COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP THEORY: ENABLING PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS FOR ADAPTABILITY……
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WHAT IS COMPLEXITY?
Although many are feeling and experiencing complexity in the workplace and in their lives, it is harder for them to describe exactly what it is. Despite the name, the concept of complexity itself is really quite simple: Complexity is about rich interconnectivity. Adding the word ‘‘rich’’ to interconnectivity means that when things interact, they change one another in unexpected and irreversible ways. Complexity scholars like to describe this as the distinction between ‘‘complexity’’ and ‘‘complicated.’’ Complicated systems may have many parts but when the parts interact they do not change each other. For example, a jumbo jet is complicated but mayonnaise is complex. When you add parts to a jumbo jet they make a bigger entity but the original components do not change–—a wheel is still a wheel, a window is a window, and steel always remains steel. When you mix the ingredients in mayonnaise (eggs, oil, lemon), however, the ingredients are fundamentally changed, and you can never get the original elements back. In complexity terms, the system is not decomposable back to its original parts.
Once we understand this, we can see complexity all around us. It occurs when networked interactions allow events to link up and create unexpected outcomes, or emergence. As mentioned earlier, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is a complexity emergence event in that a variety of factors linked up in an interconnected system and produced an outcome that was largely unpredictable, other than in the short term, and had far-reaching effects. After it happened there was no going back–—organizations and economies around the world had to operate in the new reality. Moreover, the impact can be long lasting. We are still feeling the effects of the GFC, and it influences decision-making and activities in our current contexts.
The ‘‘Order’’ Response
In this new reality, it is more essential than ever for organiza- tions to adapt–—to pivot in real time with the changing needs of the environment. They must fit the mantra of complexity theorists that it takes complexity to beat complexity. Despite this, what we see in our data over and over again is that when faced with complexity, the natural proclivity of people and organizations is to respond with order–—to turn to hierarch- ical approaches of leading and managing change top-down. Snapping back to previously successful, ordered solutions provides a sense of control that satisfies not only the needs of managers who have been trained in traditional leadership models, but also organizational members who look to leaders to take care of them and make things ‘‘right’’ again.
What we see in our research is that when confronted with complexity, organizations most often seek greater account- ability. They demand ‘‘more from less’’ and instill better risk mitigation strategies. When these fail, they turn to greater regulatory control. These ‘‘order’’ responses can actually do more harm than good. An example is the recording industry’s response to the emergence of Napster in the 1990s. From June 1999 to February 2001, the peer-to-peer music sharing entity grew from zero to over 26 million users. For the first time ever, individuals were able to gain access to their favorite songs without having to purchase entire CDs. But the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) responded by filing a suit for vicarious copyright infringement under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The result was that in July 2001, Napster was forced to shut down………………………………………………
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