Unleashing innovation from a Systems Practice perspective

This presentation challenges dominant paradigms in systems thinking and explores how shifting perspectives can better sustain innovation in complex adaptive systems. Drawing on research in schools, prisons, and healthcare, Dr. Luke Roberts critiques mechanistic and “whole system” approaches that often fail to account for feedback, social energy, and the role of narrative. He demonstrates how worldviews, metaphors, and stories shape stakeholder engagement and systemic behaviour, highlighting the risks of component-based thinking that reduces complexity to isolated parts. Using examples from prison reform and education, Roberts shows how rich pictures and narrative-based methods can surface hidden dynamics, reveal power-laden narratives such as the “victim” stance, and open possibilities for systemic transformation. His work emphasizes the importance of social energy—attention, information, and resources—as a driver of change, and illustrates how creative methods can bridge disconnects between lived experience and institutional priorities. The session invites practitioners to reconsider the paradigms underpinning their practice and to embrace approaches that foster emergence, empathy, and lasting systemic change.