More adaptable complex systems and less fixed hierarchies
An insight from management history and the emergence of business agility
I can’t get my head around a topic until I explore and understand where it comes from, and why it exists. So when I stumbled upon “agile” I did find plenty of resources about its definition, but I still didn’t get it. A couple of google searches will tell you that a bunch of smart and frustrated developers got together and came up with a few guidelines to help them achieve results through collaboration. How did these guidelines (aka agile manifesto) happen to get so popular and become an industry on its own?
I decided to dig deeper and find out what is behind these guidelines. What theories, frameworks, and ideas support them. Luckily for me a lot of people already did this homework, so I’m just sharing their findings here.
A very useful source comes from this dutch guy, Jurgen Appelo, in his book Management 3.0 he explains the transition from “traditional” or “fixed” management theories to a more “fluid” and “agile” way of helping people work together. His concept in a nutshell goes like this:
First there was Management 1.0, focused on hierarchies and structure
Through time and with changes in society, politics, technology, and the economy; the flaws of a purely command and control mindset became apparent. Interesting management theories appeared where they identify people as the “most valuable asset”, and recognize that if an organisation is to succeed, the organisation’s goals need to align with those of its’ people. Some examples: Organisational Development, Hierarchy of Needs, Performance Technology, BPM, etc.
Despite having good understanding that optimising the systems around people is better than trying to control the people themselves, the status quo remains largely unchallenged and organisations still prefer to stick to hierarchies and concentrate decisions at the top. I’d like to think of this as somewhat similar to the enlightened absolutism from the 18th and 19th centuries, where absolute monarchs know they have to exercise power for the benefit of the people, yet still they cannot imagine a world where people are able to exercise power for themselves.
An all-too-common example of this mindset could be when some managers use on-on-ones for individual goal and task setting and then follow up for status updates, reinforcing the superior-subordinate relationship so typical of command-and-control management.
Another example is when managers see the organisation as a hierarchy and use performance management metrics to optimise every part of the system (for example setting KPIs for every function), ignoring that in complex systems performance is found on the interactions between the parts and not on the part themselves. A questionable consequence of this form of management is that people at the top of the hierarchy end up knowing more about the employees than what employees are allowed to know about each other.
And then we have the latest version: Management 3.0, focused on complexity and networks
Note that latest doesn’t always mean better, and that latest today will inevitably be out-of-date tomorrow.
Stephen Hawking thought it was important to call the 21st century the “century of complexity.” A few basics:
- All organisations are networks — People may draw their organisations as hierarchies but doesn’t change the fact that they are networks.
- Social complexity shows us that management is primarily about people and their relationships, not about departments, KPIs, and profits.
Complexity thinking makes us realise that we should see our organisations as living systems, not as machines.
You may be wondering, “But what does agility has to do with this?”.
Everything! Now, remember the top-down type of management where power is concentrated at the top? Companies believe in this type of systems because it works, (as long as the landscape is somewhat stable and predictable). But it does not mean it is the best way to do it. And it definitely does not work in chaotic and unpredictable environments (like our current world, maybe?)
A command and control mindset is the biggest obstacle to the adoption of agility.
Why? Because we -humans- tend to look linearly. Let me explain.
Causal determinism explains that future events occur because of past and present events combined with the laws of nature. In other words: cause and effect, as in, everything happens because of something else.
There is a core very risky assumption with this model:
If we see the world only through the causal determinism lens, it would make sense to think that we can predict future events by analysing past data. Thing is, we humans also tend to ignore information that doesn’t match our pre-conceived mental models, this affects the way we predict the future.
But why? Because it’s easier. People want to be in control of the situation.
What does this all mean? Causality (data) makes managers to re-do past actions to produce the desired outcomes through careful upfront design and top-down planning. This means that the bigger the organisation, the harder it is to modify the entire system to achieve goals.
Does this mean that root-cause analysis has no value? Of course it has value and most of the time it works. Looking backwards, finding errors and fixing them in order to assure desired future outcomes is okay. Unfortunately, as we approach to an everyday more complex world, it won’t necessary help you predict what will go wrong in the future.
To understand complex problems, we need to look at the big picture. Many effects in complex systems have multiple causes and even circular relationships between causes and effects. It means that a linear root-cause analysis won’t necessary capture the complexity of the problem.
It is imperative to understand that linear thinking is not the only solution. There is no unique theory or system able to solve it and, at the same time, all of them are useful. That is where the concept of business agility comes to light, and why is so important. I’ll do my best to explain the principles of business agility on the next blog entry.
Originally published at bizia.one, a blog about agility, innovation, team collaboration and all things to do with the beautiful mess of transforming an idea into reality.
