Rethinking Complexity

The Trappings of a Reinforcing Loop: Cable Media and the Casey Anthony Trial

OK, I'll admit it: I've been following the Casey Anthony trial for the past 32 days on both Court TV and HLN.

I don't veg out on the couch all day, eat potato chips, and let the trial proceedings numb my brain, but I have kept the TV on during the trial every so often while I work at my freelance writing, catching snippets of testimony here and there. I've also watched the post-trial day wrap-ups on all the HLN shows—from Jane Velez-Mitchell to Dr. Drew to Nancy Grace.

It's a tough case to ignore. As I type this post this morning, George Anthony’s alleged mistress is being grilled on the stand by state prosecutors. I can only liken this vicarious experience to watching a series of car crashes over and over and over again—each crash more gruesome than the previous. The story itself just keeps you watching.

For those who’ve been lucky enough to sidestep the drama of this ongoing court case, I’ll briefly fill you in on the story. The case focuses on 25-year-old mother, Casey Anthony, who stands accused of murdering her 2-year-old toddler, Caylee. State prosecutors contend that Anthony sedated Caylee with chloroform before placing duct tape over the toddler's nose and mouth so she'd suffocate to death. The motive? Release from the shackles of parental responsibility, according to state prosecutors.

No one could account for the toddler in 31 days from June 16 to July 15, 2008—a timeframe that, state prosecutors say, gave Anthony the freedom to spend ample time with her then-boyfriend, go to night clubs, participate in hot body contests, and get a tattoo on her back that reads bella vita (or "beautiful life" in Italian). As the days passed, Casey Anthony protected her renewed party girl lifestyle, according to state prosecutors, by weaving a web of fictional storylines involving an imaginary nanny and an array of other made-up characters. These storylines, prosecutors argue, were spun to keep her concerned parents, George and Cindy Anthony, as well as her brother, Lee Anthony, at bay over Caylee's absence.

What Should You Learn in College?

I've followed the emerging rules for higher education by the U.S. Department of Education with interest, but also trepidation. While I'm all for accountability in higher education, my concern is that what can be documented is not always the real learning and growth that a student experiences.

This past year I've seen two powerful examples of great college learning that are very different from the norm.

My first experience took place earlier this year when I was as visiting professor at the Stetson University in central Florida. There, I had the opportunity to teach an undergraduate course developed by Professor Greg McCann for young people who came from family businesses. The course didn't just focus on concepts and ideas; it also focused on developing the individual as a leader.

The course asked the students to explore deeply who they are, what they want, and how they can develop skills and credibility as a professional. Challenging and often confrontative, the course forced the students—including those who want to work for their family business someday—to look at patterns in their family and personal life. It asked the students to consider whether they accept these patterns as-is or if they feel these patterns need to be modified. An experiential group experience, the major learning product of the course is a Personal Development Plan. Many students were deeply moved by it because it made them ask two, self-reflective questions: “Why am I in college?” and “Where am I going?”

Engaging Discussions About Sustainability

Much of my time is spent talking about sustainability to people who think like I do. We have a great time discussing the problems and the needs as well as confirming our own beliefs and actions. As like-minded people often find each other, I imagine this is the case for many people dedicated to making a difference in creating a sustainable world.

Real change will come when we can talk with others who don’t think like us.  I’m surrounded with people in my workplace and community who don’t think about sustainability and don’t really know what the terms means. Talking with those who don’t yet embrace sustainability or have decided it is a “hoax” is important work we all need to develop the courage and skills to do. Skills lead to courage so my hope is that the following suggestions can help you develop some skill in this area.

Exploring Network Structures to Manage Complexity

Organizations have been engaging in networks for a long time.  Most common are networks of suppliers associated with providing various parts to produce an end product known collectively as a supply chain. Clear examples of supply chain networks include the making of a PC where parts come from across the globe or Amazon.com where a host of service providers are linked to create a seamless delivery of goods to my doorstep. While this type of arrangement benefits all parties and fulfills a common goal—it builds a product or provides a service—the engagement is primarily transactional in nature and the structure tends to be hierarchical rather than a partnership. However, these types of transactional networks are not robust enough to adequately address more complex issues facing organizations today.

To effectively manage in today's complex environment we need a new type of organizational structure that engages multiple interdisciplinary stakeholders, invites collective collaborative action, and shares responsibility for outcomes. Recently, I was involved in a participatory action research workshop directed at identifying actions that would engage citizens and communities in emergency management.  The organizers of the workshop were seeking to incorporate the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and build awareness of network management to increase coordination and accountability in advance of and during an emergency situation.

In Care and Full Service

A segment on NPR's Fresh Air caught my attention recently, bringing to mind organizational life and the complexities of the helping human systems process.

On the show, host Terry Gross interviewed Jessica Goodell, a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq with the Marine Mortuary Affairs Platoon in 2004.

As Goodell talked about her memoir, Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq, giving several accounts of her experiences serving in the Marine Mortuary Affairs Platoon, I was deeply moved by what it took for her to be able to do the work she had volunteered to do.  Goodell explained that she “had to detach from the task at hand.”

The ambiguity of the word “detach” caught my attention.  As Goodell described the nature of the work she and her colleagues did, which involved collecting, sorting and processing the remains of fallen marines so that they could be sent to their families, I was mesmerized by her unwavering resilience in care and full service.

The term “detach" struck me because that is a term that I would normally associate with a somewhat negative connotation within the context of the helping human systems process. From that perspective, the word "detach" means no emotional engagement. Listening to Goodell, I realized that assumptions ingrained in my thinking contributed to the way I had initially perceived the term “detach” when I first heard it mentioned during this interview. So how does one stay emotionally detached and still be in care and full service in a helping human systems context?

The Evolution of Systems Thinking

Systems thinking as a method of inquiry deals with complexity from the perspective of the whole, not the parts.  Most methods of inquiry follow the traditional path of reductionism as established by our sciences.  We have learned to answer life’s difficult questions by dissecting our subjects into parts with the idea that they are easier to study and understand.  Reductionism has worked well for closed or mechanical systems.  However, in the earlier part of the 20th century scientists started to question whether reductionism applied to human and social systems.

The progression of systems thinking started with Ludwig von Bertalanffy.   As early as the 1940s, von Bertalanffy postulated his general system theory in which he stated that systems continually interacted with their environment.  This gave way to the notion of open systems.  Von Bertalanffy was emphatic about the ability of open systems to resist maximum entropy and disorder which are the laws followed by closed systems.  In von Bertalanffy’s view, open systems exhibited a tendency toward order.  His view concerning open systems along with the interest of other scientists led to the creation of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) in 1954, giving birth to systems thinking as a discipline.

In this new field of study, practitioners applied scientific methods to solve complex problems with human systems.  Operations research and cybernetics are two of the offshoots of this early discipline that made its way to universities and industry.  The subject of complexity assumed the forefront of systems thinking and it is the reason why it became relevant.  We now know that all open systems, particularly those dealing with intricate social situations, are inherently complex and need to be dealt with as a whole, not as discrete parts as reductionism would have us do.

Reason, for the Sake of Argument

Whether or not Hamlet was being ironic in his admiration for humankind, it seems that the nobility of our reason is up for debate…literally.

New research from French cognitive social scientists indicates that reason exists to help us argue and guard against the arguments of others, according to a recent New York Times article. Reason, so the theory goes, is not about truth, it’s about influence.

The theory, developed by Hugo Mericier and Dan Sperber of the Jean-Nicod research institute in Paris, has been labeled the argumentative theory of reasoning.

“Reasoning doesn’t have this function of helping us get better beliefs and make better decisions," Mercier told the New York Times. "It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.”

As communication became more important to our ever-more-social ancestors, early human listeners needed ways to determine the reliability and trustworthiness of the information they received from others, according to the theory. Over time, the human race developed “epistemic vigilance,” a phrase Sperber coined to describe the set of skills we developed to assess the veracity of arguments meant to influence us.

The common good is irrational

Why don’t we work together for the common good?

It’s a question that plagues every good intention, and every activist group. We know that corporate America is paying its executives outlandishly and its workers poorly – and that if we just banded together, we could do something about that. 

But we don’t.

We know that the global environment needs our stewardship:  that it’s crucial we find renewable power and resources, and organize our cities around sustainable growth policies.  And if we just banded together, we could make that happen.

But we don’t.

Time after time, cause after cause, getting people to devote their time to causes that benefit them in the long run seems next to impossible. 

Why is that?  Why don’t we come together for the common good?  After all, we want a sustainable environment … we want a healthier economy.  So what’s stopping us?

An often overlooked classic of economics holds the answer.  It’s because we’re rational.

The King of Reinvention

Say goodbye to the quirky King mascot, the subservient chicken, and any other flash-in-the-pan character conjured up by Burger King's former advertising firm.

Earlier this month, the fast food giant bid a permanent adieu to its days of wacky characters and advertising gimmicks aimed at young men with an appetite for fast food. Under new management, Burger King also bid farewell to the $1 value menu and will introduce new items that appeal to a broader audience... well, a broader audience once again, that is.

Burger King's no stranger to image make-overs.

In fact, that's part of its organizational culture—a culture based on reinvention.

After researching the Burger King Corporation this spring to write an 18-page analysis on its ability to implement and sustain system-wide change initiatives, I came to the conclusion that the only thing consistent about the Burger King Corporation is its inconsistency—a trait that dates back to the company’s humble beginnings in Miami, Florida, 56 years ago. It's a trait the company never really wanted but inadvertently developed through a persistent urge to grow and beat out its rivals in the fast-food industry.

At Burger King, reinvention has become a survival function of sorts stemming from years of battling fierce competition quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year.

During the past four decades, Burger King's exceedingly high turnover rate has seen countless corporate executives and CEOs breeze through the company quicker than ordering at a Burger King drive-thru. The company has also cut ties with many high-powered advertising firms within short spans of time, generating a series of ad campaigns that have been purposely powered off like a franchise at closing time.

Based on my research, I found that the Burger King Corporation is caught in a vicious cycle of change that not only fails to solidify the company’s image, but also fails to yield sustainable, long-term growth.

Story “Pull”: Do you have any?

I had a speaking engagement on the West Coast last week. The topic was Threshold Story™—a method of storytelling used to engender trust and demonstrate value when a business service provider meets a new prospect, team member, or returning client. 

The professionals attending my lecture were a bit guarded. They'd never met me before and probably didn't feel the need to be authentic, or "real," in my presence. Their personalities reflected an adapted “self” or “work self”—a version of the true self that gets masked by role expectation.

Why do we act this way? I wondered. Is there any “room” for self at work?