Command, control and complexity

IBM’s 2010 CEO study has just been released. I discovered this on reading Irving Wladawsky-Berger’s blog (here), a reliable source of information, interest and insight. Irving Wladawsky-Berger provides a concise summary of the report which can be downloaded in a number of languages from this IBM site (here). The central message of the study is that CEO’s regard complexity as the primary issue facing them at the moment and identify three key behaviours that will enable them to ‘standout’ in a complex world: embodying creative leadership, reinventing customer relationships and building operational dexterity. The choice of words provides an easy target for those of us outside the corporate hothouse environment; however, to cavil at them would be a mistake. While the words may appear tired and uninspiring, the study provides interesting data on the thinking of many in leadership positions around the world. The study is more a survey of current attitudes and thinking than a synthesis of solutions but it is none the less useful for that. It shouldn’t take long to scan through it …, so do have a look.

What is surprising is that the proponents of complexity science have not been more vocal. Many have been labouring in this field for the past 20 years or more, so why are they not expounding on the relevance of their scholarship? A quick visit to the web sites of a few centres of complexity research reveal lots of interesting activity as you will see if you visit the sites representing groups at Oxford University (here), the Santa Fe Institute (here) and the London School of Economics (here). Perhaps it is not surprising that the focus of this work is quite academic; a follow up scan of what some consultants are doing in the ‘complexity space’ reveals a blend of the well packaged and the abstract. The well packaged stuff is very specific but is easily dismissed by those (almost inevitably the great majority) to whom it is not relevant; the more abstract treatment is generic but appears often to be so diffuse as to be hard for anyone to apply.

There appears to be a gap for which I hope a number of practitioners are heading. If so, there will soon be a wealth of interesting and stimulating material to challenge the thinking of leaders in industry, commerce and all the other areas of public and private enterprise.

Let us hope that they look into one concept from earlier days of the complexity community which goes by the description of ‘simple rules’ and is very attractive to anyone who takes comfort in an established relationship between cause and effect. Then if trying to establish a reliable relationship between cause and effect at the macro scale is doomed to failure, perhaps such a relationship can be established at the micro scale. All that then remains is to agglomerate all the predictable micro effects into a macro effect (or more likely, one of a number of possible macro effects) and the basis for making a decision re-emerges. Well, perhaps not every time but starting with simple rules that can be tested is arguably a better way of managing risk for most of us than ‘taking a punt’ on complexity at the macro level.