Using Systems Perspectives to Reimagine our Practice Mental Models from Animal Health and Production to Broader Constructs of Well-Being T. Robin Falkner D.V.M. Technical Consultant Elanco Animal Health Christiana, TN 37037 Introduction and Overview of Presentations As a veterinarian, I have long viewed myself as a part of the animal health infrastructure. But within my mental models I have struggled to define and manage animal health as meaningful positive outcomes versus as simply the absence of negative (sickness) outcomes. I found my own training lacking in the concepts of wellness or well-being. It is common in many production systems for primarily negative clinical outcomes like morbidity and mortality to be measured, recorded, and managed. These metrics are often interpreted in a false dichotomy where the absence of such clinical failure is conflated with wellness or well-being: usually animals that are not diagnosed and treated for clinical disease are for practical purposes considered “well”. How might my practice approach change if I took a perspective of well-being as the management of continuous variables of desirable outcomes (well-being metrics and behaviors) instead of as the dichotomous absence of something unwanted (clinical disease)? Another important consideration was a desire to identify proactive variables not compromised by the long delays and randomness often inherent in current metrics like morbidity, mortality, and profitability. Additionally, embracing well-being as the managed output of client systems allows one to better take a broader, positive ownership of animal health. Often, in diseasecentric animal health mental models, it was easy for clients to view themselves as the victims of disease or of “high risk cattle” produced by others. Or as a veterinarian to identify as a savior who rides in to save the day from such villains. I have found that the active ownership of system well-being outcomes provides a superior internal systems perspective from which to better manage outcomes within our control when compared to a disease victim or savior mindset. While it is unpleasant and discouraging to take ownership of negative outcomes viewed as outside of one’s control, it is empowering to take ownership of positive systems outputs seen as within one’s control. Much of the power within a well-being mental model change resides in this empowered ownership. One of the basic underpinnings of Systems Thinking is that mental models / paradigms exert the highest Leverage Points in a system.1. This is also frequently represented in Goodman’s Iceberg Model2 where the base of the iceberg is Mental Models, described as the values, assumptions, and beliefs that guide and/or constrain one’s perspectives. New or expanded mental models
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