Around 25 years ago, the then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said,
"There is no such thing as society."
Clarifying her view, she went on to say,
"There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves."
Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987
In an apparent contradiction of this position, her latest successor David Cameron has put what he calls "the Big Society" at the centre of his party’s political philosophy. However, according to the Conservative Party website, its aim is to help people,
"To come together to improve their own lives. The Big Society is about putting more power in people's hands - a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities. We want to see people encouraged and enabled to play a more active role in society."
In ideological terms, then, there appears to be little difference between the two positions as regards the sought-after action ‘on the ground’. In Lady Thatcher’s terms, though, this represents a denial of the very idea of society and a belief in the sovereignty of individuals. Whereas today’s Prime Minister sees it as the essence of society in action. So which of them is right?
The focus of informal coalitions is on the underlying dynamics of human interaction, rather than on the ideological stance that such interactions might reflect. And, viewed from this perspective, they are both right. And both wrong.
Lauren James’s ‘Missing Hat-Trick’
Originally posted on LinkedIn on 1 August 2023
Lauren James’s ‘Missing Hat-Trick’ v The Complex Social Reality
One of the highlights of England’s win over China, in today’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, was the performance of Lauren James. As well as her three ‘assists’, she put the ball in the net three times. Unfortunately, her second ‘goal’ was ruled out by VAR, due to what was adjudged to be an infringement by one of her teammates.
After James’s third effort had found the net, the commentator expressed regret that, despite the quality of her play, she had been denied a hat-trick by VAR. After the match, and echoing this sentiment, former England player, Jill Scott, said, “If only that goal had been allowed, it would have been a perfect hat-trick”. No doubt our newspapers will be full of similar comments tomorrow.
Other than acknowledging the quality of James’s contribution, though, why am I mentioning this?
The reason is that these post-event commentaries expose the flaws in what I call “Big Dot Thinking”, which provides superficially rational explanations of what has happened (by ‘joining the big dots’), rather than recognizing the complex social reality of people’s actual lived experience. In the context of organization — and life ‘in the round’ — this same line of thinking creates the illusion that management, government and the like can similarly be reduced to a series of linear, ‘if you do this, you’ll get that’ prescriptions. And so the fantasy continues.
Returning to today’s WWC match, there is only one thing that we can say with certainty about James’s ‘missing hat-trick’. That is, that if her second ‘strike’ had not been ruled out by VAR, the second goal that she actually scored would not have occurred at all. In fact, every kick from that point on would have been different. Nothing that actually happened would have taken place. And we have no idea what would have emerged overall.
And so it is with organization and life more generally. Everything that happens is an emergent outcome of the widespread interplay of people’s in-the-moment interactions. As the interactions change, so does everything that emerges from them.
Related Posts:
The match turned on the penalty. Or was it the throw-in?
Ashley's dropped catch
Posted on 03 August 2023 in Complexity, News Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Big Dot Thinking, complexity, path dependency
Digg This | Save to del.icio.us |