What do we have to know about Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS)?
Rummler and Brache in IMPROVING PERFORMANCE.
"Eighteen months after Peter’s and Waterman (1982) published their list of "excellent" companies, one-third of them had dropped off the list. An examination of the fallen shows that the majority failed to respond adequately to changes in the external environment."
In the beginning, their was complexity!
Since the onset of organization, there has always been a complex system of interrelated, independent variables. The greater the number of variables; the greater amount of subjectivity in the system. The larger number of interrelationships; the higher the level of complexity. What does this degree of complexity mean to members of organization?
As the models of our organizational world have developed over time, it has been our nature to deconstruct these levels of complexity into objective forms that we can understand. As discoveries in biology, physics and chemistry have provided even deeper understanding of organization, we have begun to realize that organization is not quite as simple as the "hierarchical command and control history" would have us believe.
Enter the Complex Adaptive System (CAS) model of organization. The CAS embraces the complexity of interrelationship and the increasing number of variables functioning implicitly and explicitly, and clearly demonstrates that "all organization" occurs in the context of a holistic system.
When Cause and Effect are non-linear
Take the plight of a nomadic tribe of indigenous people. Each and every day the needs for food prompt the tribe to search for new resources. Along comes the industrial society, helps them drill wells into the savannah, plant and cultivate crops, breed and raise livestock for food and--in the short term--domestic the land, the tribe and the food supply.
After years go by, the population increases as there is plentiful supplies of food and the once nomadic existence fails to prune the population through survival. Food supplies are pushed forward, population increases, the civilization prospers. Years later, the water levels in the wells begin to drop. The food supply threatened, the land suffers ecological damage and gradually the cycle continues until the domesticated tribes are forced to literally pick up and move-nomads once again.
This scenario is not only true but is indicative of the short-sightedness that occurs when we deconstruct reality into bits and pieces and try to solve problems in a linear fashion.
Everything is connected!
In the above illustration, the industrial society has made many such "unintentional blunders" with which we--in the short term-view as a dispicable lack of foresight. In the long term, each of us is faced with uncovering the "unintended" acts of our organization.
The CAS model helps us to put in perspective the many interrelated and interdependent factors which are both implicit and explicit. Many of these "intransparencies" are difficult to observe and to predict. This is precisely why we must begin to embrace the concept of complex adaptive systems in organizational thinking. Everything is connected and at the same time interdependent. A further step makes each variable interdevelopmental IF we are able to understand that the potential for the transfer of knowledge and subsequent learning among variables exists.
How do we operate in a complex system?
The following steps can help us to deal with complexity in organization.1. We need to assess our current status and situational reality through our assumptions.
2. We must view the future along a continuum of possible scenarios and implications.
3. We need to understand the different effects of our actions on organization as a CAS.
4. We need structural knowledge about how the relationships among variables influence one another.
5. We need a reality model where the complex linkages among variables exist in a holistic system.
6. We must make allowances for incomplete and incorrect information and signals.
7. We need to track and measure effects of these complex interactions among variables.
8. We need to infer or deduce developmental tendencies among the outcomes of interactions.
9. We need to decide what we want to achieve and how we intend to go about it.
10. We need to evaluate success and feedback results to all points in the CAS.
These ten critical factors create a basis for applying complex adaptive system models to organizations. As more and more people subscribe to this theory of organization, we can begin to look for more and more openness in the environment as well as greater levels of "opportunity and possibility" among interrelationships.
The level of uncertainty will increase!
Probably the most difficult aspects of applying CAS theory to organizations is embacing the high levels of ambiguity involved. As we expand the web of influence farther out into the market ecosystem, we experience higher levels of uncertainty and greater challenges among the interrelated parts.
All variables seek expression in one way or another, either explicitly or tacitly. The unpredictability of self-organizing order is a topic for another strategy although we must understand that this form of order is happening all around us, regardless of our intention. Listening to this force is a key factor in remaining open to the ambiguity involved in leading CASs.
Create organizational learning.
There are many factors which contribute to the complexity of organization. The fact that so much of the interaction between variables is subjective is very difficult for most leaders to understand. We have always deconstructed reality in order to make sense of a linear set of instructions which were objective and straightforward with clear outcomes. It has mostly been a stewardship of vision or goals that has provided the leader with success.
CAS theory indicates that as the number of variables increase, so do the number of interrelationships. At each point in time, a "number" of different consequences is possible depending on this degree and speed of interaction. It is essential for the leader to make allowances for these unintended occurances and to create an adaptive response across the enterprise based on "likely" scenarios. It will be prudent to conduct scenario analysis as a part of future decision-making.
The only way to leverage this "condition" is to create organizational learning. Access to information and knowledge transfer must occur simultaneously with each iteration in the environment in real-time. Without predictive capability, an adaptive response triggered by improved levels of learning at ALL levels of the organization creates a fluid movement among the interrelationships occurring as the speed of interactions between the variables increase!
Applying CAS theory to organization
http://pw2.netcom.com/~nmerry/Urihome.htm
Chaos and Complexity: What’s it got to do with management?
http://www.oise.on.ca/~bwillard/ldcmplx.htm
Top Ten Link on CAS issues and enterprise
http://www.topten.org/content/tt.AC42.htm