The Complexity Bug

The American Theoretical Physicist Richard Feynman was once asked to explain why do spin one-half particles obey the Fermi Dirac statistics.

Did you understand the above sentence? Most probably, like me, you could not make any sense out of it. But did you get impressed?

Yes?

Sophistication and complexity has its share of admirers!

As the story goes, Feynman replied by saying he will create a freshman lecture around the topic. However, the next day he declared he was unable to do so. Humbly, he admitted, “Most probably we have not understood it completely”.

Einstein is also known for a similar quote.

“If you cannot explain to a six year old, most probably you have not understood it”.

This quote is from a person whose theory of relativity, I suspect, is beyond the common man’s comprehension. Taking a cue from the quote, I once challenged a physics professor to explain the theory of relativity to my seven-year-old daughter.

“Whether you are on a moving car, standing still or in a spacecraft moving close to speed of light, the laws of nature are the same,” he started an interesting conversation with my daughter. I was baffled by the simplicity of his explanation. He had understood the theory well enough to translate it to a seven-year-old.

Simplicity is a widely cherished virtue in the world of hard sciences. It is on the criteria of simplicity that scientific theories compete with each other for acceptance.

The ability to transfer scientific understanding to the uninitiated comes from following attributes of simplicity.

1. Unification: The theory should not just explain one phenomenon but many in different domains. Unification not only provides the biggest thrill to a scientist, It also makes understanding and explanations easier, because situations or analogies that a person can relate to can be used to explain the solution. For example, theory of relativity can be explained using environment of black holes or even the simple analogy of flash bulbs in a moving train. The fact that it applies in both domains makes it easier as we choose the one that’s easiest for the listener to understand.
2.  Elegance: The theoretical model should have few adjustable elements. Exposed to a different situation than the original experiments, the model should not need continuous manipulation to explain the difference in results. If you need to keep manipulating the model to take into account various counter arguments of the listener, the uninitiated student, then most probably the listener will find it complex.

 The world of management is however exactly opposite of that of hard sciences. Sophistication and complexity is widely admired (and is assumed to be proxy for intelligence).

 As opposed to the idea of unification from the hard sciences, what attracts attention is the school of thought, which promotes the idea that every situation and every organization is different and hence requires special considerations and treatment. This idea is dominant even though one finds that almost all companies within an industry actually operate like herds – they copy from each other and keep recruiting from each other to stay rooted in status quo.

 Indifference to elegance is easily seen in any implementation of standard enterprise software. Without proper expert guidance, in many situations, standard solutions are twisted out of shape, making it unique to a specific organization. Large sums of money are spent on customizing standard software to create a complex behemoth. And eventually, only a fraction of the behemoth is used.

 Look around a typical large organization and you will find complexity everywhere. You will see that multitude of different measures converted as targets, and actions taken to improve one negate the other. Policies have so many counter clauses for different situations that you need experts to interpret them for the layman. At times consumer products have so many features, varieties and versions that, leave alone customers, the creators themselves are unable to tell the difference between them and customers need special expertise to even use them. Unification or elegance is a rarity.

 The moth-like attraction for complexity makes its usage wide spread in the world of business management. One tends to believe that common sense and simplicity should get wide spread acceptance but reality is far from this na?ve assumption. Traditional organisations are wired to reject simplicity or dismantle it upon initial implementation; unless special efforts of buy-in, with a zeal that of an evangelist, are made across layers of organisation to dismantle complexity and the associated elitism.

Interestingly, organizations take birth as simple entities. The complexity bug slowly affects them as they grow. As they add policies, processes for efficiency or control, effectiveness begins to take the back seat. Eventually processes and policies conflict with each other. More policies, processes are created for managing exceptions. As conflicts intensify in day-to-day information or material flow, managers in various roles do less of their own work but more tasks for other roles, further adding to conflicts. Eventually big organisations slow down, under the weight of its own complex myriad of conflicting processes, structure and policies.

The obvious and the common sense are pushed to the back seat. Soon complexity takes a life of its own making managers within the organization feel lack of control. Even people at the top start blaming "culture" or " system" to explain their helplessness to make any meaningful fundamental change.

Can this lust for complexity and complexity itself be ripped apart in a structured manner, without disruptions, so that organizations can gain both efficiency and effectiveness? Can the “obvious” regain the front seat, just like the early start-up days?

Our book, Apparent in Hindsight, (vectorconsulting.in/apparentinhindsight) is an attempt to showcase how age-old chronic problems of auto industry require a treatment of simplicity and not complexity. You will see solutions, which unify the problems faced by production, sales, purchase and distribution. Devoid of jargons, 2*2 matrices, and complex models, you will also discover elegance of hard sciences, as every practicing manager of the industry, regardless of his organization, and his place in the hierarchy will relate to the content of this book. You also get to understand the journey of dismantling complexity – the right way to go about doing it.

… But the book does not seek to explain either the Fermi Dirac statistics or the Theory of Relativity because the authors do not fully understand either of them!