Management of Complexity

The capacity of organizations to make good decisions depends to a large degree on their ability to anticipate the behavior of complex social and political systems. Our lack of knowledge, the uncertainty and ambiguity associated with their future development, together with conflicting perspectives of stakeholders further complicate this work. In a complex environment the ability of organizations to shorten the time between the recognition of warning signals and the implementation of decisions is critical. Success depends on how fast the whole organization can see the “big picture” and learn to change its ways of working.

To respond to both structural and behavioral requirements of decision-making organizations need new tools for organizing information. In particular we need to address the following challenges.

(1) People involved in decisions are often not “on the same page.” Organizations lack the shared “big picture” of their environment which is indispensable for self-organizing and a networked decision-making, which are based on a common understanding of strategic direction. This shared picture is also a requirement for an organization-wide dialogue and learning without which distributed control is impossible.

(2) Navigating complex environments requires constant change. Change requires time, so people in an organization can become Aware of the new reality, Accept this reality and Adapt to it. In a complex, fast paced environment the time for making sense of the reality is often very short or not available at all. One solution is to “borrow” that time unavailable in present from the future – i.e. to start the process of becoming aware of upcoming reality and accepting change farther ahead of a decision time. This means that we need to stretch the “big picture” of the environment as far into the future as possible.

To be more successful in dealing with complexity organizations need a shared “big picture” of the future. The Future Map provides a tool for mapping, tracking and understanding complex environments.

For more information see our presentation at the International Conference on Complex Systems 2007 organized by the New England Complex Systems Institute.