WHAT THIS COURSE OFFERS
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Systems Thinking for Practice: Diagnosing Patterns and Shifting Conditions
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Systems Are Built
- What Do We Blame First?
- Seeing the System Behind the Symptoms
- Systems Thinking Explained: How Patterns Persist
- Making Systems Thinking Practical: Boundaries, Patterns, Power
- Name Whatโs Really Going On
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Making Power Visible
- Establishing Boundaries
- Patterns and Systems Change
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Reading The System Through Power
- Power Is a System Feature: Decisions and Gatekeeping
- Why Power Matters In Systems Thinking
- VIDEO - Power Makes Systems Real
- Power Mapping for Practitioners: What to Notice, What to Protect
- The Hidden Forces Behind Organisational Behaviour
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Seeing Power, Tracing Patterns
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Boundary Setting: Choosing a Unit of Change
- Setting Boundaries That Lead to Action
- Defining the Unit of Change
- VIDEO: The Boundary Move: Big Enough to Explain, Small Enough to Change
- Boundary Setting as a Practical Discipline
- Three Anchors for a Workable Boundary
- Why boundaries are also power decisions
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Purpose as Behaviour: What the System Optimises For
- Submodule Overview
- The Purpose the System Defends
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Emergence & Pattern Spotting: From Events to Structures
- Submodule Overview
- Stop Treating Symptoms: See the Structure
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Why Change Efforts Stall: Feedback, Friction, and Organisational Pushback
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Why Fixes Fail: Feedback Loops, Delays, and Unintended Effects
- Why Sensible Actions Often Produce Familiar Problems
- VIDEO
- Seeing the Pattern Beneath the Failed Fix
- Spot the Loop: Why the Fix Backfires
- Using Loops and Delays to Think More Systemically
- From Repeating Patterns to Smarter Intervention
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Control, Compliance, and Workarounds
- When More Control Creates More Friction
- VIDEO
- Why Organisations Create the Workarounds They Say They Do Not Want
- When Compliance Creates Workarounds
- Designing Accountability That Works in the Real System
- Seeing the System Behind the Rule
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When Pressure Distorts Learning
- Why Organisations Struggle to Learn Under Strain
- Why Pressure Changes What the System Can Learn
- How Pressure Narrows What an Organisation Can Know
- Spot the Distortion: When Pressure Changes Learning
- Designing Conditions for More Honest and Useful Learning
- Learning as a System Condition, Not Just a Good Intention
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The Cost of Friction: Rework, Delay, and Organisational Drag
- Why Work Gets Heavier Even When Everyone Is Trying
- Why Friction Is a Systems Problem
- How Friction Builds Inside Organisational Systems
- Find the Friction: Rework, Delay, and Drag in Practice
- Reducing Drag Without Shifting the Burden Elsewhere
- From Everyday Drag to Deeper System Defence
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Finding Leverage: Designing Interventions That Shift Conditions
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From Symptoms to Conditions: Choosing Leverage Under Real Constraints
- Where to Intervene When You Cannot Change Everything
- Why Leverage Matters More Than Another Fix
- Why Acting on Symptoms So Often Fails
- Choosing Leverage: From Visible Problems to System Conditions
- How to Choose Leverage Without Overpromising Change
- Choosing Change That Reaches Beneath the Surface
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Decision Rights, Information Flow, and Incentives
- Three Conditions That Quietly Shape Organisational Behaviour
- Why These Three Conditions Matter So Much
- How Decision Rights, Information Flow, and Incentives Produce Organisational Patterns
- Spot the Condition Beneath the Pattern
- Using These Conditions as Leverage Points for Change
- From Structural Conditions to Small, Testable Change
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Designing Safe-to-Try Pilots
- Testing Change Without Pretending You Control the Whole System
- Why Small, Safe Tests Matter in Systems Change
- Why Systems Thinking Favours Pilots Over Premature Scale
- Which Pilot Is Safe to Try?
- How to Design a Pilot That Produces Real Learning
- From Testing Change to Designing It More Justly
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Equity-Centred Intervention Design
- Designing Change That Reduces Strain Rather Than Relocating It
- Why Good Intentions Are Not Enough in Systems Change
- Why Systems Change Must Pay Attention to Where Harm Travels
- Who Carries the Cost?
- How to Design Interventions That Reduce Harm More Fairly
- Leverage That Holds Ethically, Not Just Operationally
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Tracking Signals That Are Hard to Fake
- Knowing Whether Change Is Really Taking Hold
- Why the Wrong Indicators Can Mislead You
- Why Surface Improvement Is Not Always System Change
- Which Signal Tells You More?
- Building a Tracking Approach That Supports Honest Learning
- Watching for What the System Cannot Easily Perform
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Making Change Stick: Learning, Adaptation, and Systems Stewardship
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From Intervention to Practice: Embedding New Ways of Working
- Why Good Changes Fade Unless the System Can Hold Them
- Why Implementation Is Never the End of the Story
- Why Change Often Looks Adopted Before It Is Embedded
- Adopted or Embedded?
- What Helps a Useful Change Become Ordinary
- When a Change Starts to Belong to the System
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Learning Loops for Teams and Leadership
- How Organisations Learn Fast Enough to Keep Change Alive
- Why Change Fades Without Learning Loops
- Why Learning Loops Matter in a Living System
- Where Is the Learning Loop Breaking?
- Designing Learning Loops That Actually Influence Change
- Keeping Change Responsive Instead of Fixed
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Psychological Safety, Voice, and Honest Adaptation
- What Makes It Possible to Tell the Truth While Change Is Unfolding
- Why Change Cannot Adapt Without Honest Feedback
- Why People Often Know More Than the System Can Hear
- What Is the System Making Safer to Say?
- Designing Conditions for More Honest Adaptation
- When the System Can Hear More of What Is True
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Stewarding Change Across Power Differences
- Holding Change When People Do Not Stand in the System Equally
- Why Stewardship Matters When Power Is Uneven
- Why Change Needs Stewardship, Not Just Sponsorship
- What Is Stewardship Missing?
- Practising Stewardship Without Recentralising Control
- Holding Change With More Accountability and Less Illusion
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Review, Adapt, Repeat: Building a Living Systems Practice
- How Change Stays Alive After the Initial Push
- Why Systems Change Needs a Rhythm, Not Just a Launch
- Why Change Needs Ongoing Review to Stay Real
- What Should Be Reviewed, Adapted, or Repeated?
- How to Build a Review-and-Adapt Rhythm That Can Last
- Keeping Change in Motion Without Letting It Drift
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Power is part of the system
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Formal vs Informal Power in NGOs/INGOs
- Submodule Overview
- Power Is a System Feature, Not a Personality Test
- Reading
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Gatekeeping + โWhose Outcomes Count?โ
- Submodule Overview
- Gatekeeping Isnโt Always Loud, but Itโs Always Consequential
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Power Mapping + Stakeholder Heat Maps
- Submodule Overview
- Influence Is Not Impact: Map Both
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Designing Safe Influence Routes
- Submodule Overview
- Safe Participation Is a Duty-of-Care Design Choice
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Feedback Loops & the Myth of Linear Change
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Reinforcing vs Balancing Loops in Organisational Life
- Submodule Overview
- Two Loop Types Youโll See Everywhere
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Delays + Side Effects: Why โFixesโ Backfire
- Submodule Overview
- Delays: The Reason Good Fixes Fail
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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CLDs with Equity Variables: Voice, Safety, Access
- Submodule Overview
- Make the Hidden Drivers Visible: Add Voice, Safety, Access
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Testing a Loop + Choosing Where to Intervene
- Submodule Overview
- Donโt Act on a Beautiful Map: Test It
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Leverage Points for Equity-Centred Transformation
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Symptoms vs Conditions: What Leverage Really Means
- Submodule Overview
- Leverage Isnโt Effort. Itโs Position.
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Shifting Rules, Relationships, and Information Flows
- Submodule Overview
- Three High-Leverage Levers You Can Actually Touch
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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Equity Impact Check: Who Benefits, Who Pays, What Safeguards
- Submodule Overview
- Donโt Pilot Harm: Run the Equity Check First
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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30-Day Systems Action Plan: Pilot, Signals, Review
- Submodule Overview
- A 30-Day Pilot That Protects Capacity and Dignity
- Reading (1200 words)
- Exercise
- Reflective Journal Prompt
- Wrap-Up + Next Lesson Teaser
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WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR
MODULE OVERVIEW
WHAT YOU WILL GAIN