Saturday, August 02, 2014

My Recent Encounter With Complexity Worship

Call me simplistic if you have to, but I always was of the opinion that if someone really understands what they are talking about, they should be able to express it in ways that others can easily understand. I distrust people who make it a practice to speak in convoluted or technical language in order to make it a barrier to understanding.

When someone asks a fairly simple straightforward question that requires a fairly simple straightforward answer, and instead what comes back is something extremely convoluted or impossibly technical and purposefully theory-laden, you have to wonder if at root is the post-modernist technique of "bullshit baffles brains." This appears to be a popular defensive methodology used by some people as a cover-up to protect themselves against the discovery by others that they really don't know what they are talking about. It often is a companion for those who resort to argumentum ad hominem as a normal part of argumentation, often under the guise of demonstrating how witty, charming and urbane they really are. 

Recently on an online forum I asked a very simple question to an accomplished expert in his field, who, for whatever reason, chose to participate in a discussion but was unable to provide a clear and articulate answer to any of the questions he was asked, even when asked multiple times.

As part of the discussion, this expert indicated that he provided a training course for corporate executives in the area of managing complexity and indicated that it is linked with decision-making and organization design. 

Here's the question I asked, which begins with me quoting the expert to whom I'm addressing:
You wrote: "What CAS [complex adaptive systems] indicates (in my view) is the need for different organisation forms to handle complex and chaotic environments. That includes things like human sensor networks (or whole or workforce engagement), the use of Crews, self-organising cross silo teams etc. etc. " 

Can you tell us something about the types of people you recommend companies assign to these teams or networks? Are they a cross section from front-line to executive? Are they usually VPs or executives with considerable tenure and work experience? Are they chosen randomly?
I didn't think this was a difficult question. It amounts to: how do you select which employees you will ask to participate in “human sensor networks” or as “crews”?

Surely some people are going to be better suited than others? Or maybe not. Maybe the person with the responsibility for selecting respondents can just select randomly. I just assume that there are likely to be established or emergent criteria pointing to some personal characteristics that prove beneficial to the manager accountable for generating a solution being sought for which the "network" or "crew" is being established.

Here is the answer I received:
Barry, I promised you a response to you question on Crews and Human Sensor Networks. You specially asked "the types of people you recommend companies assign to these teams or networks? Are they a cross section from front-line to executive? Are they usually VPs or executives with considerable tenure and work experience? Are they chosen randomly?". 

The way a crew works is that people are trained in role and role expectation and entry into the role is normally highly ritualised. We know that the impact of ritual is to change the cognitive activation pattern on the brain and this for a period the identity of the participant. In military and emergency response environments the approach allows people from all levels to participate and interesting allows delegation of authority without loss of status. This, along with modern insights on brain plasticity is one reason why I and others challenge any framework based on progressive or hierarchical concepts. 

A human sensor network is whole of employee of citizen ship engagement in problem solving using technology to remove barriers of time and space. The goal is to support decision making and understanding. 

Both of these approaches rely on changing the connections between individuals not on individual capability (although that does come in to some extent). That difference is one of the key switches those of us approach organisations from a natural science perspective are taking. It means that we do criticise ideas of progressive capability to handle complexity (for example).... 

So I am not sure I can answer you question in such a way as to fit into the paradigm that its formulation implies, but I hope this has been useful.
Sheesh! I didn't think my question was that difficult! And more importantly, it wasn't answered. Rather, an answer was avoided. Imagine how difficult it must be to select members of a crew! 

In all fairness, I have no idea what a "crew" or a "human sensor network" is, even though the author thinks one was provided ("whole of employee or citizenship engagement in problem solving using technology to remove barriers of time and space"), so maybe my question really doesn't make any sense...er...”fit into the paradigm that its formulation implies.”

Actually, I think a “human sensor network” is akin to crowd-sourcing – aggregating information from individuals via electronic means – but saying that wouldn’t be appropriately opaque.

(I am reminded of an incident I observed when I was in grade eight, when a pretentious six-foot-plus science teacher brought two boys into the office, holding on to them by the collars of their winter jackets, and announced loudly for all to hear that "these two boys were caught catapulting ballistics in front of the school." The office staff had no idea what he was talking about, so he had to explain that he had caught them throwing snowballs.)

Anyway, I'm skeptical that the answer provided to me is a real answer. Perhaps I'm being played with in the manner that Alan Sokal scammed the journal Social Text with his parody of postmodern criticism of science! If the explanation provide to me is for real and an example of quality of training business leaders are receiving to manage complex business problems, I hope these managers are able to put this stuff to good use in creating value for customers and shareholders. Hopefully a positive ROI from investment in this training is just one of the many positive outcomes that will be derived through the removal of the barriers of time and space.

There are many other examples of this kind of thing - of highly educated technocrats creating proprietary terminology to stand for improperly or undefined concepts. Often these constructs are so abstract and impenetrable as to be rendered useless as valid tools of cognition in helping us understand and organize information and knowledge for human use.

A convoluted theory that was recently brought to my attention as being meaningful and helpful in gaining deeper insights into organizational design is an idea called “panarchy.”

Here’s how the usefulness of panarchy was explained to me:
Panarchy theory is useful to make object transitional patterning and discern this from transformation, translation, transmission and composition patterns. Seeing resilience and robustness as counterparts contributes to agility, and helps prevent category errors.
The person who posed panarchy as useful asked me what I thought of it. Here’s an edited version of my reply:
Concepts have to stand for something that exists. They serve as a way for humans to condense and process information. When concepts don't correspond to anything in reality, they are floating abstractions and therefore invalid concepts. When it comes to language, I don't subscribe to making things more difficult and abstract than they need to be, which is what appears to be happening here. 
For example, if you say, "It is useful to point to systems in a way that is relevant to a group and meaningful to those who are part of it," I can understand what that means. But when words that stand for concepts are inserted with undefined meaning, and those words only seem to be used to create a lack of clarity, then understanding is completely lost and nobody knows what is being talked about.
That may not be what is happening here, but I have no idea what it means when someone says to me: It is useful to use translation to direct composition to a group through transmission. If, to be understood, they have to say, "well, what I mean is that it is useful to point to systems in a way that is relevant to a group and meaningful to those who are part of the system," then why not just say that in the first place? And do those two sentences really mean the same thing? Nobody knows. 
The first explanation provides no meaning. There may be specialized meaning to these concepts, but unless the person you are having a conversation with knows what they are, the words you utter are just sounds, and no communication is taking place. 
I prefer simpler language that people can understand. I know technical language is sometimes needed to condense information into higher-level concepts, but for people to understand it, they have to understand all the links back to something that they can relate to -- to real objects. 
You indicate that these abstract concepts are non-objects. I'm not sure that one can work with non-objects, as you propose, even conceptually. All valid concepts are a condensation of knowledge about things that exist and can be validated by the evidence of our senses. 
Don't get get me wrong. I'm not saying whether or not "panarchy theory" is valid or invalid. I'm just saying in general that it appears to be making things more complicated by introducing specialized language that IMO makes things less clear rather than more clear, at least as you've tried to explain it. I'm not a systems theorist, so I'm in no position to pass judgment on the validity of Panarchy Theory and whether it is epistemologically sound.  

I challenge anyone with too much time on their hands to make sense of this explanation to which I was referred, and then explain in regular language how it provides practical help in contributing to or achieving any human goal, particularly one related to business organizations.

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