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What does complexity theory offer business?

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Enthusiastic young team.jpgMy own interpretation is that management and followership are comfortable bedfellows. Leadership is more aligned with participation. That is, participation offers leadership the best chance of stimulating the better, faster, more effective organizational futures. Further, leaders and managers need to be one and the same, sharing that role with the organization in an authentic, fully present engagement with the goals, the consequences of the goals and their pursuit.

That is, one of the most helpful applications of complexity theory to organizations is that it invites a return of the 'self' to the 'role'.

A greater embrace of complexity thinking by leaders is essential if organizations and institutions are going to remain concepts with which people are willing to engage, offer their best and achieve their greatest. If this is not the direction of leadership philosophy, organizations and institutions risk becoming sterile environments of empty rhetoric engaged in the debilitation of society.  Ketan Patel's work on Power, Purpose and Principle is insightful.  If Australians are known for their lack of constraint, resistance to conformity and ignorance of limitations, then embracing more of what complexity theory offers into our leadership thinking may well offer Australian business a great deal more opportunity on the world stage.

In today's turbulent world, where competitors keep changing the rules of the competitive game, it is only the creative who are going to survive for any length of time. It must become the role of leaders in this kind of world not to direct others what to do but to establish the conditions in which their followers can realize their own creativity on a much larger scale than is currently the case. (Stacey 1996b)
Globe cupped by hand above and below.jpg  

We begin to do so noticing that each [theory or world view] speaks to us with  a different voice. If we listen carefully, we can hear each of these different voices whispering gently their truths, and finally, joining in a harmonious chorus that quietly calls us home

(Wilber 2000)





Reference List

1. Fox, Catherine. 2003a. August 2003: The Australian Financial Review.
2. ———. 2003b. August 2003: The Australian Financial Review BOSS Magazine.
3. Jin, Dengjian , and Kingsley E Haynes. 1997. Economic Tranition at the edge of
order and chaos: China's dualist and leading sectoral approach. Journal
of Economic Issues Vol 31 , no. Iss 1: pp79.
4. Krantz, James , and Thomas N. Gilmore. 1990a. The Splitting of Leadership and
Management as a Social Defense. Human Relations 43, no. 2: 183-204.
5. ———. 1990b. The Splitting of Leadership and Management as a Social
Defense. Human Relations 43, no. 2: p. 183.
6. Lawrence, W. Gordon. 1994. The politics of salvation and revelation in the
practice of consultancy. Casemore R Et Al Editors1994 .
7. Marion, Russ, and Mary Uhl-Bien. 2001. Leadership in complex organizations.
The Leadership Quarterly 12: pp 389-418.
8. Munday, DF, SA Johnson, and FE Griffiths. 2003. Complexity theory and
palliative care. Palliative Medicine Vol 17: pp 308-9.
9. Senge, Peter. 2000. The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of the Learning
Organization. 1st ed. Sydney Australia: Random House.
10. Smith, Lewis . 2002. Economies and Markets as Complex Systems. Business
Economics Vol 367, no. Iss 1: pp46.
11. Stacey, Ralph. 1996a. Complexity and Creativity in Organizations. 1st ed. San
Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc.
12. Stacey, Ralph. 1996b. Management and the Science of Complexity: If
organizational life is non-linear, can business strategies prevail.
Research Technology Management Vol 39, no. Iss 3: pp3.
13. Stacey, Ralph D, Douglas Griffin, and Patricia Shaw. 2002. Complexity and
Management - Fad or Radical Challenge to Systems Thinking? 1st Edition
ed. London EC4P 4EE: Routledge.
14. Wilber, Ken. 2000. A brief history of everything. 2nd ed. Boston,
Massachusetts: Shambala Publications Inc.

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