How boldly are you leading in complexity?
Demonstrating the ancient and noble art of the 'thumb wrestle'. With a twist!
A couple of weeks ago now, I presented “Introduction to Complexity” to the CEO and Mayor Forum on behalf of the LGA SA. I was pretty nervous about it for a few reasons. Why?
We all live and work in complexity so it shouldn’t be a big deal! But we have hidden, unexamined assumptions in our modern Western culture that underpin our work lives. These assumptions are based on mechanistic thinking, not an understanding of living systems and interdependence. So, my presentation was always going to be ‘counter-cultural’. Being counter-cultural usually gets people into trouble. You may recall the quotation often attributed to Gandhi, but actually originally said by Nicholas Klein, a trade union activist in 1918:
“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.”
While I wasn’t expecting to be burned at the stake, I was concerned about being ignored. Maybe even being laughed at – I often get feedback that indicates that this work is “too academic or too theoretical”. But one element I added was a very concrete example illustrating how our unconscious thinking absolutely determines the outcomes and results we attain. This short, fun and most important of all, concrete provocation upfront made everyone stop and take notice. I may have found the secret sauce!
I went on in this presentation to identify the ways in which mechanistic and living systems behave, and how many widely accepted (and even unquestioned) structures in our organisations are mechanistic in origin. Therefore, they are incompatible with making progress on complex challenges that include organisational survival, attracting and retaining staff, housing availability, climate and ecological destruction, and organisational culture.
We need different ways of working together that depart from the usual ‘project management approaches’. And those new ways are emerging. One that I have been employing over the last couple of years is the International Futures Forum’s Three Horizons model, and another I shared is my own Perspectives to Progress process. I have shared this process in this newsletter before, but the video is an easy reminder (click here if you'd like to download a copy of the image for a closer look).
We are all living and working in complexity and uncertainty; it’s just becoming more and more so. The question is, how are you changing yourself as you are leading in uncertainty?