The video “Who Needs Leaders” is a
pretty eye opening example of self-organization in a complex system. In the video, Nick Obolensky instructs a
group of 30 or so people to quickly select 2 people, unbeknownst to them, and
maintain an equal distance from these two individuals without any sudden
movements – an exercise from him Complex Adaptive Leadership book (Obolensky
2012). After only 1 minute, the group
stabilized after everyone had followed the instructions. At the close of the video, the author asked
how that exercise would have gone with a leader there to direct it. Trying to place myself in that situation, I’m
not sure how I would have handled trying to instruct these people how to move accordingly
based on the complex interrelationships between the people (i.e. he needs to
stay equidistance from these 2 but each of them needs to stay away from this
guy and so on). This would have been way
too complicated to try and figure out if not impossible. Clearly the lesson learned here is that a
complex system will self-organize, that solutions to problems will naturally
evolve from the system itself, and that often the best leadership is to just
sit back and let things work itself out.
I’m not sure I could say this video
changed my understanding of chaos theory except to say that it further
solidified my take that it doesn’t take more than a few variables to make a
system a complex one. More so than the
previous classes to date, this class has really had an impact on how I perceive
day to day operations and how I should go about attempting to tackle
problems. However it definitely has an
implication on strategy. Clearly
self-organization is a natural phenomenon which means that people should trust
some of the other aspects of complex adaptive systems and complexity science. For example, and speaking from experience, I
would have an incredibly hard time not trying to interject my influence into a
system when looking at a solution to a problem.
This is against the Taoist approach to complexity science which states “go
with the flow”. Many people have a hard
time accepting that sometimes problems are outside of their control and that it
might be better to just sit on your hands for a bit to see what happens (myself
included). This video has shown me that
I really need to do just that if I am dealing with a complex system. Interestingly enough, this is in alignment
with the Cynefin network of problem solving for complex systems. In this network, you probe the system to sense
how it responds while looking for underlying solutions (Cynefin, 2013). Once you have probed and gathered
information, you take action based on the results of your probing. The whole idea is to look for emergent
solutions (the purpose of probing).
The bottom line is that to deal
with a complex system, you really need to be walking along the border between perceived
chaos and control (again perceived). On
one hand, you want a controlled system so that you can make the system respond
in the way you would like it to since that is how we have operated most of our
lives (you are the master of your own fate).
On the other side, you have a system that appears completely out of control
that responds to none of your inputs. What
you must understand/acknowledge is that even though a system may appear
chaotic, it is just your inability to understand/see the complex inner working
of the system and that it is just responding to its natural arrangement. As a result, the recommended approach is to sit
back and watch the system do its thing while looking for patterns to evolve and
solutions to emerge from it – a definite tough sell to type a personalities but
one they must buy into. After all,
patience is one of the 3 things taught by Lao Tzu who apparently did actually
know a thing or two about complexity!
Obolensky, N. (Producer). (2008, April 12). Who
Needs Leaders? [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41QKeKQ2O3E
Obolensky, N. (2012). Complex adaptive
leadership, embracing paradox and uncertainty. Gower Publishing Company.
Cynefin. (2013, March 28). Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin
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