Richard Ronald Nason - Its not complicated: the art and science of complexity in business

Albert Einstein was once asked how he happened to develop relativity. His response was that he simply questioned an axiom. An axiom is something that is considered to be so obviously true as to be unquestionable. I do not want to compare myself to Einstein, but I do want to question an axiom the axiom that implicitly claims that business is complicated.

This is a book that explains the difference between complicated and complex issues as a scientist would explain the difference between complicated and complex. The difference is intuitive and easy to understand but also subtle and profound. It is a difference that needs to be consciously appreciated and understood by business managers.

Questioning the basic but never-stated axiom of business is complicated is the purpose of the book that you hold in your hands (or your electronic reader). You may not think of business is complicated as an axiom, much less an axiom worth writing a book about. However, I will argue that in our increasingly connected business world, understanding the difference between complicated and complex is an imperative for an engaged and enlightened manager.

In questioning the business is complicated axiom, this book develops a new way to think about business problems and issues. It provides a practical and common-sense introduction to the science of complexity and its application to business, and opens a conversation about this fascinating and paradigm-shifting way of thinking about managerial problems and how they might be better dealt with. This book is intended to be a practical managers guide to complexity, including how complexity differs from the current paradigm of complicated thinking and how to deal effectively with complex issues.

This book does not go into the grand secrets of the universe, as Einsteins writings on relativity did. Also, this book most certainly does not require an understanding of any advanced mathematics, unlike Einsteins theories. Nor does it require a wild and overactive imagination or the leaps of creativity that Einsteins ideas brought to physics. All it requires is a purposeful curiosity and an open mind, both about business concepts and about how business leaders at all levels can make their organizations more efficient, agile, and better able to compete in an increasingly complex world.

In the current context of economic turmoil, financial institution risk, workplace stress, demographic change, and time pressures, why would anyone want to write a book about complexity? Isnt the whole goal of the business manager to reduce complexity? Before answering that question it is necessary to take a step back and briefly explain what complexity is. First off, complex and complicated are not the same, although in common usage the two words are generally considered to be synonyms. To a scientist a biologist, for example a complicated issue is one where the components can be separated and dealt with in a systematic and logical way that relies on a set of static rules or algorithms, such as the laws of physics. A complex issue is one where one cannot separate out the parts and for which there are no rules, algorithms, or natural laws such as are found in physics. A complicated situation is one where there is order, as well as cause-and-effect relationships that give one the ability to reproduce results. Things that are complex have no such degree of order, control, or predictability. An orientation that acknowledges complexity is one that recognizes that the whole is often much greater than and, more importantly, quite different from the sum of the parts. Complexity explicitly accounts for the interconnectedness of things and how that interconnectedness leads to fascinating characteristics such as adaptive behavior and leaderless emergence.