Johnson - Mastering Massive Complexity: Inside the Gong Dao Bei, the Path to Transformation

T his book is the culmination of three years of deep reflection and introspection and nearly one full year refining the art of procrastination.

For those among us (myself included) who are naturally weird wired and would feel perfectly at home swimming in a couple hundred thousand lines of C++ source code or developing heuristic algorithms or investigating nuances of the Schrdinger wave equation, or perhaps poring over engineering drawings and technical specifications, please note that in this bookwe dont go there. And for those hoping to master massive complexity in twelve easy stepswe dont go there either.

Rather the purpose of this book is to provide focus on core fundamental insights and principles to help any ordinary person grasp the ungraspable so they have meaningful insight sufficient to challenge why things are done the way they are, why they shouldnt continue to be done that way, and what is required to make things far better.

For a long time mankind could not see the dark side of the moon, yet the choice was always thereeither traverse space and get behind the moon or rotate the moon so the dark side becomes visible. Only the means was missing. So it is with the paradox of genius and goofiness. Weve seen the hind side of this coin of paradox where goofiness resides for long enough; I suggest its time to rotate the coin of paradox to reveal remarkable genius, seemingly for the first time.

To explore such possibilities, we need a new tool. The Gong Dao Bei is a small, lightweight Ming dynasty invention known as a fairness pitcher that provides a powerful metaphor for Transformation in an extreme environment where the very lifeblood and existence of complex entities and businesses that comprise our modern societies and sustain our livelihood are threatened. The Gong Dao Bei methodology provides a metaphor for harnessing collaborative power, harmonizing function, and fundamentally changing the way we see and understand whats happening inside massively complex entities. The Gong Dao Bei methodology also provides the means to create yet another vitally important, though strikingly elusive and altogether missing, toolthe Master Toolto enable collaboration at warp speed.

The insights provided by the Gong Dao Bei methodology are, in fact, the product of both ancient and modern insights patiently infused over time and applied to todays extreme environment of intense government regulation, rapid change, cutting-edge technology, and sweeping safety concerns that affect millions of stakeholders across the globe who are engaged in the type of technical endeavors that open the kind of opportunities that drive the creation of new high-paying jobs.

Over the last three decades, Ive spent a number of years intermittently embedded in what I often lightheartedly refer to as a hotbed of goofinessthe US nuclear power industry. Yet paradoxically this same beleaguered industry, and any other industry facing Massive Complexity, has the enormous potential to become a hotbed of genius.

Note well, absolutely nothing about the ideas and concepts presented in this book are unique to the nuclear power industry. It just so happens that the nuclear industry is my home turfan incredibly unique environment that has provided sufficient time and ample opportunities for deep exploration of Massive Complexity.

Consequently, I present some ideas and concepts using insights and generalized examples gleaned from that industry since it is an extreme environment that is superbly suited to foster a high-trust culture with the tremendous capacity to serve as a proving ground for the implementation of the Gong Dao Bei methodologya methodology that may at first appear somewhat foreign, but which has extensive applicability and relevance to many other industries across the globe.

Those working in the petrochemical, media, sales, hospitality, legal, aerospace, IT, software, medical, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, electric utilities, and other industries will recognize in the discussion of this methodology the many foibles and distinctly human emotions we encounter and experience on a daily basis. However, it may not be recognized or obvious how this same convoluted composite of emotions can actually be used to catalyze powerful insights for Transformation. The relevance of these insights extends to any industry dealing with the perils and pitfalls of the inherent Massive Complexity of our deeply interconnected and wondrously diverse societies, systems, and technical endeavors many of which are unfortunately losing relevance at an alarming rate.