Most of us are not fans of complexity. We may like to tackle difficult challenges as part of our work. But the closer that complexity comes to home, the less comfortable and confident that we feel. The natural reaction to that is to exert control. We try to impose structure and manage work and force our way through to the finish line. Research and experience have shown—time and time again—that this is more often than not a recipe for failure. That is not to say that there aren’t strategies to navigate complexity. They are just different than our normal impulses suggest.
Agile Will Not Save You
Agile approaches are enjoying a very bright place in the sun. And that is to some extent deserved; they represent a very different way of working, especially when we are dealing with ill-defined problems and a need for experimentation and search. At the same time, we often define agile as needing to be different than what came before. The implication being that predecessor capabilities are inadequate, inappropriate and best relegated to the dustbin of history. The reality is very different.
This Is All Make-Believe
We fall in love with our models, our processes and our standards. They’re helpful when they help us to make sense of the world, but they can also get in the way. What we sometimes forget is that they were all invented to provide a perspective on a problem. That means we can change them, adapt them, evolve them and dispense with them when they stop providing value.
We Need A VP Of Chaos
How we think about change is stuck in the past. Judging by the way we organize, there are those who would like to keep it that way. We need to think differently about how we organize for change. And we need to change our organizations.
Structure Helps To Manage Uncertainty
We have a deeply ambivalent relationship with uncertainty. In part, we are hard-wired to like clarity, and black-and-white world-views are as tempting as they are dangerous. So when we are faced with situations where there are no clear answers or easy choices, we find ourselves squirming in acute discomfort.