Complexity Fatigue
Rethinking Language to Reshape How You Work
For how long will hearing that things are increasingly complex be helpful?
What about, volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity?
Yes, I am bringing up the VUCA world.
I first heard of VUCA sometime in the early 2010s and associate it with a strategic design firm in Toronto from Rotman professor Heather Fraser called VUKA Works. A play on the acronym, but it’s what’s anchored in my mind.
A quick ping to my friend Claude and Wikipedia, and the term seems to first be coined in the late 80s at the US Army War College.
With my opening question - for how long will this be helpful - I am suggesting that at some point we need to move beyond terminology of the zeitgeist to allow us to move forward.
For example, I’ve always had a philosophical stinky-fish with the phrase “things are only going to continue to get faster and faster from here on out” when describing change. Even though I am comfortable with continually saying “time flies” with friends and colleagues, are things actually faster!?
I have observed the VUCA world for almost 15 years now. Perhaps because of my undergrad focus in geopolitics, I have a different comfort or threshold to complexity and volatility than someone else - at least from a knowledge/understanding standpoint - performing consistently in these contexts can be quite challenging.
Are the VUCA things a steady state observation or are they dynamic - either becoming more or less so?
A good chunk of my career has been focused on helping businesses, leaders and teams experience work through this context.
I am pretty sure if I dig up some old documents or programs designs I’d find things like
“Empowering Next Generation Leadership to Navigate the Complexity and Uncertainty of Our Time”
Ugh.
A bit cringy! But perhaps valuable in the moment.
I’ve begun noticing shifts in language - whether from say Palantir’s Alex Karp or Rostra’s Lulu Meservey with their emphasis on going direct and their narrative driven approaches. And on the other end clients being laser focused on what it is they are trying to achieve or need specific help with - say profitability or retention.
There’s less space for the loosey goosey and the verbose at the moment.
One way to think of it is perhaps we are in late stage VUCA where it’s now the context, not something special or unique that needs to be managed, navigated, explored or supported. Or that has just arrived out of left field.
Perhaps business and leaders seek operators and excellence.
As such, I don’t think it’s valid to use VUCA as an excuse anymore or to justify why last quarter was bad or the one ahead isn’t looking great. Is VUCA the problem in your organization? Or is it not having the right story and mission? Is it being too slow on big decisions and tentative to act overall? Or are processes keeping people from producing what they are best at? Just some things to consider.
I believe language shapes outcomes.
And continuously hearing about how fast, how complex, how uncertain, how volatile, how ambiguous everything is and only continuing to get even more so is not helpful.
I propose a reframing.
How great is it that...
we get to act with speed and learn from the feedback of our actions real time?
we are able to consider and incorporate diverse perspectives in to our decision making?
we can see changes in markets or geopolitical contexts as opportunities for new ventures.
we can bring together this group of great people on a shared mission and not have to go it alone.
etc.
Part of the challenge in the reframing is that whether we like it or not, optimism doesn’t sell the way fear does and I think that VUCA while has legitimate grounds to do so, is often used to instil fear than it is to thrive.
Two things to explore further! This incredible passage from Bjarke Ingels on how they work with complexity in the architectural practice that is BIG.
Rick Rubin: Do the best solutions tend to be simple?
Bjarke Ingels: Actually, I would say what we strive towards is actually complexity, but complexity not as complication, but in computer code they have a beautiful definition of complexity that I subscribe to, which is complexity is the capacity to transmit the maximum amount of information with a minimum amount of data. The equivalent in poetry would be to extra, to transmit the maximum amount of expression or meaning with a minimum amount of words in music, the maximum amount of feeling with a minimum amount of keystrokes, And, I think in architecture, the maximum amount of experience with the minimum amount of moves.
Bjarke Ingels: So in that sense, You can say that definition of complexity is not one of reduction, but it's almost, you try to maximize how much You can say with how few words, how much You can enable with how few bricks. Complexity is a higher form of simplicity, one where the simplicity actually does as much as possible. It's almost like condensing impact into an economy of means. Mm. It's also funny, like I, I, I like to remind people that the, both the word ecology and economy come from the Greek word orcas, ancient Greek, which means house because economy is the management of the household.
Bjarke Ingels: Ecology is the study of where you live. So in that sense, this idea of economy of means that you choose your means wisely to maximize the possibility for the unfolding of human life with just the amount of, of effort necessary to, to make that that happen.
And also this pod from Morgan Housel on “why pessimism sounds so smart” also has shaped perspective the last month.
Enjoy!
If you are still reading, a small nudge that I am still working independently and would like to collaborate on some new projects with new clients.
Please think of me as opportunities come across your feeds and conversations.
All the best as the year closes down.
Jamie
Coincidentally, last week by chance I ended up at the Danish Refugee Museum - FLUGT - in Jutland designed by BIG. Photo below.
