Organisations through the lens of complexity
During the past centuries we have developed a mechanistic view of organisations. This machine-like understanding of organisations led us to expect predictable performance outcomes based on assumption of predictable behaviour by employees. In this traditional, Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm the role of the manager is that of an engineer who is responsible for a flawless operation. The mechanistic view is still good practice and it should not come as a surprise that organisations perceived this way meet with failure, due to this misunderstanding of the nature of organisations, which mainly boils down to ignoring the human factor.
The complexity perspective offers us yet another way of seeing, on top of the existing views. Within the complexity perspective we view organisations as “dynamic living entities that are not controllable and which are essentially complex adaptive systems that learn and experiment as they exist in aggregates whose components (or agents) are dynamically interrelated and who are cooperatively bonded by common purpose or outlook”. The complexity framework assumes that systems (e.g. industries, organisations, cities) are self-organising, dynamic and emergent.
Organisations as conversationsSo how does this materialise? Suchman – for instance – conceptualises organisations as conversations. Organisations represent patterns of meaning, which refer to the identity, strategy and knowledge of an organisation, and patterns of relating, which refer to the organisational culture. Through simultaneously influencing each other, patterns emerge. The quality of the conversation is the focal point and the conversation itself is considered a process of self-organising. Therefore, these patterns cannot be predicted or controlled. Through continuous interaction very small changes in the conversation can have amplifying effects, leading to transformative new patterns. Viewing organisations as such, means acknowledging employees’ unpredictable behaviour, and acknowledging that within this self-organising system order emerges bottom-up through the interactions that take place within the system and with the outside world. The interactions and changes that take place on low(er) levels lead to evolution of the macro system due to the interdependency within the system. Combining this with a constructionist view, organisations are perceived as “socially constructed realities in which the reality we know is interpreted, constructed, enacted, and maintained through discourse”.
New approaches to leadership are essential to facilitate the processes of emergence and self-organisation. As Manville & Ober put it: “We’re in a knowledge economy, but our managerial and governance systems are stuck in the Industrial Era. It’s time for a whole new model”.
Being stuck in the Industrial Era means strategy is approached from a Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, assuming that the future is inherently predictable, linear and has an innate cause and effect relationship. As a consequence, the changes are incremental, rational and sequential and take place within an existing organisational mindset, and a certain timeframe. The strategy sought after is deliberate in nature, and aimed at taking the organisation from an unhealthy to a healthy state of being, through the usage of the right skills. Approaching strategy from a complexity paradigm means recognising that the world is nonlinear and inherently unpredictable. With complex systems: “it is not possible to argue that a + b will always lead to c”. The complexity paradigm acknowledges the interconnectivity, interrelatedness, and interdependency of the world with its living systems. We need to trade in the mechanistic, materialistic, profit-orientation and function orientation management paradigm and create a new breed of leaders.
New leadership styles
Complex leadership is a new field of organisational leadership. With complex leadership leaders are created by the system through a process of aggregation and emergence. The leader is not necessarily the one with the formal position of control. Indirect leadership behaviour is better suited than top-down management. Complex leaders encourage connectivity among diverse agents to enable distributed intelligence. Complex leadership comes in different forms. Adaptive leadership is one of them; a generative leadership style that evokes change through the interactions within complex adaptive systems and is aimed at creative problem solving, innovation, adaptability and learning. The role of the leader is that of a context setter and the designer of learning experiences.