Empowering Managers to Adopt Multimethodological Intervention Strategies to Address Complex Problematic Situations

Michael Jackson's early work on the development of the Systems of System Methodologies recognised that problem situations can be complex, across both decision‐makers and systems. Jackson later advocated for methodological complementarity in his works on critical systems thinking, suggesting that ‘hard’, ‘soft’ and ‘emancipatory’ approaches may all have a role to play depending on the complexities of a problem situation. We used Jackson's ideas to develop a post‐graduate systems thinking subject for managers at an Australian university. The constraints of delivering this learning experience within a 4‐day workshop to an increasingly heterogenous student cohort created forces of natural selection that drove an evolution in the format and content of the subject. In this paper, we will explain how the subject is currently being offered. We also illustrate how we used one instance of the subject to investigate a complex problem facing the Australian construction sector.