Ila presentation

© Carpenter, Conger, Davenport, & McDermott, 2012 ILA

Building Complexity Bridges Across Great Divides

Keith Carpenter, Kent Covenant ChurchScott Conger, United States Air Force (Ret.)

Brian Davenport, Whitworth UniversityKevin McDermott, University of Guelph

Commentator: Caroline Fu, Gonzaga University


Leadership Lessons from Nature: The Living Bridges of Meghalaya

Scott Conger, United States Air Force (Ret.)


Lesson One: Leaders Do Not Need All the Answers


Lesson Two: Leaders Do Not Need All the Answers

“Dependable certainty … lies in confidence that one’s preparation is adequate so that one may venture into the experience without pre-set answers but with the assurance that creative insight will emerge in the situation when needed, and that it will be right in the situation because it is an answer generated in the situation” (Greenleaf, 1977)


Lesson Two: Commitment to Learning


Lesson Two: Commitment to Learning

“What if nine out of ten change initiatives in our organizations or societies, were driven by excitement, by the idea that this would serve somebody in a different way, that this would give us a better way of living?” (Senge, 2006)


Lesson Three: Fewer Rules and Less Control


Leadership Lessons from Nature: The Living Bridges of Meghalaya


Don’t Curse the Chaos—Learning to Lead Complex Churches

Keith Carpenter, Kent Covenant Church


The swirling, non-linear, random, multiple, redundant interactions of many agents

Organizational Complexity


Emergence

In nature and history change leaps into existence following disruption, turmoil, tension,

or chaos


Turmoil Accompanies Emergent Change

Pastors Often Try to Suppress Turmoil


Complex Organizations

Distributed Intelligence


The Revitalization of Mission Church

“What Would Jesus Do?”

See Plowman, D. A. (2007) The role of leadership in emergent, self-organization. The Leadership Quarterly, 18, 341-356.


Adaptive Change

Is Frequently Bottom Up

Do followers see complexity leadership as bad leadership?

Reconciling Complexity Leadership with Implicit Leadership Theories

Kevin McDermott, MBA, PhD Candidate (ABD)University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

Department of Business© Carpenter, Conger, Davenport, &

McDermott, 2012 ILA

Agenda• Theoretical Positioning– Complexity Leadership– Implicit Leadership Theories

• Complexity Leadership and Constituent Perception– Implicit complexity absorption vs. Implicit

leadership theories– Explicit complexity absorption reconcile the

differences?• Discussion


Theoretical Positioning

• Complexity Leadership Theory

“leadership should be seen not only as position and authority but also as an emergent, interactive dynamic—a complex interplay from which a collective impetus for action and change emerges when heterogeneous agents interact in

networks in ways that produce new patterns of behavior or new modes of operating”

(Uhl-Bien, Marion & McKelvey, 2007, emphasis added)



• Can this be operationalize this in terms of positional leadership behaviours? – Those that encourage an interactive dynamic and fosters

adaptive dynamics that progress organizational goals(Uhl-Bein, Marion & McKelvey, 2007)

– Those that can absorb complexity, make use of disorder, irregularity, and differences (complexity absorption) vs. those that seek to reduce uncertainty and error (complexity reduction)

(Stacey, 1995; Boisot & Child, 1999)© Carpenter, Conger, Davenport, &

McDermott, 2012 ILA


• Can this be operationalize this in terms of positional leadership behaviours?

• Hybrid-Strategies (Boisot & Child, 1999; Walters & Bhuian, 2004)

• Self-Organization(Ashmos, Duchon & McDaniel, 2002)

• Participative Decision Making(Clarke, 2006)


Theoretical PositioningComplexity Leadership

Complexity AbsorbingBehaviours

Hybrid-Strategies

ParticipativeDecisionMaking

Self-Organization



• Implicit Leadership Theories: constituents tend to perceive leaders as effective if they possess certain traits or characteristics– Culturally dependent

(Ling, Chia & Fang, 2000)– Western cultures tend to favour:

• Dedication (disciplined, prepared)• Tyranny (pushy, domineering)• Intelligence (knowledgeable, wise) • Strength (forceful, powerful)

(Offerman, Kennedy & Wirtz, 1994). © Carpenter, Conger, Davenport, & McDermott, 2012 ILA

Complexity Absorbing Behaviours vs. Implicit Leadership Theories

Leadership behaviours that encourage Self-Organization, Participative Decision Making and Hybrid-Strategies may

negatively influence constituents’ perception of a leader’s effectiveness because of the constituents’

implicit leadership theories.

In contexts where these leaders don’t frame these behaviours in terms of their instrumental value to the

organization (Implicit Complexity Absorption)



Self-Organization Participative Decision Making

Hybrid Strategies

Dedication (disciplined, prepared)

Tyranny (pushy, domineering)

Intelligence (knowledgeable, wise)

Strength (forceful, powerful,

decisiveness) © Carpenter, Conger, Davenport, & McDermott, 2012 ILA


Self-Organization

Proposition #1

Participative Decision Making

Proposition #2

Hybrid Strategies

Proposition #3

Dedication (disciplined, prepared) Preparedness Preparedness

Tyranny (pushy, domineering) Tyranny

Intelligence (knowledgeable, wise) Wisdom Wisdom Wisdom


decisiveness) Preparedness Strength Decisiveness


Explicit Complexity Absorption

Purposefully communicating with constituents regarding the instrumental value of self-organization,

participative decision making and hybrid-strategies, as well as explaining the environmental context that make

complexity absorption strategies appropriate


Explicit Complexity Absorption

Self-Organization

Proposition #1

Participative Decision Making

Proposition #2

Hybrid Strategies

Proposition #3

Dedication (disciplined, prepared) Preparedness Preparedness

Tyranny (pushy, domineering) Tyranny

Intelligence (knowledgeable, wise) Wisdom Wisdom Wisdom


decisiveness) Preparedness Strength Decisiveness

Proposition #4

Frame Self-Organization and Participative Decision Making in terms of Employee

Empowerment

(Dewettinck & Ameijde, 2008)

Proposition #5

Frame Hybrid-Strategies in terms of organizational capacity building

in the face of environmental

dynamism


Discussion

Thank you

1) Is it theoretically appropriate to categorize complexity absorbing leadership behaviours as a subset of complexity leadership (as per Uhl-Bein et al.)?

2) Other complexity absorbing leadership behaviours that should be included besides hybrid-strategies, self-organization and participative decision making?


Occupy Complexity:

Using Complexity To Examine The Occupy Wall St. Movement

Brian Davenport, Whitworth University


COMPARING TWO EVENTS IN ZUCCOTTI PARK

• Empire State Rebellion– Date: June 14, 2011– Objective: Occupy Zuccotti Park– Attendance: 4 People

• Occupy Wall St.– Date: September 17, 2011– Objective: Occupy Zuccotti Park– Attendance: ≈ 2,000 People


EXTERNAL FACTORS

• It is important to understand the external forces that have an impact on any given social system (Castellani & Hafferty, 2009).

• National unemployment rate was at 9.1% and had been over 9% for just over two years. There hasn’t been an unemployment rate over 9% since 1983 (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• Success of the “Arab Spring”. After seeing the success of the numerous revolutions that took place in North Africa, it only makes sense that a frustrated populace would see beginning a protest movement as a viable option.


INDEPENDENT AGENTS

• Independent agents are necessary for complex realities to emerge (Castellani & Hafferty, 2009; Plowman & Duchon, 2008).

• For any idea to truly spread a few select types of people need to be involved performing specific functions, people he called connectors, mavens, and salesmen (Gladwell, 2002).

• Connector: Someone who knows a lot of people in different social groups.• Adbusters served as the connector



INDEPENDENT AGENTS cont.

• Mavens: People who are “information specialists”.• David Graeber introduced the idea of the general

assembly to the people who were early participators in the planning of Occupy Wall St.

• Salesmen: People “with the skill to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing”.• For the Occupy Wall St. movement this role was played

by a group of hacktavists known collectively as Anonymous.

• Specific agents, not specific people, are necessary for an idea or a movement to emerge from the complexity


IMPACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

• The connection of independent agents is essential to the emergence of complex adaptive systems.

• The use of the general assembly in the Occupy Wall St. movement allowed for each person, or node, involved in the movement to communicate with other nodes.

• “Each person in a network is a “node” and through talk and interaction “connections” among the nodes are formed. The addition of new nodes or changes in the nature of the connections between the nodes can lead to changes that have enormous consequence” (Plowman & Duchon, 2008 p. 132).



• If a problem couldn’t be solved in the general assembly, a working committee was formed to continue working on the problem with the goal of reporting back to the general assembly (Bennett, 2011).

• Each social system is compiled from networks of attracting clusters.

• The working committees allowed for the creation of attracting clusters around specific ideas

• General Assemblies and working committees allowed for process wisdom (Vaill, 1998).



• This process wisdom allowed the Occupy Wall St. movement to develop a system that facilitates in-time responses to both internal and external stimuli.

• This allowed for a positive response to the disequilibrium created by numerous external stimuli and the injection of new energy into the system.


Occupy Today

• The movement has lost significant momentum. Why?– Division– Lack of goals

• Can the movement regain prominence?– Yes?


Question & Discussion

Commentator: Dr. Caroline Fu, Gonzaga University
