Complexity, Organizations and Change

Citation

Vallaster, C. (2005), "Complexity, Organizations and Change", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 415-417. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730510607916

Chaos, complexity, change … the world is fast‐flowing and highly uncertain. How can business organizations and other institutions survive in ambiguous times? How can modern approaches in science help to provide a more realistic picture of managerial practice? These are the subjects of the present book.

The book is designed to focus on a set of critical issues such as developing a holistic perspective of the events and approaches happening in the world, understanding the shortcomings of traditional organization theories, and focusing on human dynamics and their impact on organizational change and renewal. The author also presents in‐depth views of a case study that looks at how change took place in complex organizational and environmental conditions. The goal of the book is to help the reader think differently about the linear relationships between cause and effect, about patterns, flows and processes of management. I firmly believe that most readers will walk away with a significantly better understanding of these issues.

In Chapter 1, Introducing Complexity, the author sets the stage for the rest of the book by outlining the historical development of chaos and complexity science, as well as, its main themes. McMillan states that the modern perspective in science is “… concerned with understanding the complexities, paradoxes and difficulties encountered in the real world. This is the world of dynamic complex systems that behave spontaneously and unpredictably. This is the world of human systems too” (p. 34).

Chapter 2, Organizations and the Long Shadow of Scientific Tradition, presents itself as a historical road map by which to navigate through the development of modern organizations and organization theory. The way the focus in selecting the illustrated paradigms is laid is reflected by the author's experience as a training and development specialist. Although a range of new ideas on how to design, develop and run modern organizations such as the learning approach have emerged since the 1970s, the author doubts that the shift in thinking has been radical enough to distance itself from the constructs of the logical, rational world of classical science. The reader is provided with useful indications that both theoretical approaches and managerial reality are in fact still strongly influenced by the Newtonian‐Cartesian mindset.

Chapter 3, Plus ça Change … the more it stays the same, is a more detailed description of contemporary change theorems and their underlying assumptions. After pointing to differences in types and degrees of change, the author reviews some of work of strategic change management and critically looks at efforts that seek for universal prescriptions.

Using this as a departure point for discussion, the next chapter, Transforming Organizations using Complexity, McMillan integrates the conceptual constructs of complexity science and adapts it to look at changes within organizations. As such, the ideas which result from complexity science are not necessarily new and may be summarised with only a few keywords, including transparency, trust, self‐responsibility, and self‐management. However, the amalgamation with management theories is of a provocative nature and surely is difficult for any rational and cogent thinker to accept.

Chapter 6, Changing the Open University – a case study, provides insights of a real application by describing some of the challenges this institution faced in the implementation of this change approach. The case describes in detail the contextual conditions, how people learned, overcame barriers and anxieties, and how teams energized for changes.

Particularly helpful in enhancing an in‐depth understanding of the complexity approach during change management is Chapter 7, Complexity in Action. It helps make concrete the often difficult to grasp notions of change management such as fractals, shadow systems, or emergence. McMillan maps out the pieces of the complexity puzzle and puts them together by providing a framework for participative strategic change.

The ultimate Chapter, Future Possibilities, Future Choices, is a compilation of guidelines for practitioners, and research areas that open up if considering learning central to change processes, and communications and interconnectedness as the structure of an organization. At this point, some more explicit links to useful research methods and techniques that are able to capture the non‐linear and free‐flowing forms of processes would have been helpful.

The book offers convincing and cogent arguments regarding the nature of complexity science and its centrality in day‐to‐day human behaviour. Although there is some slight overlap and repetition among the chapters, each chapter provides a separate piece of the complexity science and change discussion. The book comes across as a challenging, almost “cheeky” textbook intended to encourage and inspire readers to seek out and develop a different approach to change in the workplace.

I recommend this book to graduate students in business interested in the broader scope of their discipline and in developing ideas for research and practice, and managers interested in change management. Practitioners may find in it an interesting portrayal of practices different to what their usual working setting may be like. Although they may initially react with “This does not work in our company”, some maybe able to find stimulating approaches that are well worth to be considered.