Complex Systems & Organisational Change : Part 2

This week we continued our journey into Complex Systems diving deeper into the first two conditions that are necessary (but not sufficient) for systems to be complex:

1. Numerosity - I suggested that a good starting point in understanding how complexity can be applied in Organisational Change is understanding the importance of interactions and how they create 'energy' or engagement. I broke down engagement into three psychological constructs: motivation, committment and identification exploring how these constructs overlap. It seemed that trust in leadership and organisational justice keep coming up as critical factors that organisations need to develop to build change capability.
2. Diversity & Disorder 'force' a system to become adaptive and create collective behaviours. People in a system must be similar enough to be able to interact but different enough not to be same. This idea was developed further using the example of diversity and inclusion . An inclusive culture consists of giving people a sense of belonging (similarity in say beliefs or values that creates cohesion) while respecting individual uniqueness (which satisfies peoples need to stand out).

At the end of the week I ran this poll asking whether we need to understand Complex Systems in order to understand Organisational Change . So far people seem to think that we do!

Also a reminder that I am running a?talk on Complex Systems in Organisational Change in May ?- hopefully by then we will have a clearer evidence-based picture on how to integrate the two??

Summary of previous posts on Complex Systems

Time to move on and build a new Organisational Change body of knowledge

Can Complexity Science for a framework for thinking about Organisational Change or is it just another dodgy concept?

What characteristics do Complex Systems have and how do they fit with Organisational Change?

Last week's Friday Quiz

In this post I questioned the evidence supporting failure rates in Organisational Change and suggested that our practice needs to get better at measuring the impact of our interventions. This poll asking " As Organisational Change practitioners can we measure the impact of our interventions?" 73% agreed that we should !

Events

Here are a group of 7 monthly talks that complement this newsletter covering the?History of Organisational Change,?Adopting a Scientific Mindset, Complex Systems, Myths of Organisational Change,?Neuroscience of Organisational Change?and?Change capabilities.

The aim of these monthly talks is to crowd-source a body of knowledge from people who have experience in Organisational Change.?I hope you can join us?

Purpose & Process

My ambition?for over 10 years has been to try to change Organisational Change (OC).

When I started in Organisational Change I did the usual round of training & qualifications. I was surprised by the underlying assumptions these methods made about human nature. It was taken for granted that 'the natural response to change was resistance' because 'brains hate change' or that we need to start with a 'sense of urgency' and that everyone's experience of change is the same. There was little evidence to support these claims. If managers and practitioners then adopted these methods wouldn't they become self fulfilling and organisations would find it hard to change?

That is?what I would like to change. To build a practice based on evidence. To discover how people really experience change and build organisations that are equipped to help people adapt and learn.

But none of us have all the answer which is why your comments and the dialogue we create is so important.

So the aim of this weekly newsletter?is to crowd-source a body of knowledge from people who have experience in Organisational Change.

To build this body of knowledge?I aim to cover the following topics over the coming weeks and months:

• History of Organisational Change?- this seems like a logical place to start to assess the current body of knowledge and tease out areas that need to be worked on
• Adopting a scientific mindset ?-?we need a systematic way of building knowledge and challenging our beliefs
• Myths of Organisational Change -?this will be an exploration into current Organisational Change beliefs and whether they fit with the way we want to build our knowledge base
• Definition and Structure?- maybe the most difficult part. How do we agree axioms on which to build our practice?
• Change capabilities -?this is the body of evidence - a set of capabilities that organisations need to develop to be able to change. The fun bit would be working together to constantly test the effectiveness of these capabilities constantly enhancing our body of knowledge.

Published by

Alex Boulting, Chartered FCIPD

Helping organisations create the ability to change

39 articles