Understanding what kind of problem you are facing

Most organisational failures are not failures of effort or intent.

They are failures of interpretation.

A simple issue is treated as complex.
A complex challenge is approached as if it can be engineered.

👉 The result is predictable:

• over-analysis where action is needed
• rigid plans where learning is required
• control where participation is essential

🧠 Complexity is not a problem to solve

In stable conditions, cause and effect are clear.
We can analyse, plan, and optimise.

But most real challenges do not behave this way.

They involve:

• uncertainty about what will work
• disagreement about what matters
• changing conditions as action unfolds

👉 In these situations, the future is not predictable—only recognisable in hindsight

🧭 A simple orientation

Snowden (Snowden & Boone, 2007) provides a  useful way to think about this is:

• Ordered situations → clear answers, repeatable solutions
• Complicated situations → expertise required, but still analysable
• Complex situations → outcomes emerge through interaction
• Chaotic situations → no stable patterns, immediate action required

👉 The challenge is not choosing the “right answer”
👉 It is recognising which situation you are in

🔥 The shift in leadership

In complexity:

• plans don’t play out the way we expect
• the “answer” isn’t sitting in a system somewhere
• tighter control doesn’t make things clearer

Instead:

• what happens depends on how people actually talk and work together
• meaning is worked out as things unfold
• direction emerges through interaction, not upfront design

👉 Leadership shifts from control to participation

⚖️ The paradox

Complexity introduces a permanent tension:

• need for direction and openness to change
• need for control and acceptance of uncertainty
• need for structure and space for emergence

This paradox cannot be resolved.

👉 It must be held and worked with, not eliminated

🎯 Practical insight

Managing complexity is not about better planning.

It is about:

• recognising when plans no longer apply
• creating conditions for learning and adaptation
• allowing multiple perspectives to interact
• using safe-to-fail experiments instead of fixed solutions

👉 In complexity, progress comes from interaction, not instruction

🧭 In the Source Notes

Explore the deeper perspectives:

Framing and Sensemaking

• Systems Thinking and Complexity
• Cynefin and decision context

Relational Dynamics

• The organisation as conversation
• Social field (Ba) and interaction patterns

Learning in Complexity

• SECI as a learning system
• Tacit knowledge and emergence

Leadership and Adaptation

• Complexity leadership and adaptive space
• Paradox and participation

👉 Complexity is not something to be solved.
It is a condition to be recognised and navigated.

➰To return to the Executive Pathway

📝 To understand more, see:

• Framing Traps in Complex Environments
• 🌪 At the Edge of Chaos: Rediscovering Ralph Stacey and the Impossibility of Managing Knowledge

🔗This source note is also relevant to:

• Ethics → Pattern Diagnosis — What’s Going Wrong
• Sensemaking → Complexity

Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A leader’s framework for decision making. Harvard business review, 85(11), 68.