Control Less, Influence More

Complicated versus complex

We are skilled in tackling complicated problems; in fact, we spend years learning how to do this at school and in work. But many challenges we face are complex and call for a subtle approach.

Build a Lego spaceship? That’s complicated. Have your son play nicely with his fellow pupils – that’s complex. To implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system across 30 offices is complicated; having colleagues provide good service is complex.

We can manage complicated challenges

With knowledge and time we can all build a Lego toy or develop a new tech platform. In either case, it is fairly easy to describe a concrete outcome; the task can then be broken into clear elements.

Lego bricks and software routines perform and interact with each other in predictable ways; they can be dealt with in a systematic manner through instructions or plans. Known methods bring about the result we want.

You can teach, or tell, others how to solve a complicated problem.

With people, situations become complex

Whenever people are involved – such as when you want your child to relate better to others or your colleagues to serve customers in new ways – complicated problems usually become complex questions.

Here, it’s impossible to set out a readily defined outcome, because what is best emerges from a fluid situation; no steps guarantee success. Technical or management expertise does not offer an unambiguous way forward.

People move and interact, so ungovernable factors lie between a good idea and its realisation in practice. Knock-on effects are hard to predict: we have no way of knowing how a child or adult will respond to moods or novel situations.

Lego bricks do not become anxious when moved; computer code does not resist being edited. Coloured plastic is not unseated by ill-health or poor work-life balance. No whim forces gravity or electricity to act in unforeseen ways.

Lesson in humility

We enjoy using our hard-won knowledge and often hold a bias to see the world as complicated, that is, as manageable. But with complex questions – education, knowledge, plans, and process take us only so far.

Experience may give false confidence that we can control the things or people around us, that we can ‘solve the problem’. Look more closely and complexity teaches us a lesson about the limits of our control, at work and beyond.

We cannot teach or tell someone how to answer a given complex question. (Of course, many managers and those in our personal lives may try to do so – but this usually leads to strife and wasted effort.)