What does complexity theory offer business? |
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Page 1 of 7  "Does complexity theory offer insight into the future of business leadership and the evolution of management thinking"?Why is it, that where people are involved, the unexpected is expected? If it really was possible for leaders and managers to identify cause and effect, surely events would be far more predictable that they are. Obviously, human thinking today uses less mysticism and more linear cause and effect thinking. How else might managers manage? Or are there far more variables at play than we recognise when we look for 'casue and effect'. The seminal work of Peter Senge (Senge 2000) helped business describe and work with the existence of multiple and simultaneously occurring 'cause and effect' relationships - yet unpredictability and uncertainty remain, if not continue to increase. Is the very idea of ‘cause and effect’ both a useful management tool AND a limit to management? Being able to distill situations down to 'either / or' is convenient, but what if the reality is 'both, and ...'? Complexity theory offers a radical difference through embracing the randomness and uncertainty always present in a human system (indeed just about any system). It argues that ultimately, all such systems are self-organizing. Causes and effects are merely the known influences, complexity inviting us to feel comfortable that far more is at play than can be 'seen' or 'known'. For example, ideas like 'self directed work teams', 'strategic alignment', the 'learning organization' and 'devolving authority' all rely to some extent on a willingness to trust this idea.  In practical terms, this reduces dependence on command and control, reduces the limitation of prescribed solutions and focuses on creating the right circumstances in which more of the energy and creativity of the organization is allowed to emerge.Expressed another [and yes, more academic] way: as feedback networks are pushed from stability to instability they pass through a phase transition in which they are paradoxically both stable and unstable at the same time. At the edge of stability, feedback networks are capable of spontaneously generating endless variety but what form that variety will take is inherently unpredictable and unknowable. (Stacey 1996a) The result of allowing this to occur, say those who apply complexity theory to organizations, is more – more options, more commitment to those options and more effective working relationships between people. |
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