Navigating Complexity

So, how do we make our way through complexity? Well, first, we need to bypass three pitfalls characterized by John Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow:1

It is very difficult, if not impossible, for an individual decision-maker to comprehend an entire complex system. From any one location, we struggle to see a full picture and take into account the diverse array of relationships. We tend to magnify some perspectives, whilst overlooking or distorting others, based on where we sit and what information we are privy to.

No one person can know everything -- and yet, we put a lot of stock in ‘experts’ to analyze a situation and find an optimal solution. We like to think we can reason our way out of complexity: if only we had the ‘right’ facts, we could converge on the ‘right’ answer.

In our quest for the one best answer, we exclude alternatives that don’t fit our interests, shut down lines of inquiry that feel uncomfortable, and impose artificial constraints that prematurely narrow the field of possibilities. That’s how we end up with solutions that are just another version of the status quo.

In their Harvard Business Review article on leadership & complexity, David Snowden and Mary Boone write:2

In the midst of complexity, even NASA experts have to solve problems differently. Rather than sense the situation, analyze the options, and then choose a definitive course of action, it is more effective to probe for patterns, sense the context, and respond by testing the waters first.

In complexity, the job of leaders is to...

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  Create learning environments that allow patterns to emerge
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  Increase levels of interaction and communication
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  Use methods that can help surface collective understanding
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  Open-up discussions
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  Support small-scale experiments
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  Encourage dissent and diversity
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  Foster radical candor
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  Monitor for emergence
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  Encourage continual reflection
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  Make systems safe-to-fail, not fail-safe

Apollo 13 required decision-makers to navigate complexity at the point of crisis. Ideally, we are intervening before disaster strikes.

Where are other intervention points?

Because the point of need and decision are visible and urgent, we usually start there, framing the challenge using language and evidence that makes sense to us, that fits within our existing worldview. We don’t regularly stop to probe the assumptions baked into the words used and numbers cited.

Take a social issue like homelessness.

Embedded in the language is the presumed problem: lack of homes. Census data confirms the problem. Rather than explore the dominant values, logics and beliefs which serve to link house and home, we largely fund solutions that subscribe to the dominant frame: more shelters, more transitional housing, more permanent social housing. And yet, year after year, homelessness continues to grow.

The same is true when it comes to philanthropy. Much of the focus goes to fundraising at the point of need, and improving the point of decision — such as, better investing and granting decisions. But, year after year, need outstrips supply. What could it look like to address the point of assumption? How might critical inquiry into the relationship between wealth, inequality and giving expand the field of solutions? As James Baldwin points out, even small shifts at the point of assumption can result in significant shifts at the point of intervention.

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  Many pressing human problems are messy

  Messiness refers to a state that is untidy, unpleasant, and morally or psychologically confusing.
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  There are three types of systems

  simple, complicated, and complex Complex systems require a different type of problem-solving approach.
  
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  Messes exist in the domain of complex systems

  When values, beliefs, power structures and habit interact to perpetuate a problem, we need systems thinking rather than scientific or technical problem-solving tools.
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  Philanthropy is a complex system

  Philanthropy shares the conditions of complex systems: policies, practices, and resource flows, relationships, power dynamics, values and beliefs.
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  Complex systems require different problem-solving approaches

  Whereas simple systems are made up of 'known knowns' and complicated systems have known unknowns, complex systems are characterized by unknown unknowns and interconnection with many shifting conditions!

Experiences & Observations

Thinking about you own week, which of your activities require you to interact and solve problems in simple, complicated, and complex systems?

Reactions & Impressions

How do you react to the idea that scientific and technical problem-solving approaches are inappropriate to the realm of complex, human problems?

Questions & Hunches to test

Apply the complex system checklist to a complex issue that you hope to have impact on. What are some of the patterns you see? How do you sense there are unknown unknowns?