Genesis Volume 1 Issue 1 February-March 2004
Genesis is the monthly newsletter of Strategenis a change facilitation consultancy. The newsletter is intended to provide a forum for exploration of complexity, leadership, and group dynamics within human systems. It will provide a means to making sense of the emerging understanding about complexity and the practical challenges faced by leaders, teams and communities as they attempt to sustain the capacity to succeed in a dynamic environment.
The name genesis was chosen to the reflect the sense of beginning and emergence from initial conditions. Just as Lorenz explored how the flap of a butterfly wing in Brazil could lead to a tornado in Texas, our goal is that Genesis will generate some great conversations
Leadership and Complexity by Paul Mackey © Strategenis Print friendly?
Today's leaders have a tough job. Constantly venturing into unknown territory, swamped by information glut , squeezed by multiple expectations, and humbled by the complexity of the challenges they see, leaders strive to make sense of it all. Many would propose that sense making, is a leader's primary role. They are expected to: a) make a convincing argument that the organization has a meaningful future, b) that it is a future in which they can encourage others to participate, and c) ensure that participants have a clear, and valuable role to play in achieving the leader's future vision. Yet, understanding the future is clearly beyond any one person. It is even more difficult to imagine a group holding a common view of it. Each of us sees the future through the filters of our past, our culture, our mental models and the questions we choose to ask. Given this, how can leaders lead?
Mary UHL-Bien and Russ Marion (2002).* have suggested that transformational leadership theory, in which a leader has the role of the “manager of meaning”, needs updating in light of the insights gained from complexity science. In transformational leadership, the leader transforms followers through a top down approach. The transformation is accomplished, first by developing a vision, then by managing resistance and getting “buy-in” to achieve “alignment” with the vision. Variations on this, encourage wider participation in development of the vision and strategy in order to reduce resistance and increase the chances of gaining commitment. By transforming followers, leaders transform the organization. Compared with the earlier theories which promoted a deterministic command and control view, the more humanistic approach of transformational leadership was labeled “the new leadership” (Bryman 1996)** It is this new leadership which UHL-Bien and Marion believe which needs updating.
All theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that lead us to see, understand and manage organizations in distinctive yet partial ways ...One of the most basic problems of modern management is that the mechanical way of thinking is so ingrained in our everyday conceptions of organization, that it is often very difficult to organize in any other way”
(Gareth Morgan)
Transformational leadership, like the previous deterministic views of leadership, are based on principles of Cartesian and Newtonian concepts which seek order, equilibrium, and linear “cause and effect “ relationships. Working with these assumptions as a model, leads to our expectations that leaders can actually “manage” change. The prime assumption is that if a good change process is followed, then the organization will accept the change proposed by the leader and “make it so”
Complexity science provides a metaphor for change in organizations which challenges some of the well known approaches of transformational leadership. “Complexity theory moves away from...views that seek a simple cause-and-effect explanations for physical and social phenomena, to a perspective of the world as nonlinear, organic, and characterized by uncertainty and unpredictability” (Regine, 2000).*** The metaphor for complexity compares organizations to a living system – complete with diversity, surprise, and change. The complexity perspective, fundamentally changes our understanding of leadership. In organizations, people are seen as agents within complex adaptive systems who interact with each other and with other systems – such as political and economic systems. As people take action using their individual understanding of local conditions to adapt to their environment, patterns of interaction within the system emerge. These patterns can characterize the behavior and the success of the whole organization. Patterns in complex adaptive systems are often scalable- one sees patterns at the individual levels, the team level, the organizational level. Sometimes the pattern is also evident outside of the organization in industries, sectors, or society at large. Whereas the machine metaphor for organizations typically uses controls to establish equilibrium around a fixed point ( i.e. Alignment to a strategy) a key characteristic of complex adaptive systems is that they have constant change. There may be multiple points towards which the agents in the system are attracted ( attractors). It is the movement towards attractors which can provide patterns. For example, in organizations, as individuals move from behavior which expresses their need for individuality towards behavior which reflects the need to do things together with others, a pattern may emerge. The behaviour of people as they are shift between focus on individual needs to group needs and back shapes the pattern of interaction within the system.
Zimmerman, Linberg, and Plesk, in the book “Edgeware: Lesson From Complexity Science for Health Care Leaders”**** note that complexity science is not a single theory, but rather the study of complex adaptive systems which includes several models arising from diverse disciplines such as biology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and management. Their studies examine patterns of relationships within systems, emerging and self-organizing outcomes, the conditions and factors for sustaining systems as the systems move far from equilibrium towards the edge of chaos. This intrigues leaders because of the richness of the new models and the resonance that complexity science has with a leader's own experience in an increasingly complex world.
John Holland, in a teleconference for the Plexus Institute compared using models to using dim headlights. They may only dimly highlight what we see, yet when crossing a unknown terrain in the dark, it is still useful to have a model to show where the crevices are located. We are still in the early stages of understanding how to best use complexity science, as a model or metaphor for understanding organizations. It is clear that organizations exhibit the characteristics of complex adaptive systems, but how does that translate into practical approaches leaders can take? What is leadership, in complex situations in which control and authority are not needed for self organization? If small changes in initial conditions can lead to wide variation in results and unpredictable change, then what is the role of planning? How can innovation and creativity be encouraged? These and many more “big” questions arise from leaders as they attempt to create new understanding by using the models from complexity.
Leaving the “big” questions for future newsletters, here are some of the practical differences which may characterize leaders who explicitly or intuitively apply the complexity metaphor as part of their leadership style.
Comparison leadership styles****
|
Complex Adaptive Systems |
Traditional Systems |
|---|---|
|
Are open, responsive, catalytic |
Are controlling, mechanistic |
|
Offer alternatives |
Repeat the past |
|
Are collaborative, co-participating |
Are “in charge” |
|
Are adaptable |
Are self preserving |
|
Acknowledge paradoxes |
Resist change, bury contradictions |
|
Are engaged, continuously emerging |
Are disengaged, nothing ever changes |
|
Value people |
Value position and structures |
|
Are shifting as processes unfold |
Hold formal position |
|
Prune rules |
Set rules |
|
Help others |
Make decisions |
|
Are listeners |
Are knowers |
Resources used for this newsletter are:
* Marion, Russ. And Uhl=Bien, Mary “Complexity v. Transformation: The New Leadership Revisited, presented at Managing the Complex IV Conference on Complex Systems and the Management of Organizations, Ft. Meyers, Florida, December,2002
** Bryman, A. “Leadership in Organizations. In S.R.Clegg, C.Hardy, & W.R. Nord (Eds.) Handbook of Organizational Studies London: Sage Publications
*** Zimmerman, B, Lindberg, C. and Plesk, P. Edgeware: Insights from Complexity Science for Healthcare Leaders. Irving,Texas;VHA Inc. 1998
**** “Applying Complexity Science to Health and Healthcare” a conference report : Complexity Science in Practice: Understanding and Acting to Improve Health and Healthcare, sponsored by The Plexus Institute and The centre for the study of Healthcare Management, University of Minnesota contact: Jessica Haupt jhaupt@csom.umn.edu
Other relevant favorites include:
Stacey, R.D. Managing the Unknowable: Strategic Boundaries Between Order and Chaos in Organizations
Wheatley, M.J.( 1999) “Leadership and the new science”, San Francisco; Berrett-Koehler