Complexity, easy as 1,2..algebra

It’s midday on a chilly Monday in January.? Tomorrow, you need to drive 45 miles up the motorway to be at meeting by 10.30.? You will probably consider the distance and estimate how long that’ll take given the speed limit.? You may think about the time of day and potential volume of traffic this may bring.? You may not consider checking for roadworks, precipitation forecasts, or strong headwinds, temporary traffic lights, live accidents, or high volume of lorries (slow moving traffic).? You may not factor in a neighbour who wants to talk as you leave, or the alarm warning of tyre pressure loss going off before you leave your street, or the learner driver crawling along in front of you, or the lack of sleep you had the night before slowing your decision making, or the presence of police on the roads and temporary speed cameras.? You may not give much thought to the fact the postcode doesn’t say the exact building you need (it’ll be fine).? You certainly don’t think about how the poor signage will make it hard to find where to park, and then have to queue behind a delivery lorry whose driver is also lost. You didn’t consider how far the parking area is from the entrance, or the security person who delays you further still!? I could go on, but you get the picture.

Whether we are aware of it or not, life is full intersecting factors that influence our lives (technology, politics, weather, money, time, other people). Influential factors can be connected, entwined, abutted, channelled, and influenced by each other in a myriad of almost indiscernible ways.? You see life and possibilities are often more complex than we think about…or want to think about. This in turn means life is far less predictable than we think.

Disposition

·??????? The way in which something is placed or arranged, especially in relation to other things

·??????? A person's inherent qualities of mind and character

As a new born we are thrust into a complex and bewildering world of swirling noises, colours and experiences. The process of learning and creating structure and meaning is hard fought and often it’s the missteps and hard times that teach us the most.? Gradually we build up the learning and structure to help us in our interactions, decisions and experiences. We learn to spot cause and effect to help us predict what we think will happen next, and then we do our best to make the ‘best choice’ for a safe outcome.

But did the complex, chaotic nature of the world stop, just because we grew up?

Our desire for predictability and certainty shapes how we perceive the world around us. We constantly unconsciously create and asses a series of possible eventualities. We use our past experiences and current feelings to try and infer what will happen next. ?There are so many possible things that could happen, that we must rely heavily on a chain of assumptions. Going through life based on not much more than guessing doesn’t sound all that clever. But rather than admit this we assign meaning, causality and evidence that supports most of our flawed predictions. We know for sure that A will lead to B, it’s not guess work at all we tell ourselves, its reasoned and rational. This cause will lead to this effect, and if it doesn’t well then that’s just some anomaly to be disregarded. This process leads people to some odd conclusions. For example, people who wear a certain piece of clothing when their team wins - they must now continue to wear this clothing because of the effect it has causes the team to win! ?I once hit that thing that was broken and it started working - therefore, hitting machines can fix them. We quickly form a chain of assumptions around cause and effect that leads us to some ‘interesting’ conclusions.

The linear process of problem-solving:

1.????? Find or become aware of a problem (the world is not as it should be)

2.????? Decide how you want the world to be (different than now)

3.????? Explore the problem and find ‘the cause’

4.????? Solve, navigate around or contain ‘the cause’ to make things better

5.????? Take the learning and apply to vaguely similar future problems

But what if life thrusts us into a scenario where the cause and effect doesn’t add up? What if it appears there isn’t a direct connection between what we perceive as a cause and its effect!? What if there are just too many factors in play for us to ‘get our head around’? How can we then predict any kind of outcome with certainty?

We are creatures of habit, so our brain falls back on its tried and tested linear process of: Exploration, Extrapolation, Cause and effect analysis, and finally comes to a Conclusion on what to do next.

The discomforting news is that reality can be much more complex than we are able or want to believe. At times our perception and predictions are just too simplistic to be helpful. Which brings us to the concept of disposition.

Disposition - The way in which something is placed or arranged, especially in relation to other things - A person's inherent qualities of mind and character

The lessons we’ve learnt in life, can be turned into rules (heuristics) - if X happens do Y. These rules then shape the qualities of our mind. The amount of things we can consider that have a bearing on life are limited. Millers law suggests that we can only hold around 7 ?(+/-2) things in our working memory. So, we usually limit what we consider important to a simple small number. ?We then consider how to arrange those limited things in some kind of logical, causal chain that we hope (big leap here) reflects reality as it is or soon will be.

Do you see the flaw? At times life may be a 50-piece jig saw puzzle, but we are only playing with 7 pieces. No matter how we arrange these pieces in relation to the other pieces, we are missing a lot, and we are nowhere near a clear picture.

It’s natural, we prefer simple over complex, direct over indirect, fast over slow, basics over nuance.? We see an increasing drive to shorten and simplify the world into soundbites, the interviewers who box someone in and demand a yes or no answer, the desire for a hack, or a tik tok video of 30 seconds ‘that will change your life’. Most people want a simple, easy explanation to things. Unfortunately, sometimes things just aren’t simple, because there are so many things happening with so many potential outcomes. This is one reason why conspiracies are so quick to take off. Given a situation that seems unlikely or undesirable we would rather create or believe a particular cause that seems right to us, rather than consider the many interconnected complex factors that actually led to this situation. Most of us also post rationalise extremely well. When we get a prediction wrong, we create a reason as to why we were nearly right, or that it was clearly impossible for anyone to predict what actually happened, or that the facts have changed somehow.

Back to our jigsaw analogy. A complex puzzle may have over 500 pieces. We open the box and look down into the mass of seemingly random shapes and our need for order and simplicity is what creates the challenge and the fun of the puzzle. We know there are edges and boundaries we can work within, and with patience and time we can arrange these things in an order that will form a coherent picture.

Instead of viewing problems as isolated puzzle pieces, we can consider a broader connected picture. Some problems are complex, interconnected, dynamic yet bounded situations. The things that are influencing the problem we should consider and are within our puzzle picture. The things that don’t have an influence are not part of our picture.

What do we mean by influencing factors (or dispositional forces)? Well, they can be varied and many, from machine capability, design processes, material properties to personal beliefs, culture, geographical constraints and relationships.

So, what do we do if a problem isn’t simple, but complex?

-??????? Park the linear cause chain thinking. Not every problem has one linear cause but instead may result from multiple factors.

-??????? Getting a broad range of insights beyond experts can help identify what may have previously been in play but invisible.

-??????? Begin to describe and flesh out the many influential factors.

-??????? Consider a series of solutions to tackle a variety of factors, some of which may only indirectly seem to be part of the problem, but without their removal will see problems persist.

For many simple problems the standard approach works ok, and for navigating life via short cuts and assumptions it works really well at keeping us alive. But when it comes to bringing about real change and shaping and improving the world in all its complex splendour, time and time again our standard approach falls short.

If we can acknowledge the finer entangled intricacies of our complex world, we deploy more nuanced, effective and sustainable problem resolution. The sheer number of factors (pieces) once perceived as incomprehensible, or a hinderance to be disregarded, can instead be individually considered and placed within their own context to create a clear and realistic image.?

Jigsaws are a pre-cut and fit together nicely. If only life were that structured. At this point we should switch metaphor and consider a map. Maps combine an array of information and help show the current landscape. Maps highlight, dangers, hinderances, possible routes, safe spaces, boundaries, infrastructure and can gives clues to history. It’s possible to create a living map of your organisation or challenging situation where each influencing factor is identified and placed to build up a true landscape. The process of creating this map generates its own insights and helps show what direction of travel is possible from here and now.? Each individual factor added contributes a complex yet coherent picture that make visible what directions and routes forward are most navigable and which are not.

We can learn to move away from the simple linear assumptions that cause us to think that all the outcomes we want are possible. We can instead create a map of what is really happening that captures the complex entwined factors in play to then can then help you set direction, make choices and decide on strategies to achieve a possible and positive future.

For more information how to create these maps or insights on how this thinking can help your organisation please get in touch.