Recently I have been involved in several conversations where organizations were trying to plan for and decide on rapidly evolving topics. Many moving parts are evolving externally and internally, making it hard to predict what will happen next. Or how it will affect an organization’s decision-making and investments. The systems around us have become more and more complex. One of the characteristics of greater complexity is that the variables in the system continue to expand. When new variables show up, the relationships shift within the complex system, creating new patterns and flows. These are often named “unknown unknowns.”
The Unknown Unknowns
These unknown unknowns often happen when technology is involved. We experienced them during the pandemic. Climate change and reducing emissions have elements of this dynamic. And they sometimes occur in social systems, as in rapidly changing emotions, reactions, behaviors, or quick shifts in mindsets and relationships.
In the last century, we tried to design and lead our organizations as closed systems bounded by the external environment. While the marketplace was opened to the organization because it brought in revenue when people bought its products, the internal organization was closed to outside disruption as much as possible.
We spent time controlling the supply chain to diminish disruption. We secured the necessary resources to compete (labor, land, capital, etc.). We built internal systems that were organized to control people and processes. This is the organizational mindset we inherited over the past 100 years. Imagine our surprise when we wake up today to find that what we thought we knew, or what we assumed was discoverable, was not possible in the way it seemed to be in the 1970s or ’80s.
Our old way of approaching a problem is by analyzing all the parts of the problem, understanding all the variables, and then deciding on the best course of action is a habit that doesn’t work in a complex system. The tensions between this ingrained habit of complicated procedures and the dynamic evolution of complex systems show up in our work every day.
Looking for patterns, flow, dynamics, and relationships
When you find yourself experiencing:
- Multiple conversations on the same topic that don’t go anywhere,
- Conversations focused on the frustration of “not having clarity “and the certainty that we can discover all the answers we need OR
- Continual updates on changes since the last meeting, especially those that make the current meeting different from the previous discussion.
If you meet these conditions, you have entered the land of the unknown. You don’t even know what you don’t know in this land. And unfortunately, the new unknowns keep coming!
The strategy in this situation isn’t to analyze all the parts. The best strategy is to search for patterns, dynamics, directional flow, and the connectivity and relationships in the complex problem you are trying to solve. From this balcony perspective , we can see possibilities and probabilities that will aid us in planning or deciding.
Complexity isn’t about control, predictability, or certainty. Complex systems keep evolving. We need to ask different questions:
- Is now the right time to make this decision, or will things become clearer if we wait?
- If we can’t wait, what direction are the dynamics moving, and can that help us create a solution that will work for now or shortly?
- Is there an experiment we can try and rapidly learn from that might help us see the system’s dynamics?
We are living in a world where complexity is average. We must catch up with that reality and start learning to think and lead differently.
