This book offers a radical way of thinking about organisations as living systems, and practical methods of engaging with complex social and organisational issues, which the authors call 'working whole systems'. The whole system approach they have developed involves working with many types of stakeholder. It always engages local people in active participation and it sometimes includes working with large numbers of people simultaneously. Its purpose is to find local solutions to local concerns. The concepts and practical working methods they describe are widely applicable wherever people are searching for new ways of working on seemingly intractable issues.