Introduction from the Editor Complexity is not a feature of the world that can be modelled, or managed. Complexity is, rather, a function of our lack of understanding, or the way we have attempted to understand something—something which, once understood, can be seen to be fundamentally simple. Complexity needs to be filtered. The illusion of complexity, which continually renders our actions ineffective, results from the application of simplistic, sweeping midlevel abstractions to the idiosyncratic details of real-world situations. The radical implications for management and decision-making are the focus of this brief introduction to our contrarian view of complexity.
Complexity is Only Our Lack of Understanding. Complexity is not a feature of the world.
Love it.
VUCA, unprecedented times, really complex industry/project etc. Today everyone wants to claim this. At the very least it flatters ego and makes them look important. In reality, it's rooted in lack of understanding (at a moment in time).
I may be guilty of oversimplifying and filtering what you’ve written,, but much of this would seem to conflate complicatedness with complexity, viz the example of the car. Something is not complex just because we don’t understand it. If it is knowable by experts (e.g. mechanics) then it is just complicated. If something truly is novel and seemingly random, then we can try to make sense of it by forming hypothesis and testing them. What you call filtering is, I would argue, in large part just describing our way of attempting to understand elements of what we think we see. In striving to understand by ‘experimenting’ in this way, we can over time shift some subjects from complex to complicated, and eventually to clear. That’s what complexity as a model gives us. It’s not a static framework meant to scare the uninitiated into stunned silence and awe at the cleverness of high priests, it’s intended as a tactical everyday tool to help us make sense of the world around us. At its heart, then, this article seems to be arguing against complexity using something of a straw man, trying to explain how it’s not complex by describing precisely how you would use it. Perhaps I filtered too much?
I've got a MBA and are familiar with Wiener, Stafford Beer and Bateson (and Korzibsky, Watzlawick). I've also got a degree in Physics, so I'm somewhat familiar with the ideas of Einstein and De Broglie. As it happens, I'm also familiar with Freud and Jung.
The complex, I always like to use Jung's concept of complex: one's complex, contains everything one didn't or couldn't acknowledge, understand or accept. It contains everything one didn't choose. One lives in the illusions that these parts of you are away, disowned. Everything that doesn't fit one's picture (map) of the world isn't mapped. Being "suppressed", it "hides" in the subconscious. You made your own complex.
This inner "world" (re)surfaces whenever one encounters an unpleasant situation (again and again) and then it seems like it's caused by the outside world (projection). One reflex is to suppress it, ignore, minimalize, (flight), another reflex is to fight it, fighting with reality. The latter leads to using power to overcome these "complexities", by reducing them. Both add to the suppression processes.
A third option, which is harder to do, is to use it as a probe, use curiosity or imagination. There's something (inside complex) that one needs to know, to encounter, to research. Complex wants to be known. From the resistance to the acknowledgement of the complex, comes learning. It takes courage to move with the complex. It's the "know thyself".
In this view, complexity is being attributed to the world, projecting one's inner anxieties, fears, unknowns. I always say, we're so busy suppressing complex, we've got no time or energy to learn and progress. Technically, one needs to "regress" - accept the complex - in order to "progress".
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You wrote: "Complexity is not a feature of the world. It is not a feature of the territory, but a feature of the territory-as-mapped. "
I would suggest that complexity is not an attribute of the world, but attributed to her, projected. Features are featured on the map, and explained in the legend. And the features come from the mapping process. In the mapping process one suppresses unpleasant features.
I've always wondered why Korzinsky used the word "territory" and not the word "world", "terrain", "landscape" or - my preference - "domain". I think it's because in mapping, one makes terrain or world into territory. One "owns" terrain by making maps. In mapping a terrain, the map maker presents the territory and is "present". Consultants in mapping, modelling, "hide" complexities, fears, anxieties, loss,... "You see what you wanna see and you hear what you wanna hear".
I think - following Max DuPree, Leadership is an Art - that one should ask questions about the fears and anxieties . He posed questions like: "what makes you weep? , "what is beauty?". In doing so, he writes, one defines reality.
I like to use Von Foersters imperatives: "act always to increase the number of choices" and "If you desire to see, learn to act".
Brilliant. Thanks for this. Very consistent with Goldratt's Inherent Simplicity and how I do things in my Amplio Approach.
See Dealing With Complexity In Knowledge work in my book
https://successengineering.works/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Amplio-Development.pdf
Complexity is Only Our Lack of Understanding. Complexity is not a feature of the world.
Love it.
VUCA, unprecedented times, really complex industry/project etc. Today everyone wants to claim this. At the very least it flatters ego and makes them look important. In reality, it's rooted in lack of understanding (at a moment in time).
I may be guilty of oversimplifying and filtering what you’ve written,, but much of this would seem to conflate complicatedness with complexity, viz the example of the car. Something is not complex just because we don’t understand it. If it is knowable by experts (e.g. mechanics) then it is just complicated. If something truly is novel and seemingly random, then we can try to make sense of it by forming hypothesis and testing them. What you call filtering is, I would argue, in large part just describing our way of attempting to understand elements of what we think we see. In striving to understand by ‘experimenting’ in this way, we can over time shift some subjects from complex to complicated, and eventually to clear. That’s what complexity as a model gives us. It’s not a static framework meant to scare the uninitiated into stunned silence and awe at the cleverness of high priests, it’s intended as a tactical everyday tool to help us make sense of the world around us. At its heart, then, this article seems to be arguing against complexity using something of a straw man, trying to explain how it’s not complex by describing precisely how you would use it. Perhaps I filtered too much?
Thanks. Nice post.
I've got a MBA and are familiar with Wiener, Stafford Beer and Bateson (and Korzibsky, Watzlawick). I've also got a degree in Physics, so I'm somewhat familiar with the ideas of Einstein and De Broglie. As it happens, I'm also familiar with Freud and Jung.
The complex, I always like to use Jung's concept of complex: one's complex, contains everything one didn't or couldn't acknowledge, understand or accept. It contains everything one didn't choose. One lives in the illusions that these parts of you are away, disowned. Everything that doesn't fit one's picture (map) of the world isn't mapped. Being "suppressed", it "hides" in the subconscious. You made your own complex.
This inner "world" (re)surfaces whenever one encounters an unpleasant situation (again and again) and then it seems like it's caused by the outside world (projection). One reflex is to suppress it, ignore, minimalize, (flight), another reflex is to fight it, fighting with reality. The latter leads to using power to overcome these "complexities", by reducing them. Both add to the suppression processes.
A third option, which is harder to do, is to use it as a probe, use curiosity or imagination. There's something (inside complex) that one needs to know, to encounter, to research. Complex wants to be known. From the resistance to the acknowledgement of the complex, comes learning. It takes courage to move with the complex. It's the "know thyself".
In this view, complexity is being attributed to the world, projecting one's inner anxieties, fears, unknowns. I always say, we're so busy suppressing complex, we've got no time or energy to learn and progress. Technically, one needs to "regress" - accept the complex - in order to "progress".
---
You wrote: "Complexity is not a feature of the world. It is not a feature of the territory, but a feature of the territory-as-mapped. "
I would suggest that complexity is not an attribute of the world, but attributed to her, projected. Features are featured on the map, and explained in the legend. And the features come from the mapping process. In the mapping process one suppresses unpleasant features.
I've always wondered why Korzinsky used the word "territory" and not the word "world", "terrain", "landscape" or - my preference - "domain". I think it's because in mapping, one makes terrain or world into territory. One "owns" terrain by making maps. In mapping a terrain, the map maker presents the territory and is "present". Consultants in mapping, modelling, "hide" complexities, fears, anxieties, loss,... "You see what you wanna see and you hear what you wanna hear".
I think - following Max DuPree, Leadership is an Art - that one should ask questions about the fears and anxieties . He posed questions like: "what makes you weep? , "what is beauty?". In doing so, he writes, one defines reality.
I like to use Von Foersters imperatives: "act always to increase the number of choices" and "If you desire to see, learn to act".