Tim Whitcher on Systems Thinking at the First LEiRs Seminar of 2025

The first seminar of the year in the Leaders and Entrepreneurs in Residence (LEiRs) Seminar Series took place on 30 January 2025. We had the pleasure of welcoming Tim Whitcher, Technical Director at Atkins Réalis, who delivered a talk titled Nothing Survives First Contact: Applying Systems Thinking in the Real World.

Tim delivered an insightful talk on the real-world applications of systems thinking, highlighting how leaders can enhance the success of interventions by understanding whole system implications and interconnections.

Tim explored how plans fall apart when we encounter reality, so we need to be adaptable enough to manage emergent change as it happens. That is the meaning behind the title  “Nothing Survives First Contact”. The moment we engage with reality, reality becomes part of your system and new / unexpected behaviours happen. We call these “Emergent Behaviours”.

So while plans by their nature are static devices, the world we apply them in is not. The world is an open system – dynamic and often contradictory which means our plans are wrong but some are useful. Tim showcased examples on how Systems Thinking gives us the tools to perceive this environment and think proactively – enabling us to react to change and make controlled steps toward our objectives.

He introduced practical tools for mapping systems and defining boundaries to improve decision-making.

The main takeaways from the seminar were the following:

• Learn to think in systems, everything else will then come naturally!
• If you lose control of a system, it is expensive (in every sense of the word) to bring it back under control again.
• As a Systems Leader, stay broad and deep dive where needed.
• Visualise, visualise, visualise. It is important to map your system, its interdependencies and feedback loops!

It was great to hear participants’ feedback on how they’d take away tangible insights, that they can apply straight away in their daily practice.

Our next seminar will take place in March. Details will be published on our News and Events page soon.

For more information about our activities and how to collaborate with us, contact our Associate Dean of Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise, Professor Jeni Giambona, j.giambona@soton.ac.uk .