We often discuss complexity: That it is increasing, that the whole mess is tangled in an intricate knot and that the numerous concurrent crises are interconnected.
The effect of discussing complexity (“Yes, but it’s actually more complex than that”)—often leads to a form of apathy. We acknowledge that the situation is indeed highly complex and then struggle to take action. It becomes overwhelming. Particularly when it comes to actions resembling problem-solving, because the problem is embedded within significant complexity.
Faced with the challenge of addressing complexity effectively, we tend to resort to attempts at complexity reduction. We simplify the issue to its core, so we can apply familiar problem-solving approaches. However, the trouble is that when we believe we are reducing complexity, we are actually abstracting it.
Reduction involves making something smaller without losing content or value. For instance, reducing an equation from many significant components to a few. But when we attempt to reduce organisational complexity, we often create abstractions that seem to condense the complexity into a simpler form, but in reality, we distance ourselves from it. For instance, the notion that “it’s ultimately about the core task”. No one can disagree, but such statements do not eliminate complexity. They abstract so far above it that only the most obvious remains.
We also attempt to reduce complexity by creating overviews and diagrams—of projects, team structures, task flows or entire organisations. Yet these diagrams are maps of something, not the reality they represent. Just as a map of Funen is not Funen itself, but merely paper with coloured ink, while Funen is Funen, in all its complexity.
It is my assertion that our tendency towards complexity reduction—essentially creating abstractions—is primarily because we are not accustomed to confronting complexity directly. We are more familiar with solving manageable problems, making informed choices in dilemmas and dealing with situations where a reasonable degree of clarity is available. When clarity is absent—when complexity prevails—we prefer to create an illusion of manageability rather than face the complexity itself.
Therefore, there is a strong need for strategies to engage with complexity without succumbing to the temptation of abstraction. Here are five fundamental approaches:
- Create abstract and helpful maps for navigation
- Examine the many connections
- Establish escape routes
- Address everything simultaneously
- Stumble upon a Copernican shift
1. Create abstract and helpful maps for navigation
The least intrusive approach is to continue as usual by attempting to abstract complexity—creating overviews and maps of the complexity. It is crucial, however, to recognise that these are maps, not reductions of reality. This offers an opportunity to view abstractions as navigational tools.
Maps are not truths, but potential aids. Therefore, a strategy for engaging with complexity can involve producing several maps (what we otherwise call complexity reduction) and then viewing them as aids to navigation: Do project diagrams actually help project participants? What types of maps could better assist them? Where do project members get lost due to the lack of helpful maps?
2. Explore the many connections
Complexity does not necessarily mean difficult or messy; it means interconnected. Viewing complexity as interconnected provides an obvious analytical opportunity: What is complexity connected to? What else is it connected to? And so on. Initially, consider these connections descriptively. It helps to articulate, write down and diagram all that complexity is connected with. From there, you might cautiously categorise: Does something precede something else? Are some connections stronger than others? Which connections can we influence, and which are given conditions?
3.Establish escape lines
When complexity prevails, it also governs us. We might be trapped in a box where complexity reigns—not only over tasks or attempts at solutions, but over us as well. Therefore, one might argue that the factors creating and triggering complexity are also found within us and our attempts to address complexity are part of the complexity itself.
One solves a Gordian knot by cutting it in half. While this may not be feasible with complexity, but then you can do the second best: to create escape lines from it and away from it. This is not as easy as it sounds. Complexity also exists in all the norms, cultural codes and as a ruler in a given organisation. Creating escape lines from all this is risky, as it inherently requires breaking norms and conventions. Escape lines thus involve overturning the entire situation where complexity reigns and generating a force that manifests significant difference.
4. Start with everything at once
We often assume that phenomena must be identified, put in a fair order and sequence before we can act. Should we start with poor employee satisfaction measurements, improving managerial skills or the long-standing desire for new meeting formats? Instead of assuming that we can only tackle a bit at a time, consider an approach where you address everything simultaneously. This is not impossible.
There are many possible approaches to ‘starting everything at once’ and here is a brief example:
For example, an organisation could not figure out which of the following themes was most important to start with—professional development, interpersonal relations, absenteeism, inefficient task flow and scheduling—instead of choosing one decided to choose to address them all at once. By using the five issues as indicators and experimenting with slight changes in working methods every two months—such as open diaries, new meeting formats, morning coffees or appreciation agreements— After every two months, one meticulously checked how the previous period had turned out in relation to the five themes (which had now been designated as indicators of the experiments).
5. Stumble upon a Copernican turn
When Copernicus placed the sun at the centre rather than the earth, the complexity of calculating planetary orbits significantly diminished.
One cannot naturally have a Copernican turn as a strategy. If we could find the simplification so easily, we would have already done it.
But sometimes we are co-creators of complexity through concepts, understandings and models. Complexity is not always just out there, making us its victims; rather, we can fully or partially produce it ourselves. Whether it arises from complexity in a meeting or involves incentive structures that step on each other’s toes.
A Copernican turn as a strategy must naturally be of an indirect character. We can search for after it—the Copernican sudden simplification—but we only truly know it, when we’re actually standing with it.
This calls for two sub-strategies:
Be prepared for it when opportunities arise. Keep the idea of a Copernican simplification in mind and see if you might stumble upon something that offers associative benefits.
Actively search for it. A series of “what-if” scenarios provides a promising approach: What if we had no fixed working hours? What if the strategy were written in poetic form? What if there were three sofas in the middle of the office? Each “what-if” does not provide an answer in itself, but can produce discoveries and insights leading to possible simplifications. One must be prepared for the exercise to often seem futile and somewhat absurd. One never knows when one will strike gold until it is found.
