- Complex Systems Change Starts with Those Who Use the Systems
- Influencing Complex Systems Change
- Complex Systems Break
There are two problems with the Title Question: How and Exactly.
We automatically use machine model beliefs and operational planning to build and implement change. Such an approach is largely inadequate for a CAS.
Any CAS has mechanical aspects and we can delude ourselves into thinking that because we can change the mechanical aspects with operational planning, that we should be able to change the whole Kit and Kaboodle that way (as in, for example, “you can only change what you can measure”, and similar sophistry).
It ain’t so.
As the slide image suggests, changing a CAS is more like wrangling (cats, say) than standard measurable outcomes based operational planning would have us believe.
If our old standard tools and operating assumptions don’t give us the control we seek, what will?
Well, the bad news is that nothing will give us that amount or scope of control over a CAS. The good news, as unlikely as it might seem, is that we can change the way we approach CAS and be effective.
A CAS is a “dispositional system”, not a mechanical one. A CAS tends to move in directions, but because of the interaction of its parts, there are no guarantees about where it will end up.
Changing a CAS is like approaching a cobra to take close up photos. You can get those photos, but you need to be circumspect to avoid getting bit.
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