In this complex world, our accustomed ways of perceiving, thinking, working, and living are no longer effective and, more often than not, do more harm than good. But why?
Systems Thinking – Rethink Everything | Systems Innovation NetworkThe problems the world is facing now, including ecological damage, natural disasters, poverty, species loss, political upheaval, refugee trauma, and even health epidemics, can all be described as complex, that is, they are born of circumstances that are multi-causal and non-linear.
This complexity vexes the traditional problem-solving model of separating the problems into singularly defined parts and solving for the symptoms.
The very nature of complexity undermines the familiar mandate to define goals and strategies to achieve pre-envisioned, single sector solutions.
None of the issues above can be understood as stand-alone issues.
These issues are wrapped in contextual interdependencies that require an entirely different approach in assessment, and action.
Our world is unpredictable
The intrinsic nature of our world is a complex one, but we fail to appreciate that complexity and its inescapable consequences.
- We can never fully understand things.
- We cannot predict, and thus we cannot plan the future.
- We cannot control things into being.
We still try to plan and control things
Despite this, we still try to plan the future and manage other people by command and control.
But in today’s fast-changing, knowledge-based economy, this static, top-down approach to work is not only ineffective; it wastes the talent, creativity, and energy of most people in our organizations.
Inventing the future requires giving up control.
No one with a compelling purpose and a great vision knows how it will be achieved.
One has to be willing to follow an unknown path, allowing the road to take you where it will.
Surprise, serendipity, uncertainty and the unexpected are guaranteed on the way to the future.
One person cannot make sense of things
- One person cannot make sense of a complex issue.
- One person cannot decide how to respond to a complex issue.
And as we human beings are also complex, it isn’t easy to control people.
We don’t fully understand what it means to be human
We fail to understand what it means to be human.
- We don’t understand ourselves well.
- We fail to understand each other.
And consequently:
- We make unwarranted assumptions about each other.
- We disrespect, judge, blame, and criticize each other.
- We rarely think together or work well together.
- We care too little about each other.
More specifically, especially in an organizational setting:
- We see people as resources to be controlled and used.
- We mandate “training” for people.
- We continually try to manipulate each other.
- We reward and punish (bribery and threats).
- We set performance targets and conduct performance reviews.
- We make people accountable.
We need to stop trying to control each other
The problem with these sorts of responses is that we are trying to do things to each other.
These responses do not work. And when they don’t, trying harder is not the solution.
We resist being controlled, and when we do give in, we become dependent, disengaged and depressed, or angry.
We need to learn and accept that the world is complex, and we cannot control it by traditional means.
We need to recognize that we are complex beings, and we cannot control ourselves, never mind each other.
In attempting to control the world and to control people, we make things worse; we make a mess of things.
Posts that link to this post
- Introduction: Conversational Leadership Conversational Leadership
- Introduction: Principles of Conversational Leadership The Principles of Conversational Leadership
- Conversational Leadership Framework ** A framework to help understand the concept
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