Face-to-face learning – Systems Learning

Face-to-face learning with Martin Sandbrook

May 2026

I have enjoyed many years shifting people's perspective and liberating them to think more effectively in relation to the overwhelming complexity and uncertainty of our world. Apart from offering coaching, I am now retired.

To leave something valuable behind, I have consolidated the essential elements of all my training courses into my book Shifting Perspective. If you would like to train with me, the book follows the steps of my various training courses.

Reading it will provide you with:

Knowledge: You will:

Become familiar with how you see the world and the effect this has on how you act.
Shift from a ‘thing’ to a ‘relationship’ view of the world.
Consider the prevailing way of seeing the world – how we take it to pieces to understand it, how we assume everything can be measured, analysed, diagnosed and fixed.
Explore how the world really is – inter-dependent, complex and uncertain.
Become familiar with the characteristics of systems, in particular, complex systems.
Open your awareness to a different way of seeing and being in the world – free up your creativity to deal effectively with complex problems – what we call ‘Systems Thinking’.

Skills: You will be able to:

Make use of this freedom – apply this new awareness in practice to any challenge you face, personal or professional, working towards a solution, through ‘action experiment’ and other systemic approaches.
Think more effectively, to solve problems and deal with complex systems.
Inquire and experiment, while being aware of yourself in action.
Lead effectively, whether this be yourself or others.

What sort of people have been on previous courses? Participants on Martin’s courses have come from a wide range of organisations and backgrounds. Unilever, Bristol’s Golden Key Partnership, Aberdeen City, Defra, CGL, Bristol Green Capital, Community Land Trust, Swansea City Sustainability, and many others.

What previous participants say? People who have been on our courses talk about feeling really connected with the world for the first time. Many say some inner knowledge, which they were only dimly aware of, has been brought to the surface and released.

Kathrine Maceratta, Digital Transformation Director – Unilever “Attending Martin’s course on Systems Thinking was an enlightening and even life changing experience. It opened my mind and heart to see the world in a systemic way, which is something I now carry with me in everything I do, from my personal to my professional life. Martin is a skilful teacher, knowledgeable and humble, who, combined with his extensive professional experience, is able to make the course engaging, inspiring and fun at the same time! After the course I invited Martin to do a short version of it during a sustainability workshop I was running at my workplace (Unilever) which was very successful. Martin delivered a great session, tailor-made for senior leaders, helping those professionals to incorporate systems thinking in their workplace. The Free Your Thinking course with Martin Sandbrook is a must for everyone who wants to better understand the complexity of the world we are living in, and at the same time wants to be a positive agent of change in their personal or professional lives.”

Keyu Tan (PhD), Blockchain Product Manager, FNZ Group

“You paved the way for a great expansion in my thinking. The real ah-ha moment for me was when you explained the difference between complicated and complex. I became aware of my own assumptions and beliefs, of other perspectives, and of different ways of knowing – especially intuition, experience and emotion. You also reawakened my spirit of inquiry. For the first time in my life, I really connected with what it means to learn and be open to new information. But the real shift was to see that most of what we deal with is complex and uncertain and needs to be dealt with accordingly. That my view of the world is shaped by my assumptions and beliefs. If I change these, I change my view. This is particularly true of boundaries. Difficult situations often make us feel trapped. Systems thinking frees me from the box I am trapped in. It reminds me that the box only exists in my mind and imagination – it is not physically real".