The world right now is a messy and complex place. As I reflect on all that is happening around the globe, I keep thinking of the following written by Karen Mazen Miller:
“Things change; people struggle.
People struggle; things change.
It hurts when people struggle and when things change.
Accept that people struggle and things change.
The only way to deal with this is by changing yourself.”
Recognizing that the above is a modified version of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, I find it helps me put everything back into perspective as I learn to embrace the messy ambiguity and complexity of life right now.
As leaders, we are acutely aware that things are changing and people are struggling. I think some days we get so busy that we forget the wise advice and counsel of Margaret Wheatley: “Life seeks organization, but it uses messes to get there. Organization is a process, not a structure.”
Leaders like structure and systems. We thrive on our ability to reduce messy ambiguity and complexity. Yet, our greatest challenge is to embrace the complexity rather than to fight against it.
For many this fall, life feels like messy complexity has nearly shifted into total chaos. However, with the right support and perspective, some leaders are recognizing that complexity may feel chaotic, but in reality, it is really just a complex adaptive system or event that is taking place.
When we encounter the rise of complex adaptive systems or events, we need to remember that the system or event involves large numbers of interacting elements. These interactions are often nonlinear, and that minor changes can produce disproportionately major consequences. In short, the system is dynamic.
Therefore, solutions can’t be improved. Rather, they arise from the circumstances around complexity and ambiguity. This process happens when we, as leaders, grasp two concepts, namely self-organization and emergence.
Self-organization is “the tendency of certain (but not all) systems operating far from equilibrium to shift to a new state when their constituent elements generate unlikely combinations” writes Richard T. Pascale, Mark Millemann and Linda Gioja in their book, Surfing The Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business, Three Rivers Press, 2000. As they continue, emergence is “the outcome from self-organization.” For example, “a jazz ensemble creates an emergent sound that no one could have imagined from listening to the individual instruments.” In simple terms, self-organization generates new routes in the landscape of complexity, and emergence generates new destinations.
From my perspective, the challenge of our time is to embrace complexity. We need to recognize that the challenges before us are a reflection of generational choices. The outcome of these choices is to call upon each of us to have the courage and fortitude to seek new routes and new destinations.
And the first place to start this journey is by changing myself. Step by step, struggle by struggle, we can role model continual learning and personal integrity. It is the combination of the two that will transform the complex process into new ways of working and living in harmony with others.
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