Hello, readers! It’s great to have you back at the Educated Leadership blog for another week!
This week, we learned about complexity theory. The first question to ask is: Is complexity a problem or an opportunity? (Obolensky, 2016) There is imposed complexity, like that created by laws and regulations. Inherent complexity comes from the operation of the business or activity. Designed complexity that derives from choices about where the business operates and/or what it is manufacturing or selling. Lastly, unnecessary complexity comes from the divergence of what the business or activity is and the way it is accomplished (Obolensky, 2016, p. 53).
Science has made great strides toward understanding complexity and chaos (complexity’s moody brother). Be it through chaos theory, the theory of relativity, quantum theory, or the field of complexity science, new ways of looking at seeming random actions and results are being uncovered. As leaders, we can utilize these theories to help understand the complex situations in which we find ourselves more and more often. One idea that has come from chaos theory that has been found to be very applicable to business and leadership is Edward Lorenz’s proposal of “The Butterfly Effect”. He originally proposed the idea in 1963 and then refined it over the next decade (Obolensky, 2016, p. 70).
Lorenz was attempting to model weather patterns on a computer. The numbers involved carried to five and six decimal places and the data entry was tedious. He was entering in the numbers a second time and decided to round off some of the numbers, expecting the result to be inconsequential. What he saw, after the simulation ran for a number of hours, was that the rounded numbers had caused a vastly different result from his first run of the simulation. Ergo, seemingly microscopic (rounding of the ten-thousandths places in some of the data) changes in a complex system had eventually driven large changes in the result. The graph produced looked like a butterfly’s wings and the phenomenon got its name (pictured above).
Can seemingly inconsequential changes in a business practice eventually drive large, unexpected results? Undoubtedly. I remember a senior manager that refused to stand behind one of his direct reports (a manager, as well) when that employee made a very difficult, well-founded decision regarding a policy. Not only did the employees start to test other managers and other rules, the direct reports of the senior manager all lost respect for the manager. Additionally, the direct reports were far less likely to hold the employees accountable because they knew there was a good chance they would be overridden. All the sudden, the senior manager had many more decisions to make because they were not being made at lower levels. Performance in the unit decreased, as did quality. Personnel began leaving and morale sank further. It took about a year, and the loss of many good people, but the senior manager was eventually replaced. The organization is still digging out of the hole that was created by one decision not to act.
Another example occurred when an employee for the same manager kept asking for a transfer to another base of operations. There was very little compelling evidence that the employee should be moved from the headquarters city and the business case only got worse when the cost of a relocation package was added. The employee was incredibly persistent. Making requests for a transfer at least once a week and lobbying the senior manager whenever he got the chance. The employee’s direct manager was not in favor of the move but was unable to stop the employee from continuing to make requests. Eventually, to rid himself of the constant nagging, the senior manager approved the move. The employee quickly worked his way up to manager in the new organization and began changing policies that had been set by the senior manager. Little communication was shared back to the headquarters and management until so many changes had been made, trying to revert the group back would have taken more money and time than headquarters wanted to spend. Additionally, doing so would have made the employee’s managers back at headquarters culpable for approving his move…why shine a light on that? The divide between the two operations still causes problems. The act of “just saying yes” to get someone to go away has been very detrimental to the overall group’s unity and operation.
So, how do we apply the ideas of complexity theory to our daily life as leaders? The first way is to understand the idea that a very small change now can lead to unexpected drastic changes later. I think a great example of that can be seen when observing a golfer driving a golf ball. A misalignment of the clubface at the time of impact with the ball of one-tenth of a degree can lead to the ball being tens to hundreds of feet off course down the fairway…a little means a lot!
Another great tool for our leadership kit comes from the fact that these theories are proving that order can be found in chaos. Additionally, these theories can help us to see that there are often just a few places in the seeming chaos that need to be addressed that can lead to big results! They can help us peer through the fog to find the right touch points. Eric Berlow illustrates this point in a TED Talk, very well (2010). Give it a watch! I would recommend reading Nick Obolensky’s book, too. It’s been very enlightening!
See you next week!
Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership (2nd ed.). London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group.
TED Talks. (Producer). (2010). Eric Berlow: Simplifying complexity. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB2iYzKeej8
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