Complexity and Resolutions
Complexity is a difficult thing to quantify (it's complex?), or rather it can mean a lot of different things to different people.
What is complex?
For me personally, "complex" most closely resembles "nuanced". Those things that can be comprehended, but not easily explained in simple terms. That tends to mean I'm discussing concepts with variable implications, philosophy would be a good example of something I can find extremely complex.
Then there are "complex" systems. These are the things we most commonly come across in our day to day lives. Your car is one representation, a corporate marketing strategy might be another, biology, various ecosystems, the weather, and so on. It is these everyday systems that cause us so much angst. When we are overwhelmed it is most often due to the fact that we are viewing things through that macro lens of complexity, "I have SO much to do, how will I ever get it all done?!", "I've been made responsible for some huge project but I don't even know where to begin!".
The Complexity of Simple
Part of what I do for a living is consult for organizations who have large complex system challenges, and need to derive a strategic solution in very short order. I'm a 'fixer' if you will. A specific example might be developing an overriding social strategy that can be integrated throughout an organizations silos. While there are a lot of tools in my toolbox for achieving that, I'll let you in on my biggest secret. A complex system, is only complex at the macro level. It is always made up of components that are relatively simple. If you can learn to break systems down to whatever level of simplicity you require you can achieve virtually anything. While sometimes not so obvious, you'll see this theme repeated over and over throughout my posts.
Resolutions
Given all of the new years resolutions taking place right now, I thought it might be more appropriate to frame this in more personal terms vs. professional.
Writing a book? It is simply a linear aggregation of related chapters, which in turn are aggregations of paragraphs, etc. Taking on a task like "writing a book" is terrifying, but can I start writing a few sentences today? Yes, that I can handle.
Moving homes? How overwhelming is that thought? Where to start? Break it down into tiny pieces that are manageable, tackle one small thing at a time. This is the essence of project management the world over, we hear it all the time. But I submit that learning to see these acts of simplification as part of your normal view of the world is much more valuable than extensive list writing and prioritization.
Relationships are also complex systems. Don't resolve to "be a better spouse/parent/friend", make small tasks that represent pieces of that goal. Put the dishes in the dishwasher, put down the toilet lid, make dinner one night, tell the person you appreciate them, whatever. But make them *actionable* things, not big complex concepts that are difficult to wrap your head around when it comes time to try and execute them.
Perception Colors Your Reality
These complex systems vary in difficulty, primarily based upon the number of individual components/factors they contain but if you can start to see the complex systems around you as just a lot of simple things tied together it becomes a lot less intimidating and that tendency to 'freeze up' when faced with large challenges can go the way of the DoDo Bird.
Cheers, and happy new year!
Matt Ridings - @techguerilla
p.s. - As an aside, we're mainly talking about 'organized complexity' here but if you completely dork out on this stuff like I do you might want to dive into Complexity Theory and its related cousin Chaos Theory. Any of the classes of deterministic complexity hold a lot of nuggets of useful insight that can be leveraged in an organization, particularly in scaling a growing business.
photo courtesy of misterbisson
3 Comments
Appreciate the thoughts
Best. Happy New Year
@SMSJOE
While I generally agree that statements like "be a better spouse/parent/friend" do not form good resolutions, I think it is important to point out that they are still valuable (I would even say essential) in helping you form those good, actionable resolutions. For example, if your eventual goal is to become a monk ,as opposed to a better spouse, your important actionable items would probably be very different. This is Stephen Covey's 2nd Habit: Begin with the end in mind (but I'm sure you already know this). Knowing the end one can work backwards to the simple steps.
Another thing that I think needs clarifying is that a complex system is not just "a lot of simple things tied together". It is a lot of simple things tied together in a specific way - in the way they are related. Even in systems it is the relationships that matter. How about that? :-)
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