Blake's Eye: Dean Mann's Blog | Simply: Complexity, plain to see

“We need to make big-changes …. Now!”. I’m sure we’ve heard this at some stage in our professional lives. Usually such pronouncements bring muted support from some, but more often; fear and uncertainty from most. Why is that? Is it just a reluctance to change? Or is there a justifiable basis for that fear?

Complex systems can be very sensitive to change. This sensitivity can be to factors that seem peripheral or unimportant at first sight. The more sudden and wholesale the change, the more likely the process of change will be painful and the result unintended.

When we change a complex system we are deliberately changing its established behaviour, tipping it, we hope, from one stable set of behaviours to another. As we approach this change the sensitivity to unknown or ignored factors can become very apparent. The system can simply fail to operate at all, do something completely different or descend, quite literally, into chaos.

Video 1: Nudging the system

So, we want to make big changes and our system is complex, how should we go about it and avoid chaos? I think it is worth trying the following.

Nudge the system: Making small adjustments to a system, more frequently
Watch the system: Monitor the change from each adjustment and feed it back into your plan.
Respond to the system: If necessary alter future adjustments to account for feedback.
The agile system: Focus on the end goal of the change and expect to vary the route taken to get there, avoid a dogmatic approach to change.

© All visual content is original by Business in Vision Ltd.

Linearity – it’s not straightforward.

We all want effort rewarded. Work hard, put more in and you’ll get more out. In business and life we’re upset when hard work leads nowhere or someone else succeeds with apparently little effort.

As businesses plan change, it is with the expectation that the cost, the effort and the scale of implementation will be matched by the scale of improvement; they are often very disappointed.

This expectation assumes linearity in their business system. A linear system will produce an effect proportional to the cause.

Video 1: Linear systems – a large change = a large effect

Many of our business and system models are linear and in the short term this assumption of linearity can hold true. However, for complicated systems, especially over time, this can be an invalid assumption. In general, complex systems are non-linear and can be chaotic.

Video 2: Complex systems Does a large change = a large effect?

By putting effort into finding where chaos may emerge we can make systems more robust. When we identify what our systems are sensitive to, there is the enticing possibility of reducing the effort needed to deliver change, as well as reducing effort in unproductive areas. Anywhere we have non-linearity, we also have opportunity.

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