Complex systems are typically made up of a large number of interacting components—people, ants, brain cells, startups—that together exhibit adaptive or emergent behavior without requiring a leader or central control. As a result, complex systems are more about the relationships and interactions among their components than about the components themselves. And these interactions give rise to unpredictable behavior. If a system surprises you, or has the potential to surprise you, it is likely complex. Software is complicated. Creating a software startup is complex. An airplane is complicated. What happens between the people on board is complex.
Contrary to popular opinion, among people who study systems theory, “complicated” and “complex” are distinct words with precise meanings. The engine inside a car is complicated. A complicated system is a causal system—meaning it is subject to cause and effect. Although it may have many parts, they will interact with one another in highly predictable ways. Problems with complicated systems have solutions. This means that, within reason, a complicated system can be fixed with a high degree of confidence. It can be controlled. This is not to say that a complicated system can’t be confusing or inaccessible to the layperson. Quite the contrary. Understanding a complicated system, such as an engine or a 3-D printer, requires specialized expertise and experience. Here, experts can detect patterns and provide solutions based on established good practice. This is the domain of the mechanic, the watchmaker, the air traffic controller, the architect, and the engineer. Traffic, on the other hand, is complex. A complex system is not causal, it’s dispositional. We can make informed guesses about what it is likely to do (its disposition), but we can’t be sure. We can make predictions about the weather, but we cannot control it. Unlike complicated problems, complex problems cannot be solved, only managed. They cannot be controlled, only nudged. This is the domain of the butterfly effect, where a small change can lead to something big, and a big change might barely make a dent. Here expertise can be a disadvantage if it becomes dogma or blinds us to the inherent uncertainty present in our situation.
Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape, once quipped, “Saying that the purpose of a company is to make money is like saying that your purpose in life is to breathe.”
While many of the activities and outputs of organizations are indeed complicated, the organization itself is complex. Accordingly, organizational culture isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s an emergent phenomenon that we have to cultivate.
Instead of constantly overreacting, we can use theory to make a more nuanced choice. In a complex world, decentralization offers many benefits, but we need to maintain collective coherence. To achieve this, we can leverage transparency, social pressure, and principles. What simple rules would have to be in place to allow local or decentralized authority and action in perpetuity? And when centralization seems to make sense—as with some software platforms or shared data sources—I use one question to clarify my position: which structure will make us faster and more adaptive? Whatever that is, centralized, decentralized, or somewhere in between, I’m for that one.
steering metrics should, in fact, result in steering. You’re looking for quantitative and qualitative signals that will help you sense and respond. If you aren’t making decisions and taking action based on your metrics, you’re doing it wrong.
Instead of enforcing standards, think about proven practices as defaults. Defaults are exactly like standards with one exception: you don’t have to use them. A default says: If you don’t know what you’re doing, do this. If you don’t have time to think, try it our way. But if you’ve achieved some level of mastery in an area and you think you see a better way, feel free. Let us all know how it goes, because either you’ll generate further proof that our default is sound or you’ll sow the seeds for a new default that we can all benefit from. In the case of my firm, we maintain a default fee structure for our services. If an experienced member wants to try something different—a price premium, a discount, an equity swap—there are no rules against that, but we want to learn from it. Our members know they can take a risk and go their own way, but only when they think that we all stand to benefit.
Job titles mask the complexity of the roles we hold, and they limit our ability to shape them and step in and out of them freely. Instead, think of the organization as a rich network of roles that can be filled and shaped by anyone. Don’t limit yourself (or anyone else) to one static job description. Recognize that you already hold many roles in many places. Claim them.
Facilitators and Scribes. One of the best ways to increase meeting effectiveness is to ensure that someone is responsible for the structure, flow, and output of every meeting. Two roles that we have found to be particularly effective are facilitator and scribe. The facilitator role keeps the meeting on track, enforcing whatever format and ground rules the team has agreed upon. That could include cutting off conversational tangents, noticing when some people need to step up or step back, and even pointing out when the leader isn’t playing by the rules. The scribe role captures any actions or outputs created throughout the meeting and leverages any tools or interfaces required by the work.
