In a recent article, the Financial Times' political columnist, Janan Ganesh, argues that Theresa May's government is "stronger for its weakness". In agreeing with this, Deborah Rowland comments briefly (here) that the accompanying uncertainty and 'not knowing', arising from the lack of a Commons majority, is likely to demand more collective decision-making and result in more creative solutions. She uses Keats's notion of "negative capability" to illustrate her point.
I very much support her view that strength can come from the capacity to survive and thrive in conditions of 'unknowability'. Indeed, the need and ability to do so flows directly from the complex social dynamics of human interaction, in which 'not knowing' is the norm, not the exception.
Sadly, Deborah then ends her post with a disappointingly dismissive reference to "muddling through", when talking about the required leadership response to these conditions. On this point, I disagree fundamentally. And it is this aspect of organizational dynamics and leadership practice that I want to say more about here.
Put starkly, muddling through is precisely what we do in practice, as we seek to find our way through the "uncertainties, mysteries, doubts" of everyday life, to which the Keats reference alludes.
That is to say, we each act, moment-to-moment, into a continuously emerging and unknowable future. This is a future that we are perpetually co-creating through our ongoing interactions with others - whether these are planned or unplanned, formal or informal, overt or covert, real or virtual, or whatever. In this, we are both helped and hindered in everything we do by what everyone else does and doesn't do. So none of us - whatever our roles and relationships - can control what's going on, or predict what the effects of all this will be.
The way in which we later account for our practice might well make it appear that we made our way from A to B through a series of well-thought-through, neatly-packaged, and self-determined actions. Indeed, in the context of organization, there is continuing pressure on us to demonstrate that our behaviour is in line with the assumptions of scientific rationality and management orthodoxy, as well as being culturally and politically acceptable. This means that our post-event rationalization of the messy reality is a taken-for-granted aspect of 'playing the game'. However, this does nothing to diminish the muddling-through nature of what's actually going on. Indeed, given the mainstream view of what constitutes 'good management', it's part of playing the game skilfully!
Taking complexity seriously
In Rethinking the Fifth Discipline, Robert Louis Flood says in relation to complexity,
"Balancing mystery with mastery means living somewhere between the hopelessness of the belief that we are unable to understand anything and, at the other extreme, the naivety of the belief that we can know everything. Human beings in this way know of and learn within the unknowable.”
If we are to take complexity seriously, we need to recognize that muddling through is not a second-best option; devoid of the intentionality, insights, and inspiration that 'proper management' and textbook leadership practice are supposed to bring to the fore. It is the best that we can do.
It is through the coming together of people's differing intentions, interpretations, interests, ideologies, identities, idiosyncrasies, and so on, that whatever happens, happens. In other words, through the playing out of the ordinary politics of everyday life, in which we are all, inextricably involved. We should not be surprised, therefore, that these are the very characteristics that Ganesh is alluding to, in his commentary on the personalities and circumstances that are colouring the actions of the UK's current Conservative Government.
Finding our way through this real-world wiggliness and unknowability is what muddling through is all about. It's what we all do. And it's time we owned up to it!
In practice...
The challenge then becomes one of consciously setting out to find our way through the issues and events that actually arise; not those that might have arisen, if the real world had been kind enough to comply with the planning assumptions.
In particular, it means striving to do this with purpose, courage and skill.
In practice, this is about our participating creatively** in the ongoing process of organization, 'balancing mystery with mastery', by:
- using our practical judgement, and an intuitive 'feel' for the situations we find ourselves in, to make progress in the desired direction;
- stimulating, and learning from, joint-sensemaking conversations around important emerging themes that are organizing people's everyday (inter)actions;
- imaginatively 'making do', to arrive at novel ways forward 'as the real world happens' - making use of whatever knowledge, ideas and resources we are able to call upon;
- thinking culturally about the emergent patterning of our own and others' behaviours and interactions, with a view to reinforcing those patterns that appear to be helping and shifting those that don't;
- acting politically, which means ethically using our power to influence outcomes, in ways that we judge to be organizationally beneficial and socially just;
- building informal coalitions, aimed at mobilizing collective action in support of performance-enhancing themes and activities;
- embracing the inherent paradoxes and ambiguities of organizational life, and working to make them liveable for people;
- providing vision, which is about helping people to 'see better', through our everyday conversations and interactions.
- adopting an enabling (rather than controlling) mindset as we strive to be purposeful, courageous, and skilful in our muddling through***.
... doing all of this, of course, without any certainty as to what will emerge in practice - but paying attention to the future, as it is emerging in people's present interactions.
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Notes...
* Details of Deborah Rowland's recently published book, Still Moving, on "how to lead mindful change" can be found here.
** As Ralph Stacey argues, "Leadership is having the courage to go on participating creatively, despite not knowing."
*** A copy of the Sunday Times article from September 2014, Management by Muddling Through, can be found here.
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