In our last post we applied complexity thinking to problems haunting the NHS. This week we are coming back to our toolkit. In our third Complexity Cheat we will discuss the power of effective communication and how we can use collaborative thinking to more successfully address complex challenges. Effective communication is a topic that has…Continue Reading “Complexity Cheat #03: Engage Your Team’s Mental Processing Power Through Communication”

Maybe you think complexity is just an academic concept, nothing to do with your daily life. What happened the last time you rang your doctor’s surgery for an appointment? Got through first time? Were you seen the same day? If so, lucky you. Many others have quite different experiences (sometimes I feel I should camp…Continue Reading “What is the Impact of Thinking at the Wrong Level? An NHS Case Study”

Stepping Up: How Work Complexity Expands By Organizational Level

Just recently a friend who is familiar with our work on helping companies to better cope with complex challenges remarked jokingly: ‘Lucky you, being a complexity specialist allows you to get all your kids to all the right places roughly at the right time!’ ‘Well’, I equally jokingly replied,’ that’s just operational complexity. You should…Continue Reading “Stepping Up: How Work Complexity Expands By Organizational Level”

Systemic Complexity in Business: More Than the Sum of the Parts

For years the dominant view of organizations has been mechanistic; a company should run like a clockwork, the cogs just needed to be aligned to fit, run smoothly and with least possible friction. Anyone who has dared enter the murky waters of organizational behaviour will agree though that this is a gross over-simplification of a…Continue Reading “Systemic Complexity in Business: More Than the Sum of the Parts”