Power Play in Complex Systems

It is generally believed that hierarchy brings in the emergence of power structures. Be this in an organization, family, society or a team. There is a general tendency to avoid getting trapped in the lower levels of the hierarchy due to the power dynamics at play where typically the top levels in the hierarchy command greater control and those in the lower levels have to mostly abide by the rules or dance to the tunes set by the higher levels. The common personal fear is that of loss of freedom, pressure to comply, loss of creativity and sometimes loss of self-confidence.

Complex systems often have hierarchies built into them. Organizations are known to have pyramidical structures, joint families have decision-making powers vested in few hands, and even sports teams have a structure of management, coach, captain, vice-captain and then the team. In social systems traditional hierarchy emerges from caste systems and in the modern world the power of money and the nature of work create stacks of social classes (eg. blue-collar, white-collar, informal and formal workforce).

All these examples indicate that hierarchy is bad for those in the lower levels and thus the only way out is to go to the top. Then you have more control and command. This has inadvertently created a social race to the top. Each one is trying to beat the other in their individual quest to break out of the hierarchy trap. When looking at this from a systems thinking point of view it is interesting to note that hierarchy is one of the most prevalent characteristics of complex systems. Even in natural systems, there is an apex predator in the food system and the way energy from the sun is broken down the food chain goes through the food hierarchy. So is hierarchy necessarily evil in the nature of complex systems? Perhaps it has to do more with how humans have interpreted it and used it in its management form to design and operationalize systems.

Hierarchy often also brings resilience to a system. If one level weakens the other levels can consider making up for the weakness. In an organization, if the management team is temporarily thin due to people leaving the job then the implementation team could take up more managerial responsibilities and self-organize to continue to deliver on time. This is often enabled through an emergence of leadership from the grassroots. Hierarchy also adds diversity to the system bringing multiple actors to form sub-systems. Each of these sub-systems is then working on different slices of the common system, like an organization, while continuing to coordinate with each other. The CEO or Leader is not burdened with managing and doing all tasks by himself but rather the structure of the system takes over different responsibilities to keep the whole together. It is not necessary that each sub-system has to have all the information about the larger system that it is part of but it is important that it can locate its own responsibility in the larger system and be aware of how its actions are contributing to the good of the whole. The communications team of an organization need not have perfect knowledge about the organization's financial conditions but it needs to be aware that the work it is doing could improve the visibility of the organization and thereby in the long run help it improve its brand and thereby revenues. The absence of financial information should not impair their motivation to work for the good of the whole.

The real problem with hierarchy has to do with the human nature of producing power plays between different levels. The advantage of hierarchy is often leveraged in the wrong direction of pushing the system to increase its performance by optimizing different levels in the hierarchy. The marketing team of an org is often given stiff targets to meet in order to increase sales. This is an example of trying to put pressure on one level in order to optimize its own performance. While there is no guarantee that increasing sales will result in the improvement of the brand if there is no simultaneous capacity development to provide after-sales support once the marketing team has increased the sales. Optimizing parts or sub-systems sometimes can result in sub-optimal outcomes at the whole system level. Increasing sales without building after-sales capacity shall lead to sub-optimal outcomes of unhappy consumers for the organization.

Another challenge is the prevalence of the dominant mental model that the lower levels in the hierarchy are there to serve the upper levels. For example, the idea is that the job of the frontline force is to increase the revenue of the company in order for the company to declare bonuses to its top employees. Such policies and practices often generate the social realization that lower levels of hierarchy are a bad place to be in. But as is the case with complex systems the solution to a chronic problem is often simple but perhaps the most difficult to implement. We have to change our belief about the nature of hierarchy.

Consider this, what if the top level in the hierarchy believes that its purpose is to serve the lower level in order for it to achieve its tasks more effectively? What if the role of leadership is to serve the lower levels? What if every level in the hierarchy gets busy helping the next level to achieve its functions in order to meet the larger system-level objectives? What would such a system look like and feel like?

The role of the leader in such a system is that of a servant. It calls for servant leadership. The power play is not against different levels but it is for the good of the whole and the power is then distributed across the hierarchy through serving each other instead of fighting to gain control. There is minimum centralization of power and increased coordination between different levels through sharing of knowledge which eventually distributes power across the system instead of consolidating in certain parts. One of the most important aspects in the mainstreaming of systems thinking in organizations is the role of leadership. It requires the leader to produce enabling conditions for the lower levels to learn and apply systems thinking in their work. Systems thinking in an organization cannot be restricted to the top levels of the hierarchy. It calls for building a culture of systems thinking across the organization.

The power play in complex systems is more of a human-made problem and has less to do with the nature of complex systems. We design and deploy rules and create cultures which are then replicated across systems that produce a general world view about hierarchy. It is time that the worldview is challenged and also evolved through examples of servant leadership and systems thinking.

Articles that inspire me - Dancing with Systems - https://donellameadows.org/archives/dancing-with-systems/