Nine Organizing Principles and Insights from Complexity Science
| Principle | Statement of Principle | Further Elaboration |
Complexity Lens | View your organization through the biological metaphor of complexity | …in addition to the metaphor of the “well oiled machine” organization |
Good-Enough Vision | Build a good-enough vision and provide minimum specifications for moving forward | …rather than trying to plan out every little detail |
Clockware/
Swarmware | When life is far from certain, lead from the edge, with clockware and swarmware in tandem… | … that is, balance data and intuition, planning and acting, safety and risk, giving due honor to each |
Tune to the Edge | Tune your place to the edge by fostering the “right” degree of: information flow, diversity difference, connections, power differential, anxiety… | … instead of controlling information, forcing agreement, dealing separately with contentious groups, working down the layers of the hierarchy in sequence, & seeking comfort |
Paradox | Uncover and work with paradox and tension… | … rather than shying away from them as if they were unnatural |
Multiple Actions | Try multiple actions at the fringes, let direction arise… | … rather than believing that you must be “sure” before you proceed with anything |
Shadow System | Listen to the shadow system and informal communities of practice… | … realizing that informal relationships, rumor, and sensemaking contribute to individuals’ mental models and actions |
Chunking | Grow complex systems by chunking or bricolage… | … by allowing innovations to emerge out of the links among simple systems that work and are capable of operating independently |
Competition/
Cooperation | Mix cooperation and competition… | … it’s not one or the other. |
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Adapted from: EdgeWare, Lindberg, Plsek & Zimmerman, 1998, VHA Inc.
Complexity Science Helps Us Appreciate
I have always found that plans are useless,
but planning is indispensable. Dwight D Eisenhower
The Power of Relationships Behind the Structure
• Formal roles do not explain the whole or how things get done; informal networks and communities-of-practice play critical roles
Non-Linearity
• Small changes can have BIG effects and BIG efforts can make no difference
Self-Organizing, Emergent Properties
• Unintended results are very important & irreducible to the parts
“Change Management” Is Simultaneous Mutual Shaping
• As we are shaping and responding, we are being shaped by the change… much more than simply adapting to external change
Surprise & Serendipity
• Even though we planned ahead, you can rely on surprise
Diversity Is A Strategic Advantage
• Difference is a source of novelty and learning if you work with it
Organizational Design Is Continuous Refashioning
• You will not get it right in advance; design is an ongoing dynamic unfolding, retrospectively coherent process
Success Creates It’s Own Failure
• Successful management schemes will eventually lead to rigidity and failure
The Power of Self-Discovery
• Solutions that are generated and spread through self-discovery (in contrast to "best practices") do not encounter resistance to change
There are two kinds of truth. There are superficial truths,
the opposite of which are obviously wrong. But there are also
profound truths, whose opposite are equally right. Niels Bohr