Issue 14: Why (some)complexity is essential.

In the last newsletter we saw that increased complexity - and therefore bureaucracy - is an inevitable consequence of scale. I also promised to explain how systems thinking can help manage complexity and therefore tame (if not 'bust') bureaucracy. But before I think I need to bust a myth.

Simple isn't always good and complexity isn't necessarily bad. Indeed, a certain degree of complexity is necessary for any organisation to survive.

Simple isn't always good and complexity isn't necessarily bad. Indeed, a certain degree of complexity is necessary for any organisation to survive.

The reason for this can be found in the work of the systems pioneer Ross Ashby, who in 1956 described the 'Law of Requisite Variety': which in my view is probably the most important thing that managers are never taught. In this context, variety is the number of states that a system can adopt in a given period and thus a measure of complexity.

Like many profound laws that govern our existence it can be expressed in terms so simple that, the first time you come across it, it can seem banal and trite: 'only variety absorbs variety'. Which basically means that if you want to achieve something you need to have at least as much flexibility (internal variety) as your environment has complexity (external variety).

I find it easiest to explain this in the context of a sporting context, like a tennis match. If your opponent (your environment) is skilful they will have a greater range of shots. So to win you have to have a bigger repertoire (flexibility/complexity).

Not a particularly profound observation. But there is another implication, that is often overlooked even by people familiar with Ashby's Law.

If you want to win big rather than just scrape through, you are shooting for a smaller range of acceptable outcomes (goal variety). This means you need a larger set of moves to achieve your objective - in other words, requisite variety.

What this all means is that if your organisation is operating in a complex environment it needs internal complexity if it is to survive, which is another reason why bureaucracy increases with scale.

At this point you might be thinking 'congratulations, you have answered the call to 'bust bureaucracy' by explaining why you can't avoid it'.

My point it that it is possible to be smart about managing complexity, but because we are not taught to think about it in the right way we do the wrong things and often end up with the worse of both worlds - too much complexity AND insufficient flexibility.

What we are all taught is that the way to manage complexity is to budget and to plan. But Ashby's Law tells us that you can't have fixed (inflexible) plans of what you are going to do AND predictable (tightly defined) outcomes. We would not expect to win tennis matches this way. It is not just practically difficult; it is logically impossible.

Think about it for a moment. You have been taught that it is good practice to manage in a way that is 100% guaranteed to fail...and make things worse along the way!

What we are all taught is that the way we manage complexity is to budget and to plan. But you can't have fixed (inflexible) plans AND predictable (tightly defined) outcomes. We would expect to win tennis matches this way. It is not just practically difficult it is logically impossible.

Think about it for a moment. We are taught that it is good practice to manage in a way that is 100% guaranteed to fail!

But all too often, in an effort to make a square a circle, we chase down variances to budget. And when that fails we replan...over and over again. To me the biggest surprise is that the level of bureaucracy isn't even higher.

So what to do instead?

I will start laying out the two alternative strategies in my last newsletter, drawing on what I have learned from systems thinkers.

Was this helpful?

I hope so. If it was stay tuned for more insights from 'Zen and the Art of Organising Work'. I'm also hoping that along the way that you will come to share my passion for these ideas and use them to create healthier, more productive workplaces.

And if you want to learn more about this or any of my other work, check out my LinkedIn page. You will also find my blog at?Satoripartners.co.uk?where you can buy a hard or electronic copy of the book. Alternatively, if you want to capture and use snapshots from the books (properly attributed of course!) you can buy PDF copies?here.?

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