In an earlier post, I took issue with the tendency for many writers and consultants to confuse complexity and complicatedness when discussing the dynamics of organizations.
I was therefore pleased to come across an excellent article by Johnnie Moore that made this same point in his usual eloquent style. It formed part of a piece he had contributed to the More Space project in 2005.
The first paragraph of his article, entitled Simple Ideas, Lightly Held, is headlined
"Life is complex, but it isn't complicated".
Here, I just wanted to highlight the simple way that he draws the distinction between things that are complicated and those that are complex (from page 75 of the book) ...
This is what I mean when I use the word complicated:
The wiring on an aircraft is complicated. To figure out where everything goes would take a long time. But if you studied it for long enough, you could know with (near) certainty what each electrical circuit does and how to control it. The system is ultimately knowable. If understanding it is important, the effort to study it and make a detailed diagram of it would be worthwhile.
So complicated = not simple, but ultimately knowable.
Now, put a crew and passengers in that aircraft and try to figure out what will happen on the flight. Suddenly we go from complicated to complex. You could study the lives of all these people for years, but you could never know all there is to know about how they will interact. You could make some guesses, but you can never know for sure. And the effort to study all the elements in more and more detail will never give you that certainty.
So complex = not simple and never fully knowable. Just too many variables interact.
Importantly, he goes on to say:
Managing humans will never be complicated. It will always be complex. So no book or diagram or expert is ever going to reveal the truth about managing people.
But don’t panic. We can manage people if we stop trying too hard to get it right. We just have to live with that uncertainty and come to enjoy it.
These comments resonate strongly with the dynamics of organizations as set out in Informal Coalitions. In particular, as I argue there:
- organizations are complex social processes, not complicated machines
- organizational outcomes emerge from the ongoing process of conversation and interaction between people
- both continuity and change arise through these same, self-organizing conversations:
- patterns of past sensemaking tend to channel ongoing sensemaking imperceptibly down familiar pathways (continuity)
- at the same time, in-the-moment sensemaking retains the capacity for these patterns to shift and novelty to emerge (change)
- neither managers nor anyone else can control the outcomes that ultimately emerge, even where they have the formal authority to command certain actions along the way
- the challenge for those wishing to lead change is to actively engage with this process of everyday interaction, with the intention of shifting the patterns of conversation and action in organizationally beneficial ways but with no certainty of outcome.
More of Johnnie Moore's writing can be found on his blog.
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