Learning Complexity -- Leadership Series - 1

Reblogged from rgbwaves:

Here is one of many toys I use in my classes on Leadership in Complexity to demonstrate complexity through play. It is a simple and common toy - a double pendulum. It is interesting to see how interactions between few elements really produce complexity. So, the question that I ask at the beginning of a session - 'Can we predict what is going to happen?

Read more… 474 more words

That is really fascinating. It gives us tremendous hope to embrace complexity with faith. There is no point in ignoring complexity since we are entangled with it every moment of our lives. But once we embrace it knowing fully well how to read, learn and go about it — life is simple indeed. The objective of learning about complexity and applying its principles is to make life simpler; not more complex.

Leading in the Space Between Talent and Complexity

Surely “managing complexity” is what we want our talent to do? Isn’t that what they’re good at? Yea, they’re good at managing complexity because it’s usually a complexity of their own making!  Don’t get me wrong, complexity happens no matter what you do, but you can’t let it emerge organically from the collective fumblings of your company’s knuckleheads.

Leading in the Space Between Talent and Complexity.

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Decoding Complexity [video]: The Organizing Principles Behind our Economy

More ‘inconvenient truths’ for the financial sector to attempt to sweep under the proverbial carpet!

But hiding the truth changes nothing and the problem will only get worse. It may be easy to ignore the facts when they fit under the carpet but NOT when they take on the scale of an elephant in the room!

It sounds paradoxical, but today it appears that we understand more about the universe than our society. We have created systems that have outgrown our capacity to genuinely understand and control them. Just think about the ongoing financial crisis. But recent advancements in the study of complex systems are able to offer new insights into the workings of many real-world systems.

While our traditional ways of thinking and problem solving have been strongly shaped by the success of the reductionist approach taken in science, the new science of complexity focuses on interconnection and co-dependence. It is a paradigmatic shift away from analysing the nature of “things” to uncovering and understanding the network of interdependence lying behind and influencing the “things” themselves.

As a prominent example, the first global economic network analysis is discussed, offering a new perspective on some relevant issues. For instance, how unequal and unstable is our economy really? And is this the result of a few puppet masters orchestrating the developments behind the scenes?

via TEDxZurich: Who Controls The World « OlsenBlog

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Europe, the Eurozone Crisis, Complexity and Systemantics

The laws of systemantics are said to be pseudo-science. Fair enough. A few of these laws are listed below. They apply to highly complex systems. Think of these laws and then think of the EU and of the Euro.

• Le Chatelier’s Principle: Complex systems tend to oppose their own proper function. As systems grow in complexity, they tend to oppose their stated function.
• A complex system cannot be “made” to work. It either works or it doesn’t.
• A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
• A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.
• The Functional Indeterminacy Theorem (F.I.T.): In complex systems, malfunction and even total non-function may not be detectable for long periods, if ever.
• The Fundamental Failure-Mode Theorem (F.F.T.): Complex systems usually operate in failure mode.
• A complex system can fail in an infinite number of ways.
• The larger the system, the greater the probability of unexpected failure.
• As systems grow in size, they tend to lose basic functions.
• Colossal systems foster colossal errors.

via Ontonix – Complex Systems Management, Business Risk Management.

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Dogbert does Financial Planning:: applying myth or math?

Regulators want big, complex banks to hold larger buffers of capital to protect the financial system.

Big banks argue this is unnecessary because risk is diversified across their larger balance sheets.

Who is right? Natural sciences – especially epidemiology, ecology and genetics – provide clues…

 Complex systems: The FLAW of large numbers.

A “law of large numbers” is one of several theorems expressing the idea that as the number of trials of a random process increases, the percentage difference between the expected and actual values goes to zero.

If you REALLY want to get a deeper understanding of probability – and why it is wrong to assume too much from independent events (e.g. the roll of a dice) and apply that knowledge to the real world of inter-connected, non-linear systems – PLEASE check out the “Physics Envy…” presentation by Andrew Lo (link below).

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