundaries to reflect on their own values, norms and preferred methods or methodologies.  In my own work and somehow following the ideas of Midgley and also of Mike Jackson and indirectly the work of Norma Romm, I have proposed and validated a number of methodological frameworks that, similar to these authors, aim to facilitate critical reflection in complex situations, employing a variety of systems and non-systems methods.  

This journey, spanning of over 20 years, has taken me to different areas of knowledge:  information systems planning and disciplining, electronic government evaluation, sustainability education, and more recently, the circular economy of food waste in university campuses and community rediscovery.  

In this journey, and when defining or discussing possible improvements with people, or when thinking about creative solutions to problems identified, perhaps also due to my personality, I find a recurrent theme:  That of ethical identities.  The theme resurfaces when deciding what is the right thing to do, not only about the situation under study, but also for myself as an ethical subject.  

Practice (including writing about my own systemic interventions) has, one way or another, led me to this theme.  More recently the theme resurfaced when I was proposing to run an event with a community (Sheerwater).  Previous to this, we had been discussing some ideas to help the residents rediscover a sense of hope.  One of the ideas was, and still is, that of revamping the community newsletter.  This idea seemed to be the right thing to do.  

The practice of preparing, running and event, and aiming to continue helping Sheerwater has brought to the surface my own values.  At the event, I wanted to include groups of people which I considered difficult to include.  To continue discussions, I thought that we could organise a follow up at a 'neutral' place to take community residents out of their comfort zone (locality), and help them experience what I thought was a more creative environment.  We could then engage in 'free' thinking about the new newsletter, in a nice, surrounding environment, which to me had been bringing a sense of peace (and hope).  

When proposing this idea, place and method to those who helped me run the previous event last year (2025), I encountered a divergence of opinions.  Mainly, they wanted to organise the event at the community centre, with people who would not travel outside Sheerwater.  At first, I felt comfortable with adopting this idea and engagement method (which also included having lunch by a known caterer). But then, after a pillow talk I decided not to pursue the event further.  And so I let potential partners know.  They understood.  

This taughtme that what I considered my own values seemed to have clashed with other people's.  I was in for creativity, a form of inclusion, and a method (facilitation by myself).  We initially coincided that discussing a newsletter revamping for the community was and still is much needed.  But there were differences in how to execute this idea.  

Since this has happened, I have been able to reflect (again!) on why and how the ethics of systems thinking practice resurfaces in my own work.  Throughout the years, I have learned (slowly) that it is OK to have this sort of ethical differences.  It is important to discuss them, and try to find ways to iron them out, and as Gerald suggest, to see if there is a new boundary that could contain those that give rise to conflict.  

In some cases, compromises have been achieved.  In this situation, I could have given in, or find a new 'place', with new 'audiences' (including those we were thinking about).  But I decided to stop, wait and see.  The decision was perhaps, motivated by my experience with the previous event, where I could notice that we did marginalise some of the community members whilst including others.  We gained in terms of creativity, as historical research helped nurture discussions about possibilities (i.e. revamping the newsletter).  We needed, in my view, to include other people in such discussions.  

Systems thinking practice seems to keep me interested and confused.  Yes, I have gained what I consider a degree of mastery in engaging with people in situations: raising issues, inviting to dialogue, facilitating discussions, writing about what happens.  But no, I have not found the silver bullet to deal with ethical conflicts when they arise.  I keep relying on what I consider are my ethical values, at the time.  

The mystery of what arises, and how to deal with it is what also drives me to try to find out such a silver bullet.  In my readings and abstractings of ethics, I find an important dilemma:  Should I reflect and live my own values, or should I go with the flow of what is being considered the right thing to do, being also critical of what is considered the right thing to do, so that I find a right moment to declare my values?  

My current answer to this dilemma, is that it is always better to try to find a middle way with  compromises.  However, there is is no need to 'give in' fully, if you as a systems thinker feels strongly about something.  Standing for what one believes (values) is often, despite sounding contary to being systemic, more important than simply striving for collaborations.  This standing however does not permanent or rigid, it could be temporary, serious when it has to be, and full of humour about the futility of our attempts to decide what/who is right or wrong.  The reader can see other posts where I have talked about Zhuangzi, and how at the end of the day, we are only a grain of sand in the vast beach of the universe.  

So it is in this finding of and reflecting on dilemmas in situations like the above that systems thinking practice, and its appeal to me, lies.  To know that despite striving for Mastery, or relying on it, we will never know what really and fully goes on in situations, and with ourselves.  We only have what we think happens.  We also have methods, ideas and values, to deal with what happens. We could try to avoid unnecessary discussions whilst aiming to be inclusive and critical.

  

Maybe in a few years' time, all of these things will change, so why do we excessively cling to them?  I think this is where the mystery of systems thinking practice, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this post, and life in general, lies too.  

Zhuangzi, Hundun and communities

For the last few years, I have been learning about The Zhuangzi.   It is traditionally regarded as a seminal text from the Daoist tradition alongside the Tao Te Ching. 

The Zhuangzi is is a historical text that was possibly written by Zhuangzi himself around 400 B.C.  It has been commented or interpreted by others through time.  

My interest in Zhuangzi started when exploring the rise of the profilicity phenomena which has been identified and proposed by the authors Hans Moeller and Daniel D'Ambrosio (2021), and which I included in my book about ritual and systems thinking.  

I became interested in the idea that, in our modern societies, we have to develop and maintain profiles in our different interactions with people.  This was contrary to what I thought up to that point: that we need to have a consistent identity, something to do with our inner values.  

During my writing of the book about ritual and systems thinking, I started realising that I had been driven too much by my own upbringing.  To have a sincere, authentic identity.  To be consistent with a set of values, and try my best to live up to them.  It has also taken me several years to identify which values I had maintained.  One of them for example is loyalty.  In the ritual book, I reflect it when I talk about my rituals to ensure that I belonged to a team of very competent individuals.  

Hans Moeller himself had written about Daoism before (2004), identifying allegories in both The Zhangzi and Tao Te King texts that they consider very important to help us deal with our complex world.  Moeller has joined efforts with D'Ambrosio and later on (2017) where they study and explain in more detail the art of "genuine pretending", an attitude of acceptance, spontaneity, and easiness to help us with our dealings. They also use the Zhuanzi's translations and included commentaries from Zyporyn (2009) in their work.   

As an attitude (am sure there are better terms for it), genuine pretending embeds humour and satirism in both the allegories that Moeller and D'Ambrosio bring forth from the Zhuangzi (and others).  In a nutshell, it is about not commiting oneself too much to fixed identities in situation, or if doing so, accepting that these identities are contingent and temporary.  So ironically we are to try our best when assuming such identities (or roles), knowing that we are to move on from them.  

In my rituals book, I narrate how I showed my loyalty during meetings and when interacting with technology vendors and users.  I upheld the strategy of our organization.  I also did not put colleagues on the spot.  But through time, something changed in my projects.  I was the one on the spot.  Some colleagues challenged (sometimes with good reason) my competence in public.  This made me rethink how I needed to approach work.  I then fought back.  I spoke out more often and loudly.  And then I left after a while, seeking other career prospects.  

Perhaps I stopped pretending.  Am very thankful though to people I worked with.  I learned a bit about what happens in work meetings.  

Hans Moeller has found strong similarities between genuine pretenting and the work of the systems author Niklas Luhmann.  Although Luhmann would regard human agency as the wrong essential component of social systems (it is more about communication than agency), genuine pretending can lead us to acknowledge that our identities are (not) determined to some extent by the communication demands of such systems (for example the economy, law, the market).  We are, if possible then to engage in communications by treating them as second order observations, in other words observing and being aware of how others observe (us).  

The market for example is based on what others say about it. The law continusly decides what is legal or not based on what others (judges, rulings, previous laws) have observed.  Nowadays, our social media profiles communications are composed by what other people say about them (i.e. comments, likes).  Therefore, our identities, our profiles can and need to be regarded as being formed by observations.  They are constituted when we engaged in communications with 'peers' (other and usually more visible, powerful or influential profiles).  

We are, somehow to detach ourselves from what we think we 'are' in our dealings with communities.  This is because, according to Daoism and the Zhuangzi, we will never fully aprehend what goes on, and it does not matter!.  There is no point in staying attached to identities that somehow we think are part of such reality.  We are just to assume identities temporarily.  And protect ourselves from what they ask of us if they ask us for too much.  

Hundun

Genuine pretending can embrace many of the allegories of the Zhuangzi to help us humurously recognise issues about our identities in situations.  Moeller (2004) and Moeller and D'Ambrosio (2021) bring forth several of these allegories.  They range from short paragraphs to more extensive ones, from long narratives to phrases that end with a 'pun' or unexpected twist.  

In allegories, the characters are named intentionally to resemble identities that Confucionism regarded as venerable, with (powerful) roles that establish distance between participants.  The narratives then provide conversations and interactions that challenge the prevailing tatus quo or the norms whilst still operating within them.  

One of my favourite allegories/ narrative is that of Hundun (Zhuangzi, chapter 7).  In it, and according to Moeller (2015), a powerful 'emperor' dies after being identified by others as very benevolent.  A brief text is as follows:  

The emperor of the South Sea was called Shu [Brief]; the emperor of the North Sea was called Hu [Sudden]; and the emperor of the central region was called Hundun [Chaos]. From time to time, Shu and Hu came together for a meeting in the territory of Hundun, and Hundun treated them very generously. Shu and Hu discussed how they could repay his kindness. “All men,” they said, “have seven openings so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe. But Hundun alone doesn’t have any. Let’s trying boring him some!”

Every day they bored another hole, and on the seventh day Hundun died.

For Moeller (2015), this short passage confirms the dangers of overidentifying oneself with a role, an identity or a way of thinking and acting. Through time, the 'emperor' Hundun fails to protect 'itself' from such an overidentification. Those that contribute to 'kill him' (the other emperors) think that they are helping him become more 'human', in other words someone with a clear and dependable identity.

'Hundun' is not an emperor per se.  It represents also the 'Dao' that which cannot be named, the force that moves everything. Why should we then 'tame' it, instead of letting it flow through us? In other words, why we should tame ourselves to fixed, 'humanly' recognised identities?  Why should we stay so 'loyal' to them?  

Community work

Back to the present.  After recently finishing two of my 'research' projects (you can read about them in previous blog posts) I have attempted to continue them.  And somehow I have begun to succeed.  

I am in contact with community managers at my university and beyond.  I have also begun to involve some of my students from my course on creativity and problem solving (2025-2026).  We have had several meetings and are trying to better understand a complex situation.  I keep showing up, offering ideas and support. All of this is voluntary work. 

What has transpired so far is that at times I find challenging myself about why I want to continue.  I experience frustration or dissatisfaction, as things take time to get off the ground, other people do not show up for meetings or them and I are simply too busy. 

With the Zhuanzi in mind, am now trying to be more careful about my loyalty and commitment.  I have asked myself: 

• Is this project or idea what is needed? 
• Why?  
• What do I want to achieve? 

And perhaps more importantly: 

• What is my identity here, is it too fixed?

On this last question, perhaps I am becoming one of the 'emperors' that is trying to help Hundun, by identifying myself with this identity,  and by also 'forcing' things, trying be loyal, and grateful.  

Zhuangzi and Hundun would remind us that at the end, we are not who we think we are, at least not in the eyes of others.  We observe and are being observed, things often move quickly, and we also move on.  With the best of intentions, we can only smile about how things pan out. 

Rediscovering communities of practice in education

I was very pleased having Ricardo Barros-Castro from Universidad Javeriana in Colombia visiting Royal Holloway for several weeks this year of 2026.  He brought his enthusiasm and ideas (also Colombian arequipe!), and his research expertise in Communities of Practice (CoP).  

We were also grateful to have a research seminar in which Ricardo presented his latest co-authored work on CoP.  As the seminar progressed, we found ourselves discussing how best CoP can help improve education in our universities around the globe.  

A community of practice can be generically defined as a group of people with a shared enterprise (or shared set of enterprises or practices), where learning is nurtured and sustained through time.  

It is a bottom-up effort, where individuals get together periodically or regularly to learn from each other and advance their practices which they are are somehow passionate about.  

A community as a 'net' of fishermen

Not all members of a CoP need to have the same passion or degree of engagement.  Hence, the importance of allowing some people to begin in the 'periphery' of the community and if they want, to remain there.  Through time, other people might become more competente at certain practices, and hence move to the 'centre' of the community.  

Ricardo is currently exploring what it takes for several educational CoPs to thrive.  He and co-authors have devised and used instruments to assess this thriving. They have identified factors that could help a community.  They include:  

• Awareness of if/when a CoP needs to be set up or nurtured.

• Developing of goals and competences, and

• Making sure people participate and benefit

From findings studying these and other factors in three (3) different CoP, it seems that continuous and meaningful engagement could help a community survive in the long run and provide desired benefits to its participants.  How this engagement takes form would depend on what counts as participation for learning in a community.  

The presentation prompted an interesting discussion, in which Ricardo explained what a CoP is NOT.  It is not a group of people that have to accomplish a pre-defined task, with such definition coming or being derived from the outside.  Therefore, the learning goals of a community need to be established by participants themselves.  

It can therefore be said that in organisations, managers can suggest, but not impose, certain CoP orientations or goals for others.  Managers can facilitate the structuring and running of community groups.  In this regard, it becomes important to distinguish CoP goals from other educational goals.  The latter could, but not necessarily, become the result of communities working and learning, disseminating their learnings in the classroom and beyond.

Goal setting, negotiation, rehearsing or reifying of experiences in relation to practices, are part of what CoPs do.  To an outsider, or to a manager, a key challenge is that of being able to effectively observe or organise a community so that it creates and sustain a continuous learning flow.  

In the discussion, we mapped the possible presence of CoPs in our university by referring to an input-output model (see below).  This helped us identify and assess if/ how CoPs could help in meeting certain goals via indicators like student satisfaction and educator morale.  

An input-output model with CoP at the centre (Thanks to our colleague Lucy Gill-Simen for helping to draw it!)

Currently, many universities (both in Colombia and the UK) are finding challenging to continue improving education whilst satisfying demands from agencies that collect and disseminate indicators data (for instance QS).  At the same time, morale and dissatisfaction by students (and educators) seems to be on the increase.  

Ricardo was enfatic in clarifying that a CoP might not be the best solution for educational settings, where the need to profile them as achieving specific indicators has become or is the norm.  There could be other types of groupings, perhaps more short lived and hierarchically managed, where work could be developed (by managers, educators and why not, students) towards contributing to these indicators.  

From the presentation and discussion in Ricardo's seminar, it seems that it is also important to be able to unearth and study the internal processes by which CoP unfold.  Both processes and issues/factors could be assembled and studied as a 'learning system'.  

Several years ago and with Ricardo, we researched on such a possibility.  A main finding of our study at the time was that learning takes place in unexpected ways.  Such ways need to be acknowledged and nurtured if deemed relevant by and for learners.  

For educational settings which currently aim to standardise learning (so that it can be effectively quantified and measured), this finding seems to be counterintuitive.  Nevertheless, it needs to be included in our efforts to make learning more effective, inclusive and meaningful, if settings like universities are to continue delivering what society expects us to:  a good education.