When Oxera’s Data Science Practice gathered to develop their strategic vision, they didn’t create PowerPoint slides or fill in strategy templates – they built a comprehensive LEGO® system model showing their aspiration and the 40+ forces affecting it. Four table groups created different visions; during lunch, representatives combined these into a single Meta-Model© representing all 24 participants’ thinking. After examining the system – identifying agents, building connections, exploring patterns – four people stayed to refine the original vision using the Re-Vision© technique. The transformation was remarkable: comparing the before and after videos revealed that the refined version incorporated elements initially missed, modified priorities based on seeing the whole, and demonstrated strategic grounding invisible at the start. This wasn’t ‘we got it wrong’ – it was ‘we think more sophisticatedly now because we understand the system’, demonstrating how systems thinking capability develops through practice, not through presentations.
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