Tag: Managing Complexity

It’s too complex!
by G. Koch

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 5th Global Peter Drucker Forum

I can’t remember any conference which I attended in the last few years where at least in one major speech the subject of complexity was not prominently addressed. There is no longer any discussion on the future of society, economy, finances, education or science in which the contributors do not admit that the interrelationships and dependencies have developed towards a size, a level of opacity and multi-dimensionality which can only be characterized as complex – not just complicated. Being complicated is not being complex; it means that a certain effort is needed to solve a problem, but it is manageable anyway. Not so a complex problem.   Everybody knows what complexity is because everybody has […]

Why Managers Haven’t Embraced Complexity

Posted on rstraubLeave a commentPosted in 5th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Nobody would deny that the world has become more complex during the past decades. With digitization, the interconnectivity between people and things has jumped by leaps and bounds. Dense networks now define the technical, social, and economic landscape.   I remember well when the idea of applying complexity science to management was first being eagerly discussed in the 1990s. By then, for example, scholars at the University of St. Gallen had developed a management model based on systems thinking. Popular literature propagated the ideas of complexity theory – in particular, the notion of the “butterfly effect” by which a small event in a remote part of the world (like the flap of a butterfly’s wings) […]

Managing Complexity – Invitation to join the Conversation

Posted on rstraub4 CommentsPosted in 5th Global Peter Drucker Forum

“We are at the beginning of a period of extreme flux, of extreme change and great competitive pressure in which traditional ways of doing things, traditional products, traditional processes will be challenged on all sides.”   When Peter Drucker uttered these words to a group of IBM executives, new complexities were tripping up the world. It was 1955.   In the more than half a century since, of course, the level of complexity has only increased across all of our institutions – political, economic and social. Indeed, as we move further into the 21st century, the complexity curve seems to be growing exponentially. The notion of achieving neatly laid-out objectives through systematic planning has become […]

Democracy full circle: its invention may hold the key to its future
by Liviu Nedelescu

Posted on guest2 CommentsPosted in 5th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Over two and a half millennia ago, Greek philosophers gave us the “dialectical” method of constructive argument. In the 21st century democracy is faced with significant challenges, and moving forward may require searching for solutions from the wisdom of democracy’s inventors.   The dialectic method is a form of reasoning based on dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (anti-theses). The dialectical method of dialogue is unique and different from rhetoric and debate in that it aims to converge the opposite points of view and form a new and superior point of view from the synthesis of the initial arguments. This transcendence is possible by searching for commonalities between the two opposing points of view when considered […]