NCP Fantasy Systems Thinking "A" Team - Ackoff and Argyris

The next two team members on the NCP five-member Fantasy Systems Thinking Team again consists of one the same as the SP UK course and one new as with the previous post. The difference is that this time the course choice is featured more extensively in the course material discussed on these pages.

Jay Forrester and Systems Dynamics added to the team in the last post, provided what was seen as a clear, straightforward, and relatively uncluttered perspective on the basic internal mechanism comprising a system without a need for any additional lens or any particular overlaid specialized procedures. No doubt there are limitations and levels of complexity increase rapidly but it is inherent complexity not imposed layers.

Russel L. Ackoff's career provides us with insightful, overall perspectives on our approach to systems. It was Ackoff who admonished us to Never improve a part of the system unless it also improves the whole. It was Ackoff, cited in the SP UK course, who had us consider, Why Few Organizations Adopt Systems Thinking, and who, as discussed in Approaching a Systems Practice, Yet Again, contrasted “messes” with difficulties.

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. Problems are abstractions extracted from messes by analysis; they are to messes as atoms are to tables and charts …

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.

Russell Ackoff (1979, s. 93) The

Future of Operational Research is Past

He also discussed messes in the paper, Systems, Messes and Interactive Planning - Modern Times Workplace, which dealt with the evolution of systems at a paradigm level, as well as extolling the benefits of Participative Planning as something done not for or to an organization but by it, and listing the four attitudes towards planning, Inactive, Reactive, Pre-active and Interactive. There is also the four principles of planning practice that Inter-activists have extracted from their experience - participative, coordinated, integrated and continuous.

More Thinking on Mastering Systems Practice, Dealing with Messes contrasted the SP UK course’s concept of Ackoff’s idea of messes with, for this blog, the more familiar concept of wicked problems, questioning how are "messes" qualitatively different from"wicked problems”?

In Toward a System of Systems Concepts, Ackoff spoke of concrete systems meaning a system that contains at least two elements which are objects. A so-called concrete result then is a supposed state within a moment of time of a concrete system. Jay Forrester and Systems Dynamics seem especially attuned to these types of systems.

Many systems though, such as explored in Digging Systematically Deeper into Designing for a Public Participation Process are mostly abstract, meaning that they are composed of concepts which are defined in large part by the relationships between them and preset assumptions, axioms or postulates. Forrester and Systems Dynamics could still provide valuable insight but more has to be considered.

Such systems also have agents involved in them. They are a purposeful system, which Ackoff defined as one that can, “…produce the outcome in different ways in the same (internal or external) state and can produce different outcomes in the same and different states". More importantly, it can be also an Ideal-seeking system (Kumu) requiring consideration of differences between goals, objectives, and ideals and some concepts related to them. They are also invariably non-linear.

In Creating the Corporate Future 1981, pp. 26–33, Ackoff, as featured in Systems of Complexity, Complexity of Systems Part 1, asserted that for a set of elements to be usefully viewed as a system, it was necessary that the behavior of each element of the set should have an effect on the behavior of the whole set and that their effects on the whole set should be interdependent. Each subgroup, regardless of how they are formed, should have the same effect on the behavior of the whole and none should be completely independent. It was the phrase “usefully viewed as a system” or purposeful that is pertinent here in my view. The solely mechanical aspects of a car (running the engine) do not necessarily require all subsystems of the automobile to work in unison towards a purpose but as a (personal) transportation system, it could be argued that they are so required.

The outsider is Chris Argyris whose ideas on Ladder of Inference, as well as his theories of action, single and double-loop learning and organizational learning in, "Teaching Smart People How To Learn” were cited in Systems of Complexity, Complexity of Systems Part 2 and previously by New Community Paradigms in addressing meta-issues discussed in Dancing through the Complexities of Thinking Systematically about Systems Thinking.

Argyris has been more predominantly featured in the exploration and experimentation done first through Insight Maker models and then in Kumu maps. New Organizational Learning Inhibited through Bureaucratic Over Complicatedness & Corruption (IM-16192) is an Insight Maker model with three reinforcing, repeating single loops which, as defined by Argyris, twist the entire system into knots, entrenching the system into the larger environment. The storytelling format (use the “Step Forward” button at the bottom right corner) moves through the model to assert that institutions within entrenched systems can result in the “Corruption of the System” through a “Status Quo Politically Based Corruption of Entrenched Institutions” (R3).

This model was later revised in the Kumu map Inhibited Community Learning Entrenched Institutions which explored How Institutional Entities Created to Benefit Public Organizations Becomes Entrenched to Benefit Only Themselves.

Defending the institutional system’s continued existence in its current form which means maintaining the system in its current form and status of power does not necessarily mean benefiting those individuals in or coming to power. New players may be brought in but the system will be maintained regardless of any well-meaning but ineffectual attempts to change it. A system exists beyond the individuals which are a part of it, the momentum of ongoing processes, the legacy of historical structure and the conscious and unconscious mental models can thoroughly entrench a system, particularly an institutional one.

There is also the ability of institutions such as public sector institutions like city halls to impose legally sanctioned constraints that benefit the few rather than the system as a whole. This is corruption of the system going beyond the usual idea of corruption as an illegal or unethical act by someone. Corruption of a system here is seen as anything that prevents a system from fulfilling its espoused and intended purpose. Well-meaning regulations that result in unintended and unfailingly detrimental consequences are therefore also corruptions of a system.

More recently, the post Active Digital Citizens Seeking New Community Paradigms pt. 3 saw “volunteering” through civil society as important to a community because the political institutions and market institutions cannot be expected to be able or to be trusted to fulfill all the needs of the community, especially in addressing Wicked Problems. Our community challenges are increasingly complex. Our responses to these challenges, therefore, cannot be merely simplistic but needs to be coherently complex.

The blog post Virtual Systemic Inquiry - GPS for New Community Paradigms? asserted that:

“Wicked problems have become so complex, incoherently complex, that they're broken down and perceived as complicated by not only the general public but also those tasked with addressing them with top-down complicated and reductionistic based management systems, sometimes tending to reach high levels of bureaucratic complicatedness."

There is still, however, the added value question regarding any additional complexity system thinking and systems mapping might have to a complex situation or system. It is not up to the system thinker to come up with the expert answer but to first facilitate the true community question and then have them provide the answer.

The Kumu mapping project Changing Assumptions was based on Argyris’ Ladder of Inference and involved both exploration and (thought) experimentation resulting in a presentation which while it still gets increasingly complex and remains hypothetical, hopefully, could be made to provide some helpful insights. It does not provide an out of the box, one size fits all answer, each community must find its own answer.

A systems thinking approach has the potential to take a significantly different path than one dictated by a command and control management approach. The systems thinking approach can call upon the stakeholders of the system in question to take an investigation resulting from a preceding exploration and craft a strategy which will use points of leverage to address the current situation in a manner that is beneficial to the whole system by changing stakeholder and organizational behaviors and avoiding unintended consequences to the greatest extent possible.

The perception is that systemic interventions will promote successful interventions and those successful interventions will result in a better world as well as promote the perceived utility of Systems Thinking.” (Ackoff?)

Returning to Fulfill Good Intentions with Community Change Agencies

An original intention of New Community Paradigms was providing resources for community change and building upon that change. New arenas were discovered and explored. Resources were found and placed in the New Community Paradigms wiki with the idea that others could use the resources as they saw fit.

That is still the intention, however, a large part of this journey has been involved in learning new perspectives that required going extensively and deeply into them to attain a fuller understanding. Systems Thinking is the primary example, Design Thinking is another and Collective Impact being the most recent.

The new ideas being generated were changing the landscape fueling the perspective that paradigm level changes are in need of being sought within communities. The ‘good’ intention though to feature the discovered resources in future blog posts putting them into some context that could prove helpful has not been realized.

Some of the newly discovered resources have played a major role in forming new pathways. The Harwood Institute, introduced in CommunityMatters knows Harwood and Harwood knows what Matters for the Communities to Change was prominently featured in the Collective Impact series as a community change agency. Not every community though is ready to take on a Collective Impact effort, needing to work on other aspects to reach that level.

A number of other Community Change Agencies have also been discovered. These types of resources have been divided into two types, Organizational, Online and Technology Based and Geographic Based. The later, Geographic Based is admittedly lacking, especially local examples, as far more effort up to this point has been expended upon learning new perspectives and underlying systems. An advantage of Organizational, Online and Technology Based change agencies is that they can often be more readily transferred and applied to other communities. Harwood belongs in the Organizational, Online and Technology Based but an on-the-ground foundation is still seen as important in creating New Community Paradigms.

CommunityMatters was also cited as having hosted conference calls with a number of organizations featured in this effort, such as Project for Public Spaces, NCDD (National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation), Strong Towns, Everyday Democracy, Deliberative Democracy Consortium, and the Harwood Institute. It also has its own Facebook page.

CommunityMatters Facebook

“CommunityMatters® aims to equip cities, towns and all community members to strengthen their places and inspire change. This group champions the notion that people have the power to solve their community's problems and shape its future. The alliance facilitates connections, provides education and infuses inspiration at the local level.”

Some of the new resources listed in Organizational, Online and Technology Based wiki-page have never been mentioned in any blog post.

The Community Change Agency Orton Family Foundation coined the term “Heart & Soul Community Planning,” describing an approach for engaging citizens in land use planning as a pathway to vibrant, enduring communities.

“Our approach helps diverse citizens identify and enhance a town’s most valued attributes: those special places, characteristics and customs that residents treasure and that connect them to one another. If lost, these attributes would be widely missed and alter the character of the town.”

Another group similar to CommunityMatters is Community Builders, a project of the Sonoran Institute, which aims to help local leaders build successful communities in the American West and that has also provided a number of informative webinars, at no cost, in the past.

One, PlaceSpeak, is a location-based consultation utility helping to bridge between governance and place by transforming the way people interact with local decision-makers. It has its own Facebook app page.

Other featured organizations focus more on process, emphasizing collaboration even more than place. IOTC Hub Institute of the Commons, which is a USA based organization with a global outreach can help in finding common ground and innovating together by helping large, multi-stakeholder groups discover agreement and unite to accomplish shared goals. An essential undertaking in endeavoring to implement a Collective Impact effort.

Some like Innovation in Collaboration don't even originate in this country. They still provide excellent examples of what could be possible here. Often times it seems that we must look outside the United States to find some of the most viable ideas for supporting democracy and the empowerment of communities.

The Interaction Institute for Social Change, headquartered in Ireland, has had global outreach but with local impact including many in the United States. Good ideas should not require visas.

Future Search Network is a collaboration of hundreds of dedicated volunteers worldwide providing Future Search conferences as a public service.

"We serve communities, NGO's, and other non-profits for whatever people can afford. Our mission is to help communities everywhere become more open, supportive, equitable and sustainable. We also work with for-profit organizations who share these values, charging standard fees. We are a cross-cultural network, speaking many languages. Our members live in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America."

The last of the ‘newer’ Community Change Agencies to be featured is the Intersector Project, a non-profit organization that seeks to empower practitioners in the business, government, and non-profit sectors to collaborate to solve problems that cannot be solved by one sector alone. A good definition for Collective Impact. They conduct research in intersector collaboration and convey findings to leaders in every sector to help them design and implement their own effective collaborative initiatives.

There are no doubt numerous similar organizations out there. The point though is that they are out there. Those looking to make meaningful changes in their community do not have to work alone. Even advice over the phone can be of tremendous assistance. Not every community, as the Harwood Institute points out, is in a position to make transformations at a Collective Impact level. There are though others with the same struggles who have tried ideas that have worked. It can be simply a matter of discovering them and reaching out.

Dancing through the Complexities of Thinking Systematically about Systems Thinking

The next segment of the STW/STIA certification course deals with "Thinking Systematically" having previously covered three segments that provided basic concepts and terms, as well as a hands-on tool, Insight Maker, to use in developing and experimenting with those concepts through models.

Now we are going to move close to getting metaphysical but it will be quick and we will come back. The problem is that there is a difference between, in writing or talking about what something is or what something does say dance as opposed to writing or talking about doing that something, even more so with actually doing it, dancing. There is the moon, there is the finger pointing at the moon and then there is a picture of the moon and a finger.

According to Thwink.org, what Systems Thinking does or is, as an art, is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination”, and as science “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment,” of making reliable inferences about behavior by developing an increasingly deep understanding of underlying structure. A modified definition originally devised by Barry Richmond, who coined the term in 1987.

Mostly accordingly because I added the italicized extensions of the definition moving the definition closer to the actual doing. People who do, with conviction, strive toward something they see as concrete. Our attitude towards problems is often less focused on the doing and more on getting it done, completed, finished. We want to be more direct, solve the problem at hand, forget it, then move on to something else.

Thinking is employing one's mind rationally and objectively in evaluating or dealing with a given situation; to have a certain thing as the subject of one's thoughts. Systemic, as used especially in physiology or pathology, refers to, about, or affecting the body as a whole. Thinking, as a verb, systematically, as an adverb, is then to think in a systematic manner about a system. It is not enough to recognize and understand a system as a system. Our own thinking must be systematic in the intervention of that system. There is a large disconnect between how obvious this may seem when written down and how often it actually occurs.

In understanding both what dance is or does and in knowing the doing of dance we can move to a higher level of development and begin to symbolically represent dance, to compose dance, to understand what is and do choreography. If we are thinking systematically about a dancer’s injury then we are not merely thinking of only the injury on the body or of a particular body system but also of the larger issues related to the body or particular body system. We could be thinking about diet or exercise or medications, even the dance floor.

If we do not then we not only fail to understand the problem deeply enough, we also take the means of addressing the problem for granted. Sometimes, although not as true as in the past, with no harm to ourselves or anyone else. More and more though we need to go deeper to avoid distant, unforeseen, and unintended consequences and circumstances. These types of outcomes are becoming more frequent, especially in wicked problem situations that impact us all through our communities.

In addition to thinking about the particular specific issues, when looking at a system and establishing our boundaries of what we consider the system to be, we also begin thinking about meta-issues, the meta is the thing to focus on as a higher level of abstractness or about (its own category). There might be a better general category term for what is being referred to here but its absence makes its need more evident.

The points along the Kumu path of this segment deal with management or meta-management issues that can arise when addressing various systems. These occur across systems involving people, materials, production and end products, time management, avoidance of mistakes, limitations, system fixes, acquiring new learning, organizational culture and behavior, financial relationships, sustainability, and whether the potential exists to become victims of the system or systems of the victim. Each is looked at individually but is also related back to what has been learned previously in the course through Kumu map’s visualization of the relationships.

The approach in addressing these meta-issues of the course though is back to hands-on experimentation, not metaphysical inquiry. The assignment for this segment consists of, “using one of the diagram forms presented to date develop models for two situations which are near and dear to you”. I chose a Causal Loop Diagram based on one of the models presented within the segment, New Learning Inhibited (IM-7018). I cloned the model, substantially reorganized it, and extended it but nevertheless still maintained its basic structure.

The result is New Organizational Learning Inhibited through Bureaucratic Over Complicatedness & Corruption (IM-16192). The model is in storytelling format so one uses the “Step Forward” button at the bottom right corner to move through the model. The model is intended to integrate some of the concepts of theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning raised by Chris Argyris in, "Teaching Smart People How To Learn” and a number of concepts considered by New Community Paradigms.

The model starts with a balancing loop diagram Problems/Solution Generation (B1) of the commonly found command-oriented top-down approach to management based on so-called Newtonian principles (the Newtonian principles are not so-called, the claiming a basis for management is). It needs to be recognized though that this has been, and can still be under the right circumstances, a very successful approach. Management finds problems to solve by the use of Command Structure Management. The environment continually though raised new problems, some from the manner in which management has organized the environment and new learning about the environment, as a complicated machine requiring new algorithms is required, which is then applied to the new problems.

There is a point though at which this method begins to break down. Systems move from complicated to complex because they begin to become non-linear and demonstrate emergent properties, or perhaps the ability of the complicated management system begins to lose its capacity to contain those aspects of the always complex system. The approach exhibits “Decreasingly Effective Action” (R1) through “Inappropriate Actions” based on an over-dependence upon “Outdated Thinking, Communicating and Learning”, and the effectiveness of (B1) is diminished.

If the institution attempts to maintain the status quo it can become overly dependent upon “Typical Bureaucratic Intervention” and increased dependency upon “Defensive Routines” which maintains the appeal of “Outdated Thinking, Communicating and Learning”,  as Status Quo Bureaucratic Institutions (R2). This approach inhibits “New Learning” by the organization and the potential of “Insightful Intervention” which is what the institution needs. This can be true of private or public institutions. 

If extended further by institutions then this trend can result in “Corruption of the System” through a “Status Quo Politically Based Corruption of Entrenched Institutions” (R3) to defend the institutions' continued existence in its current form, which means maintaining its current form and status of power. It does not even have to be to the benefit of those individuals currently in power. New players can be brought in but the system will be maintained regardless of any well-meaning but ineffectual attempts to change it. This goes beyond the usual idea of corruption as an illegal or unethical act by someone. Corruption of a system is anything that prevents a system from fulfilling its intended purpose. Well-meaning regulations that result in detrimental and unfailingly unintended consequences are therefore corruptions of a system. There is also the ability of institutions such as public sector institutions like city halls to impose legally sanctioned constraints that benefit the few rather than the system as a whole. This is also a corruption of the system. These three reinforcing loops are, in my view, repeated single loops as defined by Argyris which metaphorically twist the system into knots, entrenching the system into the larger environment.

The means proposed for Breaking the Entrenched Loops Reinforcing Loop (R4) and instilling Argyris’ double loop to provide “Insightful Interventions” into the workings of the institution or the system itself is, as stated in the original New Learning Inhibited Model, “Being on Purpose”. This was never actually explained but it still rings true so it is maintained it, my model.

There are two ways under New Community Paradigms that communities can be on purpose. One is community governance, through participatory democracy, as considered through Community Governance and the wiki-pages and related blog posts found under it. It is also believed, however, that this approach needs to be supported or scaffolded through Systems Thinking Approaches so that members of the community are not merely engaged but become empowered with the ability to effectively address the challenges even wicked challenges facing their community. The second way is Democratic Direct Disruptive Design, first, introduce through Open Data as End and Means of Civic Disruptive Innovation and based, at least analogously, on Clayton Christensen’s theory of Disruptive Innovation and extending that concept to Disruptive Innovation in Governance. This is still only part of the strategy that is required though to implement new community paradigms. We will need to incorporate more if we wish to succeed in creating a better tomorrow and we will undoubtedly need, I strongly suspect, some form or forms of systems thinking to accomplish it.

Complexity as Cradle for Creativity and Innovation

This is the third post concerning a 2013 HBR Article Why Managers Haven't Embraced Complexity by Richard Straub on addressing complexity as discussed in the Harvard Business Review LinkedIn group.

The first look Complexity Addressed From On High taking its perspective from the air was limited because it was too abstract and conceptual in its approach. The perspective of the second post, Categorizing, Controlling, Conquering Complexity as Chaos (Wrong Choice) was from behind the barricades of day to day, under fire, management but again was limited because it failed to realize both the inescapable reality of complexity and the creative potential of complexity. So some synthesis of these two perspectives or a third alternative would seem to be warranted.

One alternative perspective on complexity, besides the one previously provided by the Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf), was provided by past HBR articles including Embracing Complexity An Interview with Michael J. Mauboussin by Tim Sullivan and Learning to Live with Complexity by Gökçe Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath. Both of these HBR articles from 2011 helped to set the framework for the question asked by Richard Straub. Their perspectives did embrace complexity.

These articles moved away from a more traditional organization-as-machine approach to one that was more organic and less top down hierarchical in managing institutions, particularly ones that dealt with complex environments. The question considered by this blog in the previous Categorizing, Controlling, Conquering Complexity as Chaos (Wrong Choice) post was the same as Richard Straub's, why some managers had failed to learn the lessons put forward by Mauboussin, Sargut and McGrath. The answer is that they chose to do so, presumably because embracing complexity was not seen as being in their self-interest.

It is also suspected to be the same reason why the current common form of local community governance, with city council, mayor and city manager in some format, has so often become increasingly unable to function effectively in meeting the needs of the community. The problem is that most people don’t recognize this, can’t imagine anything being different or even the possibility of changing anything.

As mentioned before on this blog, the need to revisit a previously presented concept and revise it so it becomes clearer arises from time to time. This happened after having nearly completed the first draft of this post concerning an idea initially stated in the New Community Paradigms Thinking Requires Systems Thinking post that government institutions address the complex challenges facing communities by developing complicated processes.

What may be a more precisely stated concept is that government institutions use complicated processes to address the challenges arising from complex environments. There is the community, which is a complex entity, and the larger environment in which it exists, which is also complex, and then there is the government institution, which is at best complicated but in a fashion designed to meet the needs of the community within its larger environment. Any change to the complex environment, which is difficult to predict and even more difficult to control, would create a corresponding change in the challenges facing the community to which the government institution’s complicated organizational process must then adapt.

There are private sector companies that succeed in doing this. They reconfigure to move along with their target audience, not only changing when they do but also anticipating changes in their users’ environment. These companies are feeding off of the complexity arising from their two way interaction with their customers to create new innovative solutions.

Public Sector organizations though, particularly at a local level, are often not able to do this as well. Instead, reacting to protect their status they end up imposing unseen additional layers of complicated or closed processes that are essentially subconscious from an organizational perspective that in time become culturally implicit. It is a means of maintaining power by becoming entrenched as a system both operationally and culturally. This is why so many local city halls or other public sector organizations prefer the more traditional organization as machine approach in which complexity is seen as chaos and why community engagement in some communities remains stuck at the bottom rungs of Arnstein’s Ladder.

Taking the complexity as chaos approach, many managers endeavor to control or conquer it using Occam's razor, the principle of parsimony as their first principle. The more organic approach to management espoused by the HBR articles recognizes that this does work for linear processes in a world constricted by smaller budgets and shorter deadlines for a time. Real community building, however, which is becoming as much a requirement for consumer businesses as for governance of our communities, is not a linear process.

Still keeping with Occam’s razor, while it may be true that the solution with the fewest assumptions could be the most viable this is not absolute. It certainly does not mean that the first such solution will always be the most optimal especially when the needs of a large group of people must be considered. An Online Stanford University course on creativity demonstrated that the resonance and viability of a solution of the first order or iteration usually turned out to be less optimal than that of a third or fourth order solution. A similar Stanford course on Design Thinking emphasizes creating an over abundance of solutions, even imaginary ones, to arrive at the most effective and optimal. Depending unquestioningly upon the simplest first solution only because it has the fewest assumptions may not go deep enough into a situation and the environment in which it occurs to create the best or most innovative approach to the challenge.

A second principle of complexity as chaos approach is that the authority of wielding Occam’s razor should be given to only a few supposedly visionary leaders with a cadre of obedient keeping-in-line managers behind them. This is very much in keeping with an autocratic city manager style of community management found in many communities. This is the management-as-machine Maginot line of defense against complexity, uncertain conditions and risks all of which left unchecked could mean chaos. An organic approach to addressing complexity asks whether these factors are really interrelated on a causal basis or merely correlated, therefore requiring a different approach?

Uncertainty and risk are undoubtedly a part of the business landscape, and therefore also for the public sector, even though we too often pretend that they are not, but they are not the same as complexity. Instead they arise because of a lack of knowledge concerning a complex situation or environment. Any resulting gap in relevant information could be a problem and could create a chaotic situation but complexity in reality exists at the edge of chaos providing a potential means of change. (This does not mean that omniscient powers will eliminate complexity or make it precisely predictable.)

Complexity is admittedly difficult to manage because it is difficult to see the myriad of interrelationships within the environment or ecosystem that makes complexity a reality from any specific singular perspective. Individual managers, using complicated processes which includes systems of bureaucratic management, may be able to know specific components in a defined span of control or over a defined period of time.

It is impossible though for anyone to know the total information of a substantially complex system. The complexity as chaos approach wrongly assumes that the uppermost levels of an organization are unilaterally able to dictate the organization’s response to complexity. The organic approach asks whether it is actually necessary for any individual manager, at any level, to always know the entire system or is it the system that needs to 'know' the entire system? This means far less top down control and a far greater need for trust which makes some very uncomfortable.

This brings up other differences in approaches between restricted complicated systems and systems adopting practices that are more coherent regarding complexity. With a complicated process the cumulation of different managerial perspectives happens more in the aggregate over time with top management then making decisions about taking a specific approach usually after the fact, while with an organic approach to complexity there is often some form of synthesis between the community and its environment to which the organization adapts more in line with real time with managers facilitating the process.

A third principle of complexity as chaos is that complexity is seen as not having any potential value either for the institution or for the individual manager except in its removal. Individual managers taking a complexity as chaos approach are incentivized to only propose safe known solutions or predetermined approaches in addressing complexity to avoid career suicide. Office politics then becomes a more important game than competition on the field, a situation that can be made all the worse in the public sector arena where the presumed leadership can be based on political gamesmanship.

The truth according to the more organic managerial approach is that complexity properly addressed through innovation, particularly disruptive innovation, can add tremendous value. It is a source of creativity and innovation in an advanced economy. The more traditional’ approach, particularly in the public sector, provides no real path towards innovation in any sense of the word as even forms of sustaining innovation can be hampered and more disruptive forms of innovation have little chance of occurring.

Categorizing, Controlling, Conquering Complexity as Chaos (Wrong Choice)

The last post, Complexity Addressed From On High, took an abstract and conceptual look at complexity based on an extensive discussion in Harvard Business Review LinkedIn group concerning a 2013 HBR Article Why managers haven’t embraced complexity? by Richard Straub, on the role of managers in addressing complexity.

Abstract and conceptual because nobody deals with complexity in an idealistic, worldview manner where all the parts, connections and total information of a system are fully known and understood. Complexity is not faced from the air; it is faced from behind the barricades.

Paradoxically and perhaps ironically, dealing with complexity is becoming more complex, increasing through globalization, the competition for resources, along with the proliferation of new ideas on the Internet, among other factors. So we have become much better and also faster at increasing complexity than we are at embracing it.

The LinkedIn discussion went beyond academic considerations and dealt with the actual working world views of numerous working professionals about complexity. The precise question posed by the group discussion though was, “Why haven’t managers embraced complexity.” In many cases, it is because they don’t see it as their job to embrace it; their job is to control or conquer it.

Categorizing complexity

Humans interacting with the world and nature, including interacting among themselves, gives rise to complex systems. Nature’s systems and much of what naturally evolves from man’s interaction is what was termed coherent complexity in the Complexity Addressed From On High post. Coherent complexity has a simple face to it and works seamlessly.

Nature, having neither ego nor compassion, can transition from dinosaurs to mammals, abandoning a system that stopped working because of massive environmental change, imposing a new system that quickly flourishes without hesitation. Man attempts to harness these coherent complex systems by layering artificially devised systems over them.

Traditional management frameworks and methodologies are based largely on "machine" analogies" taking a reductionist approach to complexity.

Whether in the private or in the public sector, addressing complexity can mean breaking down a ‘system’ created for a specific purpose within a larger environment’, into smaller, separate components, then delegating work assignments to those having the proper skill sets with control imposed from the top down in a hierarchal manner. This applies whether the system is a business within a new market environment or a government institution within a new sector of public service. As was asserted in the New Community Paradigms Thinking Requires Systems Thinking post:

Government institutions address the complex challenges facing communities by developing complicated processes. Initially, this makes sense as it provides a means of breaking up a complex challenge into manageable steps, providing the means of creating an algorithmic approach, and allocating resources.

It stops working though when the complexities of the larger system, in which the institution exists, outstrips the capacity of the locally created complicated system. It is made worse if the institutionally created complicated system develops its own inherent hinderances, as a means of ensuring its own survival, making it even more complicated and no longer for the benefit of those it was designed to serve.

These man-made systems can begin with a degree of coherence but natural coherent systems inevitably evolve and man made systems inevitably become less coherent and fall apart (see John Gall). Unfortunately, man is less capable of making a seamless transition and attempts to grasp on to what is no longer working. Trying all the harder to control the system even though it is dying under its own weight.

Controlling complexity

'Traditional' management can convey the idea that complexity is a separate and extraneous aspect of the system or environment which only needs to be controlled or removed like sludge from an engine. A large component of management today, at least as represented by the comments generated by the LinkedIn discussion, sees the role of management in dealing with complexity being one of imposing constraints on the system to minimize value erosion or both minimizing value erosion and ensuring value enhancement by deftly handling the various forces pulling in different and invariably opposite directions.

Middle management’s purpose then is to see that the ship does not leak on its journey. The innovation of any value added aspects is to be done by others, elsewhere, the leaders at the top it is the job, not of managers but of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, engineers, policymakers, thought leaders, philosophers and other assorted nerds.

Traditional management attempts to put complexity in a black box to be viewed through dashboards, serving as crystal balls, and consultants, serving as soothsayers, by the heads of the organization.

Complexity as chaos

Some managers seem to view complexity as being defined by uncertainty, confusion or even as ‘moral chaos’. Some see the ability of the organization in addressing complexity as being more a matter of leadership qualities rather than managerial capabilities. To embrace complexity, top managers have to first become leaders in an autocratic sense which means that they need to have to have an army of unquestioning followers.

The inability of an organization to address complexity is seen as being based on fear, by those in charge not willing to take a bull-by-the-horns approach or on a perceived lack of cognitive ability which can only be addressed by a take charge. visionary leader.

Conquering complexity

Addressing complexity then becomes a responsibility of certain individuals serving as leaders and top management, assigned control in private companies or in government support by a cadre of experts, rather than by a system or an organization as a whole.

Individual middle and lower managers are seen as being unable to address complexity without upper management oversight. Middle Managers manage their area of responsibility by minimizing complexity to get their job done. The appearance of complexity suggests that the manager in question is either not geared, trained or expected to manage complexity.

Complexity from this vantage point does not need to be embraced, instead it can be overpowered by use of Occam's razor, the principle of parsimony. In a world of smaller budgets and shorter deadlines managers are credited with believing that the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be the one to be selected.

The assumption is made that if managers are restricted to implementing policy, have no independent role in addressing complexity and are left to simply implementing the organization’s policy that top management simply has to hold it’s line management accountable to impose the desired change.

Complexity is not seen as having any potential value either for the institution or for the individual manager. Business and politics are a matter of competition like a game. The need to address complexity, from this perspective, only arises if your competition is doing so to some advantage. If so, then it is arguably only a matter of quickly catching up.

For the individual manager it can politically be a matter of career suicide to address complexity without first having a known solution or predetermined approach. This is all the more probable in a system that has started to become incoherent and begins developing internal hindrances to cover up the fact that it is no longer in synch with its larger, truly complex environment. At that point, office politics can become more prevalent as managers jockey to maintain their position on a floundering ship.

The inclusion of an excess of politics into a system will likely only increase the level of complexity, or more accurately complications, without contributing any corresponding enhancement of value.

The traditional management approach of quick results within narrowly defined scopes of responsibility within even more bounded limits of control may allow results to be achieved in the near terms but can also mean overlooking hidden complexities that ultimately have a significant bearing on the institution and on the environment in which it exists. One outcome being that ethical values can sometimes take a back seat to seeking expedient monetary value, another being that the man made organizational system becomes irrelevant. The issue often with upper management is that it has limited insight to the problems occurring at the point of relevant interactions, which problematically means that the organization as a whole has very limited insight.

There is though an alternative view, even though the ‘from on high’ perspective on complexity provided by the previous post was ostensibly impractical, it is still true. Complexity cannot be ignored or deferred and it should not be seen as an ominous dark cloud sucking creativity and life out of everything. It should not even be seen as a problem but as an opportunity. We need to develop new paradigms concerning complexity to address the wicked problems facing our communities.

Complexity Addressed From On High

In the previous post, Catching Up - Community Engagement, Complexity and Other Issues to Contemplate, a commitment to deal with the concept of complexity more in depth was made.  Complexity has been one of the 800 pound gorillas (there are a number) in the room since this effort began.  

Back in 2011 the case was made by Why is this so hard? It's complicated and it's complex but that's OK with the featured TED video by Eric Berlow: How complexity leads to simplicity, that complexity could be addressed through New Community Paradigms but support for such a claim was thin. 

This post will address the issue of complexity from a more global or bird’s eye perspective, except we are speaking of an abstract concept.  Still, this needs to be done if one wants to make the case that complexity can be addressed not only by institutions or their managers supposedly created to do so but even by the constituents of communities seeking to create their own New Community Paradigms.

What was also recognized in the ‘Why is this so hard?’ post by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), as well as continuing to be so by others, and which remains the more defining aspect is that complexity is one of the main if not the main challenge for business in the twenty-first century (pdf).  If this is true for business then it is also true for the public sector.  The difference is that the public sector has more means to cover up or distract attention from the challenges of complexity but more on that later, for now let’s stick with dealing directly with complexity. 

The Catching Up post also spoke of an extensive discussion in the Harvard Business Review LinkedIn group which provided a diversity of perspectives on the role of managers and complexity.  The discussion was based on a 2013 Harvard Business Review Article entitled, Why managers haven’t embraced complexity? by Richard Straub.  The discussion generated 326 comments making this discussion the most commented on within the group by far in recent history and likely going much further back. The topic obviously struck a cord demonstrating what a significant role complexity still has in our world today.  The article fits in a line of past HBR articles based on a similar foundation, Embracing Complexity An Interview with Michael J. Mauboussin by Tim Sullivan and Learning to Live with Complexity by Gökçe Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath, both back in 2011.  Despite the advice or admonishments provided by those earlier articles, the reaction of the members of the Harvard Business Review LinkedIn group demonstrates that complexity is still a controversial and contentious subject for those that have to face it as a defining factor of their job and career. 

The myriad of comments generated by the HRB LinkedIn discussion contained a diversity of perspectives on complexity which could then be allocated to a variety of different schools of thought as to the best way to address it.  Although these comments were invariably made by professionals in their respective fields, I disagreed with many of the perspectives set forth in the discussion.  It seems necessary to state a position or have a point of view before making any assertions.

At some point, this stops being a purely academic discussion and we start to make a case to set policy that will subsequently have an impact on peoples lives.  Complexity is an abstract subject and seems far removed from the practical daily concerns of most organizations whether private or public. If we have no philosophical or principled basis for addressing it, the result then is that we ignore it completely or at least put off addressing it for today.  This cannot continue if we hope to make a paradigm level change in our communities.  A case can and needs to be made that complexity is not only capable of being addressed but it can be a source of creation and innovation.  Below are nine points based on my own understanding and point-of-view why and to some extent how complexity can be made a viable component of creating New Community Paradigms.

1. Complexity is an emergent property of systems, whether good or bad, efficient or inefficient, anything that can be considered complex can be considered a system.  Complexity, alone, is neither good or bad.
2. As an emergent property of systems, the degree of complexity increases with the intrinsic growth of the system, i.e. the number of possible connections increases faster than the number of connected nodes - Metcalfe’s Law, not even raising the consideration that the nodes could act as autonomous agents, or in the case of business and politics as customers and constituents respectively.  Attempting to take complexity out of a system is like expecting to extract all the heat from a fire but leave the flame.
3. Complexity does not equate to chaos, rather complexity exists at the edge of chaos. This is a factor of Complexity Theory as cited by this SlideShare presentation - Edge of Chaos - second slide.
4. It has been said that, “Complexity is more difficult in the abstract than in the living.”   Instead of thinking in terms of complexity versus simplicity perhaps it should be coherent complexity (closer to a natural complexity) versus incoherent complexity (manmade). Coherent seems the best word here in my view. The role of management today is to get as close to systems of coherent complexity as possible.  Our institutions attempt to create systems that approximate coherent complexity but are in reality, highly and intricately complicated and move to a more incoherent complexity over time.
5. Complexity is not separate and distinct from or in opposition to simplicity.  Systems can contain aspects of both complexity and simplicity.  Nature melds aspects of both complexity and simplicity within the same system through coherent complexity.  We often attempt to tame complexity through ostensibly simple processes which instead turn out to be merely simplistic and shallow subsequently growing increasingly complicated and unsustainable.
6. Complexity should be considered a separate and distinct descriptor of systems as opposed to complicated.  Despite the mainstream dictionary meaning of both words containing the other, we need greater precision in their use. I borrowed my operational use of these terms from others in the post New Community Paradigms Thinking Requires Systems Thinking.  Whether the appearance of complexity within an environment is actually inherent complexity or induced complications within the relevant systems would need to be determined.
7. That same post put forth an argument that government institutions address complex challenges facing communities by developing complicated processes. Initially, this makes sense as it provides a means of breaking up a complex challenge into manageable steps, providing the means of creating an algorithmic approach, and allocating resources.  It stops working though when the complexities of the larger system, in which the institution exists, outstrips the capacity of the locally created system which becomes more complicated or increasingly incoherent as a complex system. This is made worse if the institutionally created complicated system then develops its own inherent internal hindrances as a means of ensuring its own survival making it even more obtusely complicated, no longer existing for the benefit of those it was supposedly designed to serve.
8. Man-made complex systems are invariably inadequate attempts to replicate natural evolutionary systems and prone to eventual failure (see John Gall)  through if nothing else some form of information entropy.  Our complaints about complexity are more about our inability to sail with the winds of natural coherent complexity and our expectation that instead it bend to our will.
9. This means that we would not have a modern market based economy without complexity.
   Drastically decrease the nodes and connections of an economic system and we can return to bartering.  Do a little less so and we can return to the ‘yell at the customer sales approach for increasingly crappy products’ approach.  Complexity is not a hindrance of a market economy, it is a basis for it, providing pathways of innovation.   particularly disruptive innovation. Complexity properly addressed through innovation, particularly disruptive innovation as raised by Christensen,  can add tremendous value.

These are some general observations about complexity within our society. I could finish off with stating my position that 20th century industrial management practices are inadequate in addressing 21st century challenges created by the ever increasing complexity of our world.

The problem is that this post does not really address the original question from the HBR article, "Why haven't managers embraced complexity?" Or anybody else for that matter?  Nobody, in reality, deals with complexity in this idealistic, worldview manner by which all parts and connections are fully visible and the total information of the system is completely knowable and understandable.  This may be the beginning to an argument that complexity can be a pathway to New Community Paradigms but it still needs to be established how to transverse that path. 

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Systems Thinking as a disciplined process for Community Governance

Throughout this effort to establish new community paradigms, the case has been made for greater direct community governance as opposed to the standard representative institutional form of governance, i.e. City Council/City Manager, one typically finds. This means enhancing community empowerment beyond city hall and establishing a form of governance that is not only of, for and by the people but that works through the people. Community governance is seen as arising not through the permission of institutions but through the set of community relations making up civil society.  It should also consider what mechanisms are required to ensure community prosperity is enhanced through governance by the community.  

It still needs to be demonstrated how this is to be fully established. It requires breaking the hold of the existing institutions of local community government and engaging the community to establish viable systems of direct democratic community governance.  

It also means devising a system of addressing complex challenges facing a community which fully uses all the resources of that community in coming up with innovative, sustainable solutions and avoiding unintended detrimental consequences. Simply putting the community in power is not enough to ensure the effective establishment of new community paradigms.

Fortunately, a community-based system of direct deliberative governance is by its nature a more collaborative system than the usual city council form of a government institution.  Standard local government institutions are, as are many of our institutions, based on adversarial competition.  For local communities, this means elections in which candidates oppose each other and this adversarial relationship is often continued in day-to-day governance until the next election. Groups or cliques form around candidates and too often energy is spent in trying to stop the opposition rather than coming up with solutions more beneficial to all.  

The argument has been made elsewhere to how institutional local government, ostensibly seen as expressions of the democratic will of a community, are examples of entrenched political power serving only the interests of the few.  Even when there is some attempt to work together it is very difficult to get a clear picture of what the challenges actually are because information must too often go through a maze of supposed expertise created by staff professionals in support of the politically self-interested prism of city council members.  

The personal or political preferences of individual city council members or the council as a whole take precedences over what may be a different perspective by a majority of the community.  The community, to the extent that it hasn’t become disengaged, is often given limited and slanted information then being persuaded to take sides too often based on emotional likes or dislikes created through unsubstantial but persuasive arguments rather than reason. Community members become cheerleading spectators in the political process rather than truly empowered participants.

What though if a method or means could be established by which the community collaboratively dealt with decisions of resource allocation in a more objective manner?  Instead of first choosing sides then having that side put forward an idea to compete with an opposing side, the community used one of the forums available through the Governance Through Community wiki-page and then defined the challenge together so that all perspectives were considered.  

This does not mean that there would always have to be agreement, only that other perspectives would have to be considered up front.  The objective would not be to beat the competition but to make sure that a complete model of the challenge was created so that all aspects were thoroughly addressed.  

One means of doing this is establishing a Systems Thinking approach to community governance.  A wiki-page, Systems Thinking Approaches, has been created to explore this area further under the wiki-section Community Management and Technology.  

In addition, insights learned from a system thinking related course on Model Thinking from the University of Michigan taught by Professor Scott E. Page through Coursea will be applied. 

According to Professor Scott, models are important because they help us to be Intelligent Citizens of the World being able to not only recognize relevant factors but when those factors do and do not apply.  System Thinking Models are successfully used in economics, biology, sociology, political science, linguistics, law and game theory. 

Professor Page makes a strong argument throughout the course for the usefulness of models in addressing challenges facing us as individuals and as community members.  One benefit is that models, properly used, can help communities to reason, decide, strategize and design different approaches to community challenges.  They can serve as decision aids, provide comparative statistics and counterfactuals, help create experimental designs and help convert those experimental designs into institutional designs. Finally, they can assist in choosing among multiple policies and the institutional means of implementing those policies.  

That is if they are used properly.  Institutional forms of city government often use models put forward by professional staff and consultants.  The problem is that they too often pick and choose the methodology to come up with the politically desired answer and discourage further questioning or debate by giving the proposed strategy a veneer of approval through supposed expertise.  Not that staff professionals and consultants don’t know what they are doing, it is that they often do not use their expertise to its fullest extent because of imposed self-serving limitations set by city councils and city management. Nor does this mean that this is always done explicitly, in many instances a long-term process of enculturation takes place by which it becomes the way things have always been done without question.

A good model not only endeavors to predict points or outcomes but also to produce bounds or ranges of outcomes.  It can seek to test itself through retrodiction by looking at past results to see if they fit a particular model.  It can be used to predict other related issues and help define or inform future Data Collection.  Proper use of models also makes it possible to calibrate for better measurement in the future and to estimate hidden parameters.

This means, however, taking a radically different approach to problem-solving than what is often found in city halls.  It requires participants in this process to be clear, reasonable thinkers rather than getting their way by being the most likable or loudest.  Professor Scott puts forward a process, similar to that put forward by other resources found at Systems Thinking Approaches, to achieve this.  

1. Name The Parts
2. Identify Relationships
3. Work Through Logic
4. Inductively Explore
5. Understand Class of Outcome

Rather than being based on persuasion which is then subsequently supported by selected data, System Thinking Models start with the goal to understand through reason, using data then seeking to understand patterns found in that data. This is where professional staff and consultants could be of assistance, in working directly with the community, through the facilitation of this process. 

What is more important is that we are more successful in coming up with answers to problems when we use models than we are when we address them on our own. Phil Tetlock demonstrated that people who use models, particularly formal models, or use multiple models and perspectives (foxes) were better in making predictions than those using single models or perspectives (hedgehogs) or no models (Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs). The logic of modeling can often help to show us where our intuition fails us. 

This may all sound great (then again it may be so different to what we are used to that it still requires further means of convincing) but there are still inherent challenges to convincing others of implementing such a system.  First is a basic truth of thinking with models put forward by George E. P. Box that, "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.”  This requires being able to handle some degree of ambiguity but it can remain far too easy to be persuaded by voices professing to be absolutely certain that they are right.  

Another issue is the nature of outcomes.  The challenge that the increasing complexity of the world poses to our institutions has been discussed before.  People are more comfortable with a system that creates outcomes that have seemingly obtained some form of equilibrium or are cyclic in nature but have a far harder time dealing with issues or outcomes that are random or complex in nature.  This makes this endeavor a necessary but extremely complex undertaking.  Political persuasion would still exist and community leaders would still be needed but this would fundamentally change the relationships of governance within a community between the community with professional staff and consultants, between the community and its leaders, and between the community and its members.  

Related Past Blog Posts

Community Empowerment

Still Looking for Non-Experts to Create New Community Innovations? Look outside City Hall.

Looking for Non-Experts to Create New Community Innovations then Make sure They are Disruptive

An Example of Civic Renewal From Broken City: The City of Bell

Governance by the Community or Not - Getting with or past City Hall

Of, For, By the People and now Through the People. Community Governance Revisited

Community paradigms as a set of community relations

Civil society as a platform for new community paradigms

Budgeting for Community Prosperity requires a Clear View

Governance through Community

Systems Thinking

Formally Introducing the New Community Paradigms Mind-map

Complexity

Why is this so hard? It's complicated and it's complex but that's OK

Run the technology; don't let the technology run you

Breaking through the complications to face the complexities and coming out whole.