Collaborating on Complexity
This last Friday, my colleague and friend Ken Banister and I recorded a video discussion where we talked about complexity and collaboration (yes, this is a heads-up to stay tuned for the video release). We only just touched on each of these areas, but what was clear from our conversation was that collaboration is the way to address complex challenges.
Ken described the nature of a complex issue by contrasting with simple, complicated, and chaotic issues. A complex issue has unknown and unpredictable elements; wildcards that require some investigation or experimentation in order to discover the best way to proceed. In other words, some part of the system is not known, and it has to be discovered. This wildcard attribute is what makes complex different from complicated, where there may be many moving parts, but they are all understood and known, and simple issues, which is really a straightforward cause and effect. Of course, chaotic systems don’t have cause and effect and are entirely unpredictable.
So why does collaboration suit complex issues?
Many perspectives needed to understand the problem
In the western view of the world, we default to breaking a problem down into parts to make them easier to manage. We teach specializations and create specialists who are experts is a particular part of a problem. We create careers and roles defined by a part of an issue. We build organizations that focus on specific mandates or needs. But then we encounter a complex problem that disrespects our specializations and requires us to work as a collective.
We’ve all heard the adage that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Our specialist approach to things means we see a problem through our own particular lens and work to solve it from that perspective. In reality, we need many perspectives to understand a complex problem, because we each only bring a narrow part of the overall picture.
Many perspectives to solve the problem
Once we begin to understand the scope of the problem, it becomes apparent that the problem and its solution is bigger than one person or one organization. That’s the nature of complex problems. To define the problem, we need to draw on the individual perspectives and knit them together. To solve that problem, we draw on the collective experience, knowledge, and wisdom to create a solution that is unique to the problem. To add complexity to the complexity, we often don’t know what expertise is exactly required, which makes the bit about picking the right collaborators somewhat of a challenge.
Creativity is critical
A big part of what defines a complex problem is the unknown nature of some, or even all, of its pieces. Which means that we’re going to have to try something new to solve the problem. It’s an experiment.
The Creative dynamic is the third of the three Collaboration Dynamics, and it is why collaboration is critical to solving complex problems. We aren’t just casting around amongst a group of people looking for someone who has the answer. Rather we might be combining ideas and parts of ideas from many people in new and unique ways. Seems tailor-fit to solving complex problems.
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Collaboration isn’t a simple or even a complicated process. It is complex in and of itself. Each of the three dynamics, Purpose, People, and Creativity is, well, dynamic. So, navigating the collaborative process in itself is complex. It takes complexity to tackle complexity.
Thanks to Ken Banister of The Complexity Project for the conversation. Stay tuned for the video of our conversation.
Happy collaborating.
Scott Millar, through Collaboration Dynamics, often works as a "peacemaker" by gathering people with different experiences and values and helping them navigate beyond their differences to tackle complex problems together. As the host of the Cool Collaborations podcast where he explores fun stories and insights of successful collaboration with guests from around the world, and then dives into what made them work. Cool Collaborations is currently available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.
