3 Moving in Organizational Complexity

Move

To progress or develop in a particular way. (Source: MacMillan)

Now that you have a general understanding of the implications complexity holds for our thinking about organizations, we will now delve deeper into those implications and explore how organizations work as complex communicative systems.  We do this by focusing on how we, as human beings, move in complex organizations, that is, how we go through time as a collectivity doing what we do in our organizations…think about how you as a leader perceives, thinks, and then acts to move your organization forward.

-Dr. James R. Barker-

Here is a link to a video that I use chart the history of how complexity theory has evolved from the early management theory to the present.  The video provides more depth on what organizational complexity is and how it connects with and has often been colonized by other management theories or other disciplines.  If you want to know more about the evolution of our thinking on complexity, you will find that information in the video (Note: Only Dalhousie University Panopto Users can view this video).

Complexity Management Theory Old to New 1-2-1

Next are two videos from Stephen Klein, an organizational communication theorist at the University of Missouri in the US.  These two videos are like my video above in that Klein narrates the evolution of organizational communication theory, rather than organizational complexity theory, across about 100 years of thought and discuss how that theory has both influenced managerial thinking and evolved over time.

Stephen Klein: Organizational Communication Theories, Part 1

Stephen Klein: Organizational Communication Theories, Part 2

Alex Lyon also provides a very useful overview of classical management theory from the perspective of organizational communication in this video:

Alex Lyon: Classical Management Theory

Here are two very different takes on complex organizational movement.  The first is from the organizational complexity scholar and corporate safety consultant Todd Conklin.  In the video linked to the website, Todd discusses how an organization’s senior leaders can embrace and work with chaotic environments and move forward effectively with their environment’s naturally occurring volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity – what Todd calls VUCA.  Note how Todd uses the term ‘bouncing forward’ to describe how resilient organizations can absorb a VUCA event and find useful ways of adapting and moving forward.

Business Leaders Health and Safety Forum: COVID: Bouncing Forward

Contrast the approach Todd offers with this take on movement from Deloitte:

Deloitte: Organizational Acceleration

Note here how the concept of movement from organizational complexity has been colonized into the commercially attractive term ‘acceleration.’  While the paper and the application of the term acceleration is very well steeped into complexity thinking, seen especially in the particularistic focus on designing a specific program for a specific company’s need, the general thrust here is toward traditional change management marked by outcomes and measurement.  No surprise given that Deloitte is in the change management business.

Contrast Deloitte’s approach with Conklin’s approach that is more concerned with creating conditions for enabling on-going adaptation and shifts in movement trajectory as the chaotic VUCA environment shifts.  Conklin’s approach is much less amenable to commodification and more designed to instill confidence in leaders for dealing effectively with VUCA events rather than enhancing specific change management programs.

If you want to explore contemporary discussions of complexity theory and probability, as in cost benefit analyses, this article provides a useful overview of current thinking:

Harvard Business Review: Taming Complexity