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Flirting with Uncertainty and Surprise: Thriving on Change in Complex SystemsLisa Kimball, Tom Mandel & Denise EastonSystems and organizations are made up of many components.All the components are connected in some way. The challenge is to see the whole and understand the relationships.

Uncertainty & Surprise?2Systems and organizations are made up of many components. Everything is related to everything so we can look at individual components and see where they fit but there is a danger that well get focused on one particular component and ignore whats going on in the rest of the system. The challenge is to see the pattern of relationships and ways of working together where the whole is MORE than the sum of the parts.

An Expanded Perspective SYSTEMENVIRONMENTBOUNDARYThe idea of a bounded system is necessary to doing organization development work, and at the same time it creates a false sense of certainty. In fact, the boundaries are laid on top of a mosaic of components, raising inevitable issues of inclusion and exclusion. Where you draw the boundaries changes the nature of the system; systems tend to overlap; give concrete examples.3Make the WHOLE Visible to Everyone

People in organizations are more engaged when they can see the whole of which they are a part.

Solutions are better when more people are involved in creating them.4People get more engaged when they have a sense of the whole in which they are a part. Often job of OD to help create and maintain that sense. Even if (especially when) a project is only a small piece of a larger system, its important to find ways of connecting that piece to the whole. Organizations are NOT Machines

In science . . . The search for basic building blocksIn society . . . The whole is no more or no less than the sum of its parts, so focus on the parts (e.g. functions, detailed plans, disciplines)Organizations and people are implicitly viewed as machines or machine parts: interchangeable, separable, replaceable, etc.Long held metaphor for organizations has been NewtonianWell talk later about how that metaphor has affected approaches to change (change management and other engineering style approaches)5From Physics To Biology

Simple ComplexThere is increasing appreciation that organizational systems are not so analogous to mechanical systems and, in fact, have more in common with biological systems.

6Complex Systems

Patterns of interactions within them

Outcomes that emerge from them

How systems actually behave, not how we think or expect them to behavePerhaps talk about simple, complicated and complex systemsNow folks are appreciating that the systems were interested in like organizations are COMPLEX systems7What is a Complex Adaptive System?CAS8Properties of Complex SystemsDistributed Control: In a CAS control is shared by many elements, rather than centralized in a single command center.

Coexistence of Order & Disorder: In a healthy adaptive system, order and disorder coexist.

Embeddedness: Each CAS made up of other CAS and is part of (embedded in) a larger CAS. Each is unique.

Diversity: A CAS has many different elements. This enables a CAS to change.

Because CAS are Nonlinear, a small change may produce a large effect, or a large change may produce a small or no effect.

Inability to Predict: Outcomes are unpredictable.

Emergence: In a CAS outcomes emerge through a process of Self-Organization rather than through centrally planned or directed processes.

9Interdependent AttributesEmbeddedSystemsAdaptableElementsSelf-Organization& EmergenceOrder & DisorderNon-LinearityDiversityDistributed Control

10Organizations are not Only Structures

This is what the formal chart looks like but it doesnt really show the true picture of the org. The structure is useful information, but just one lens.11

Organizations are Networks12Talk about the network view of organization. Formal and Informal.Organizations are theChange Model

13Talk about the network view of organization. Formal and Informal.

What Will Surprise You?14Talk about the network view of organization. Formal and Informal.Serendipity

Serendipity to Emergence to Serendipity to Emergence16

Emphasisis on the interdependence, number and diversity of agents versus simply the number of partsInteractions are plentiful, rich and diverseRelationships are non-linear (small causes can have large impact)Strategic design is holistic (concerned with the part, the whole and the greater whole of the system)Outcomes are both planned and emergent events(the spontaneous patterns that emerge from and exist in a complex environment)Operate at multiple levels at the same timeCreate and exhibitfractal patterns(self-similar and scalable) that provide insight into the similarities, differences and relationships that have meaning across time and spaceExists in continual cycles of adaptation providing a constant flow of action to sustain the "evolution" of the systemAchievescoherencevia simple rules that are followed by all agents in the system

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A Few Simple RulesFly toward the center of the flock

Match the speed of the other birds

Avoid running into the other birdsBasic models of flocking behavior are controlled by three simple rules:

Separation - avoid crowding neighbors (short range repulsion)Alignment - steer towards average heading of neighborsCohesion - steer towards average position of neighbors (long range attraction)

With these three simple rules, the flock moves in an extremely realistic way, creating complex motion and interaction that would be extremely hard to create otherwise.

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Thriving on Change

Flirting with Uncertainty and Surprise: Thriving on Change in Complex SystemsLisa Kimball, Tom Mandel & Denise Easton