Managing Now Requires Greater Skill With Complexity

Humans excel at managing complexity, but not everyone develops the skills. Many believe they don't need to. Surprisingly, to date, it has been leaders who ignored ambiguity and complexity who most often succeeded - a major paradox. They saw a particular set of facts through experience in a specific industry and behaved as if those facts would always remain the same. By simplifying (but in the wrong way), they gained clarity that helped them act decisively with great confidence. Action often trumps accuracy. But....

Complexity and ambiguity are harder to handle than pure factual analysis, so if the latter will do, the analyst will solve the puzzle sooner and more accurately, just as computers handle very detailed challenges as long as the rules are clear, complete and unambiguous.

It takes greater skill to anticipate an uncertain future. Today greater uncertainty is the norm. Many entrepreneurs fail because they over-simplify and eventually get caught by unexpected events. We need their confidence, but their certainty only takes them as far as present circumstances hold. Now we realize the same applies to corporate leaders.

Command and control managers excel in analytic, unambiguous situations. But they try to reduce every challenge to that and deal with it as if all factors are completely clear whether they are or not.

I can recall many instances where a CEO ordered a specific solution despite the fact that many at the executive table felt subtleties were being missed. Of course, that will always be true. We need to act and we can never wait to be 100% correct in every detail. But today we need to listen to more input than ever before leaping to conclusions. The difference is we can't afford to let bosses cause those with ideas to remain silent even though that may have speeded up decisions it in the past. We have to learn to leap to conclusions just as quickly while nevertheless absorbing as many of the complexities of the situation as possible because there is so much more to take into account. Over-simplification becomes a serious liability.

With change happening faster and, more importantly, with more complexity, our leaders and teams need greater ability. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Yet Boards still appoint CEOs on the basis of their apparent confidence that they have absolute, simple answers. We need to ask ourselves how we can meet these opposing needs: greater input, yet rapid decision-making. The key will be understanding the different skills required to handle complexity.