Complexity is not always a bad thing

St.George’s House Leadership Fellowes AGM - Given as the third speaker at the Inaugural AGM.

6th September 2017

Leading in a V.U.C.A world – Complexity

Following on from my fellow speakers, it is clear that there are overlaps and consistent ideas that form once you accept the VUCA way of thinking. My part of this, in explaining Complexity, is to try and help give some reassurance and some tips on how to handle Complexity.

What’s interesting to me is that none of this is new, as Leaders you know that. You know, and most likely accept, that complexity is just part of the day job. Often you will be trying to work out why people, and it’s always the people, are trying to make your life more complex. That’s life. You already know that and you also know that those same people look to you to help reduce, or even remove, the complexity they have created. That’s the fun of being a Leader.

In thinking about complexity, I naturally did a little research on what the thought leader types are saying now to see if there’s any new thinking. You may have read the Forbes article from February of this year. They have reinterpreted VUCA, clearly the US Army’s version didn’t tie to today’s more positive vibes. So the Forbes version makes Volatility – Vision; Uncertainty – Understanding; Complexity – Courage and Ambiguity – Adaptability. I think there’s a lot of merit in that but personally, I’m not afraid of the negativity and the honesty of the original.

When I first became a leader, I’m not sure I realised that’s what I was by the way, I inherited another multi-market business with lots of conflict and people on different paths. My instinct is to always do my homework, so I read up on complexity in particular. It’s usually defined as follows:

1/ Too many variables

2/ Too much or not enough information

3/ Too many forces at play

4/ Organisational confusion

5/ Confounding of issues

6/ Lack of obvious cause and effect chain

There’s probably more. You probably recognise if not all them some of these as being issues that you have to deal with daily. That’s our world as leaders. That’s the gift our companies and our people give us.

Sticking with the text books then, what would they say the solution is? Well nothing earth-shattering but here you go:

1/ Restructure

2/ Remove layers

3/ Simplify decision making

4/ Build up the right resources

5/ Bring in specialists

I think the book I read came from one of the Big Four and they would naturally be the specialists in question. All of these ideas are great, if you’re a robot. Where’s the humanity? As leaders you deal in people, yes and process and P&L accountability usually but people are our main job. You can do all of these things and you would still find that you will have complexity throughout your organisation before you even put the text book back on the shelf.

The way I survive, and hopefully could help you thrive, is in thinking about it in three ways.

Find your True North, take a step back and listen and finally stop looking for straight lines.

What’s your True North, some call this Vision (like Forbes) but True North works for me. 20 or so years ago, Toyota ‘invented’ the concept of a True North as part of their now legendary Lean programme. However, that was all about change and transformation to get to a new destination, it was process. Not much understanding of humanity. I prefer the Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, version. He has committed Unilever to Sustainability as their True North. In the face of serious pressure he holds onto that and ensures that the Company does too. It’s not about what you CAN do, it’s about what you SHOULD do. That’s the difference. A Vision statement can’t really give you that.

Now I’d like you to Take a Step Back. As the person in charge everyone looks to you for solutions but that’s crazy. You don’t have all the answers just because someone put you in this role. You just happen to be at the top of the shop. I’m a firm believer in there being opportunities that exist in complexity that we wouldn’t find if everything was easy. I’d encourage you to ask questions of people outside your usual circle (we all have a usual circle even if we don’t know it), ask different types of questions. Then listen, actively listen. Don’t listen just to answer. Listen hard. Absorb and ask more questions. Be humble. You need to not be the know-it-all in this. Humility will help you. Strip away the emotion from what people are saying, understand their personal motivations, get beneath the surface. There’s always a reason why people create complexity, it protects them usually, at a basic level it may be the thing that they believe keeps them in a job. Get beneath all of that and listen. Then you can find the opportunities that exist in complexity.

Finally, No Straight Lines. Really, there aren’t. Some would say no silver bullet but the concept of straight lines works for me. We don’t live in a linear world. Non-linear is where you’ll find small pieces of progress. Things, people and issues are interconnected; you can’t expect to leap to a solution in one simple line. You can be simplifying decision making, you can be bringing people together who ordinarily avoid each other, you can be getting the right people in the right places, you can be changing your structure and you can be working it all out at the same time. No straight lines. Sorry. Just a lot of work. Which is great, that’s what you signed up for.

Enjoy the complexity.