Iain McGilchrist's hemisphere hypothesis - taking complexity seriously

In a lecture entitled A revolution in thought?¹, which he delivered a few days ago,² as part of the Darwin College Lecture Series, Dr Iain McGilchrist offers a brilliant and thought-provoking commentary on the global crisis facing us all - and to which we are all contributing. 

In it, he exposes the progressive undermining of the essence of humanity, through the relentless pursuit of a mechanistic approach to our understanding - and, hence, living - of life. An emphasis on what he would call "grabbing and getting"; which, although having merit in its sometimes helpful re-presentation of the complex reality, is also characteristic of the worst excesses of the modern world. 

Besides the wider societal significance of his philosophy, reflecting his hemisphere hypothesis of the functioning of the human brain and its embodiment in our everyday living of life, I see many parallels with a view of organization that takes complexity seriously. That is, a complex social process (or, more precisely, complex responsive process) view of organizational dynamics, which describes people's everyday lived reality in processual and interactional terms and which, in doing so, challenges the suffocating grip of management orthodoxy on organizational perspectives, practices and performance. 

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Notes

1. The lecture can be viewed on YouTube here.

2. This was originally posted on LinkedIn, in March 2024