Complexitisation: The greatest threat to personal and organisational change

I have chosen to create this word, ‘Complexitisation’ to illustrate a fundamental set of human activities that create enormous barriers to change at both the individual and organisational levels.

Complexitisation is a rich concept! Here is an example to illustrate its impact:

A new graduate is recruited for a junior management accounting position in a manufacturing firm. From day one, the graduate is barraged with a torrent of new employer expectations, business rules and processes, cultures, human relationships, technologies, and defining situations that shape their understanding of their work environment and themselves.

To survive in this environment, the graduate must attend to many things. Unfortunately, attention is guided primarily by self-concerns about performance. In the end, they want to be part of the team and they want to be held in esteem by their workmates. They remember what brings self-assurance, comfort, strength, authority, and control to theirs and others lives and these experiences compound and aggregate as a representation of themselves – to themselves, and to others around them. The processes they have been through are what I call complexitisation, which is the continuous growth and clustering of experience and meaning around a set of activities, tempered by emotional and social circumstances.

Now, how does complexisation impact on the graduate’s (now senior employee’s) ability to change?

When the senior employee is faced with a challenging, new situation that requires change, they use a complex network of knowing to navigate through the situation. They now judge the situation from multiple perspectives and consider multiple alternatives. They “rationalise the situation, they pre-measure the likely impact and risk on their personal comfort, continued success and self-belief. In effect, the emotional scares of prior victories and failures bubble up. The senior manager, when faced with the overload of the situation goes back to the ingrained mental structures that have served them well in the past – HABIT.

Therefore, complexitisation leads to a looping downward spiral of behaviours. The more the senior employee is confronted with the new situation, the more likely they will provide the same simplistic and habitual response.

Ironically, the senior employee will tend to complexitise the reasoning for their habitual response with superfluous data and information dredged up from a range of different sources. Deep analysis and “information warfare” add unneeded complexity to the decision making process. At the same time, these processes are making the senior employee feel safer and more in-control of the change situation.

I chose the word complexitisation to illustrate this process – you were faced with a new word (probably with a deal of cynicism and discomfort!) As you read through my description, you took your own circumstances into account and tried to match them with my definition and example, and now (perhaps) you are faced with the option to either “discount” or “act.”

If you have decided to “act:”

The first step to reducing the influences of complexitisation is to recognise and re-evaluate our HABITS, which requires you to reflect on whether those habits are really worth holding onto as the truth. The second step is to ask those you work with for their observations on your behaviour. If you are a manager, open up the conversation (gently) with your team. Being a leader is acknowledging your own weaknesses and actively trying to address them in ways that model good personal change behaviours to your direct reports. You will be surprised how they will respond if this process is done with sensitivity and forthrightness.

Riding the bull or fighting the bear – competing in a world of change.

Change is fundamental to our being and therefore we should embrace it.

Change applies equally to the groups and teams we are a part of and the organisation, industry, nation, and global community in general. It is all a matter of scope.

There are four omnipotent laws that guide our lives in business and in general:

The Law of Impermanence:
This law is stated simply as “nothing lasts forever.” Life is flux and a necessary cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death is an inevitable consequence of life itself.

The Law of Uncertainty:
We never know what our fate will be and we can never predict anything with absolute certainty.

The Law of Centricity:
Life is balance – we experience joy as equally as we do suffering. Nature always seeks equilibrium or centeredness.

The Law of Active Participation:
Life learning and adaptation is not passive – we only maintain our currency and vigour through continued active participation in life by effort and activity, which leads to first-hand experience and ultimately wisdom.

I have tried to provide a balanced view of the forces that continually shape our life. While impermanence and uncertainty conjures “negative” sentiments (depending on your perspective of course), Centricity and Active Participation provides hope through external (centricity and natural equilibrium) and self-induced (active participation) transcendence.

These axioms combine to provide a number of significant insights that I would like to share with you:

1. If change is inevitable, we need to learn to deal with change as a fundamental and necessary part of our business environment and our careers.
2. The success of our enterprise is based on our ability to comprehend, predict, and adapt  to an ever-changing global business environment.
3. If our life and our career are transient and we don’t know how long either will last, we must make the most of each opportunity presented to us. Lost opportunity and wasted time detracts from our ability to reach our true personal and business potential.
4. If our managing and leading a modern enterprise is fraught with risk and uncertainty, then break-through innovation is based in accepting (and hoping for) the unexpected.
5. If our business and career strategy is not working, we need to go back to first principles and learn from our mistakes to avoid the systemic mistakes that keep placing us behind where our stakeholders believe we should be.

How does change impact on your business? How do you deal with it? And how do you overcome resistance?

In the next post, I will discuss why we often don’t like to embrace change and how we can improve on this situation – at both a personal and organisational level.

Technology, Truth, Integrity, and Honesty – Keys to success in the new order – Part 3

Finally, I would like to discuss counterfactual thinking for high expectations. At face, high expectations would seem to be a positive driver in the current order. However, high expectation or a desire for excellence is only of real value if the goals are realistic and obtainable.

Question: How do we deal with high expectations?

Answer: Think low expectations!

Often, we exaggerate what we can deliver to make the sale. However, exaggeration leads to heightened expectations that cannot be fulfilled, leading to dissatisfaction. Ironically, even if we deliver on our exaggerated promises, our customer’s expectations were at that same level, leading to marginal satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Unfortunately we know we can’t “under-sell” (develop Low Expectation) because the customer won’t easily see the benefits and probably won’t be motivated to buy. So, what do we do?

The answer is simple – we tell the truth.

The “truth” is more valuable now than any other time in human history. The truth creates trust and loyalty. Most people would prefer to know the truth (good and bad) before entering into any relationship or business transaction. All of us have been marketed up to the eye-balls and are weary of false claims from false prophets. Low expectations are about authentic and honest communication at all times. Furthermore, in long-term relationships, maining realistic expectations is about regular communication.

I see this communication occurring as a matter of business process and at times when “direct interventions” are required. Communication can be provided via information access (i.e., the customer can log-in and access the current state of their transaction or file), through automated responses (e.g., letting customer know their particular order is being fulfilled and it has not been forgotten), or through 1:1 communication (e.g., via email, discussion list, or telephone). Overly high expectations can only be managed with honesty. This may seem like poor market positioning in the short term (against those who do overly exaggerate and can’t deliver). However, in the long-term, your products and services will be valued because you do what you say you can do consistently, nothing more, nothing less.

Knowing and doing

As a business researcher, I often wonder why people know what they should do, but don’t! My challenge to you is simple – are you taking conscious steps to change yourself? Counterfactual thinking is a process of “destructive creation” where we go back to first assumptions and try to see the world in a different way. Managers must model these behaviours in an organisation and processes need to be remodelled to accommodate innovation and change. Furthermore, employees who actively seek to express these values should be encouraged. These sentiments may sound obvious, but many managers in many organisations work actively against fundamental change – even when it is sorely required.

I intend to look at change a little closer in the next couple of posts, with the view of providing you, as managers with insight as to how we can turn the tables on this problem and reap the reward of greater productivity and economy of effort.

Technology, Truth, Integrity, and Honesty – Keys to success in the new order – Part 2

I am currently involved with a group that is developing a B2C portal with Web 2.0 functionality. The lead software engineer in this project is on the road constantly. When I call him, he is in Malaysia, France, London, or Sydney. Sometimes, he is at two of these destinations in one working week. When he gets to those destinations, I get a flurry of email responses and I am just one of the stakeholders. He is often talking to me at 2.00am in his time zone and vice-versa. I often wonder if and when he sleeps, let alone finds time to have “a life.” With this in mind, let’s consider distance compression.

Question: How do we deal with distance compression?

Answer: Think distance decompression!

Business travel is a funny thing – at first it is a “junket”, then it becomes necessary, and often it leads to be habitual. Distance decompression is working against the notion that we are all one flight away from being anywhere we want to be. The first tenet of distance decompression is thinking where we want to go is a long way away. Thus, distance decompression is re-assessing the need to travel, particularly for those of us who travel habitually. Secondly, distance decompression is about considering alternatives to business travel when it is not mandatory. The World Wide Web offers a vast array of rich-media communication tools to replace regular travel. Global companies have been quick to seize on this media and have developed purpose-built facilities to cater for these requirements. However, it is my experience that these facilities are never used to their full potential. In an age where increasing focus is placed on sustainability, we will need to start thinking more about how we can decompress distance and travel less.

Is my friend the software engineer doing the right thing? Are we slaves to our own machine? I think we are to some degree. However, I am not advocating “doing less.” Rather, we all should strive to reach our “potential” and therefore, we need to do more with less. A big step in attaining this goal is by simplifying our approach.

Question: How do we deal with complexity?

Answer: Think simplicity!

A key focus in business decision making is data gathering and analysis. We are constantly encouraged to keep digging deeper to find greater meaning. We are often deceived by an assumption that more data and more analysis will yield better outcomes. These notions become even less plausible in a world where there is virtually limitless information (e.g., Google yields 3,700,000,000 hits on a search for “information”)! Conventional wisdom has driven us to the point where we know more about less (I should know – I’ve got a PhD!) and complexity and paradox abound. Rather than solving the problem, we are paralysed by our analysis. There are two solutions to this problem. The first lies in the use of technology (business intelligence) that assists us to “mine” large amounts of data to discover new associations. The second, which is far more contentious, lies with our need to reconnect with our environment and trust our intuitions. My personal opinion is the battle will be lost and won on the second rather than the first. We know more than we will ever be able to say and this knowledge arises as wisdom and intuition, which is based on very little (if any) information. Therefore, simplicity is about:

• Understanding the level of analysis we need to undertake to solve the problem.
• Seeing things as they are and not over interpreting them.
• “Chunking” complex problems.
• Using advanced technologies that simplify our view.
• Trusting our wisdom and intuition when there is little or no information to guide our decisions.

Technology, Truth, Integrity, and Honesty – Keys to success in the new order – Part 1

Last week I discussed counterfactual thinking as a technique used to create new answers or break-throughs to old problems.

Edward De Bono gives a great example of counterfactual thinking at Volkswagen. A design team was considering how they could improve the comfort and ride of their vehicles over rough or uneven surfaces. They had refined the “spring and leaf” single axle suspension to a degree where there was no obvious way forward and they were still unsatisfied with the results. At this point, one of the engineers suggested the team try and solve the problem from the point of view that the wheels on the vehicle were square rather than round. This change in perception led to a fundamental shift in key assumptions about the problem at hand and the group’s efforts were rewarded with the invention of the independent suspension, where each wheel was able to move vertically around a fixed point from the differential at the centre of the vehicle.

Counterfactual thinking is taking a key element of a problem and “inverting” its characteristics and behaviours. Changing the properties of the problem, challenges us to re-examine our assumptions related to the problem, leading to new assumptions, hypotheses and outcomes.

Let’s think counterfactually about the problems we face today.

Question: How do we deal with time compression?

Answer: Think time decompression!

We would all agree that life is likely to get faster rather than slowing down. Furthermore, our personal effectiveness will decrease if time compression continues. Therefore, we need to decompress time with the assistance of technology. At work we often waste time:

• Attending to routine processes.
• Reworking trivial mistakes and human errors.
• Searching for important information.
• Using systems improperly or ineffectively.

Time decompression is about developing information technologies that take the “process” load off us, to give us time to do what we do best – socialise and learn from each other.

Having a set of core information systems is imperative for effective work (process) at the technical level, and learning (innovation) at the higher human level. Technology is available that can assist us in these tasks and the rapidly developing open-source and Web 2.0 environments hold further promise.

However, success will be found by those individuals and organisations that can orchestrate these technologies to match their requirements.

Throughout  this week I will discuss some more common  problems that we face today and how we can think counterfactually to find success.

Paradox, New Wisdom, and “Counter-Factual” Thinking

In the previous post I said a “shrinking, expanding world” where time compression, distance compression, emergent complexity, and high individual expectations is fuelling fundamental changes in our society.

I also made the claim that the answer to surviving and thriving in this new global order is based on building our capability to access, understand, and apply new knowledge as innovation.

In order to delve further, lets consider “conventional” versus new wisdom.

Conventional wisdom informs us:

• “What has been will be again” or “the past is the key to the future.”

• Good decision making is based on a detailed understanding of past relationships between a reduced set of “critical factors”, to yield a defined and “theoretically” supported result.

• Expect logic to prevail and refine your decision model with experience.

New wisdom suggests:

• “What has been has gone forever”

• Good decision making is built on an appreciation of past relationships but a flexibility of mind to look beyond the “known” to assess emergent relationships and factors with similar weight.

• Expect chaos to prevail and adjust/regenerate your beliefs (decision model) with new information and experience.

Conventional wisdom served us well until the Web-age because it focuses on finding the most explanatory, probable, and therefore average circumstance. Selling to the “average market segment” and forgetting outliers was the most effective strategy prior to the Web. Moreover, the strategy was consistent with the economic context, technology, and cultural beliefs around power and authority at that time.

When the world began to shrink and expand, new channels opened and the outlier market segments became economic. A global economy reduced manufacturing costs and opened up incredible opportunity in diverse, fast-growing markets. Improvements in educational standards and information accessibility led to a shift away from “one size fits all” and conventional wisdom’s power to predict and interpret our world was swamped by complexity. It is likely these conditions will continue to evolve, fuelled by a ever-reducing cycle of change, where the past will be less able to predict the future.

All of us have been taught the conventional approach to life and business. Most of us are still either naïve or grappling with the new wisdom as we find it hard to adjust or regenerate our beliefs. Change is hard – even for those of us who yearn for personal change! Habits are difficult to break and to depart from. Our old decision model incites uncertainty.

However, thriving in this new order requires new wisdom – an example of which is counter-factual thinking:

• Question: How do we deal with time compression?
  Answer: Think time decompression!

• Question: How do we deal with distance compression?
  Answer: Think distance decompression!

• Question: How do we deal with complexity?
  Answer: Think simplicity!

• Question: How do we deal with high expectations?
  Answer: Think low expectations!

I will elaborate on these intriguing counter-factual insights and connect these insights to organisational information and knowledge systems in my next post.

Insurmountable problems & limitless opportunity – living and leading in today’s economy

My value proposition to you in writing this blog is to begin a dialogue on how we can better lead and manage ourselves and our organisations in an environment where “dynamic equilibrium” is replaced by disruptive innovation and change.

Today, nations, businesses and individuals are faced with monumental challenges and boundless opportunities. We are living in a shrinking and expanding world.

Shrinking World? The natural barriers that have separated us in the past have been significantly reduced:

• The Internet has provided us with a medium to instantaneously transact in a low-cost and seamless manner. We are connected with the global village with an intimacy that is unprecedented in human history, it comes into our homes, it touches our lives, it frightens us, it informs us.
• The internet revolution is only paralleled by our new-found, mass global mobility. Geographical obstacles have been smoothed through low-cost effective logistics that move people and goods from port to port. Intimacy, increased information and better education have led to far higher individual expectations. We expect our governments, organisations and suppliers to know us. We expect service and we expect quality. We don’t want to be “mass-consumers.” Rather, we expect tailored products and services that suit our particular requirements.

Expanding World? Bringing us together has created enormous complexity:

• We have unprecedented access to new customers and unprecedented threats from new competition.
• Our once-protected markets are now impacted by an incredible array of events and variables. Volatility is high.
• Our customer bases are highly segmented and our products and services have grown in complexity to fill each of these market niches. This segmentation is taken to new levels of complexity when we start seeing various cultural and regional requirements for our products and services.
• While we wish to transcend our cultural differences, the diversity between people is so great that it threatens the very fabric of our global society.
• Increased complexity has led to an increased likelihood of corporate failure and thus an ever-increasing level of regulatory compliance being imposed.
• Our government and legal systems are jurisdictionally bound through lines on a map. National sovereignty leads to a highly ambiguous and contentious “patchwork quilt” of laws, loopholes and regulatory compliance requirements that are inconsistent from state to state and country to country. This creates enormous complexity in international dealings.

The paradoxes of the age abound.

The question is – how can we survive and thrive in this environment?

The answer lies in ourselves:

• Our personal success or failure is based on what we know and how we apply what we know to predict, compensate and adapt to new environmental, social and economic requirements.
• At the organisational level, agility to pre-empt and drive change will be the ability to sense, translate, communicate, share, coordinate and integrate innovation.

To ensure these processes occur in a timely and well-integrated fashion requires the development of a firm foundation of information and knowledge systems, which sustain and enhance our strategic dynamic capabilities.

Creating, leading and managing these systems effectively is essential for our future individual, organisational, national and global success.

We will discuss and provide evidence to support this claim in the coming weeks.