The Single Biggest Mistake that orgs, communities, and politicians make, is in treating the truly complex AS IF it were obvious or technical.
Photo: Options. By Alice Merkel. On Flickr.
The Pervasive Presumption and the Single Biggest Mistake Organizations Can Make by Bruce Waltuck
That is ONLY applicable in systems, or, situations where the problem is simple, and the solution is clear and obvious to every observer. These are systems where the boundaries and constraints are such, that the systems responds the same way to the same action (the "best practice") each time.
Complicated technical systems or situations, where experts give us a small range of viable options, are the domain of "good practice." We can be reasonably sure that what we do will get the result we intend.
But... The really complex systems and challenges in cities and regions and nations, with economic development... Don't work the same way. No one knows what the solution is. The best we can do is try a promising idea, and look back for causality after the fact. Keep what works. This is the domain of "novel practice." We need to design our experiments and explorations in ways that are okay to fail, and learn from failure as well as success.
Complicated technical systems or situations, where experts give us a small range of viable options, are the domain of "good practice." We can be reasonably sure that what we do will get the result we intend.
But... The really complex systems and challenges in cities and regions and nations, with economic development... Don't work the same way. No one knows what the solution is. The best we can do is try a promising idea, and look back for causality after the fact. Keep what works. This is the domain of "novel practice." We need to design our experiments and explorations in ways that are okay to fail, and learn from failure as well as success.
It is critical that we correctly understand the meaning, and limits of so-called "best practice."
Behind this mistake is the Pervasive Presumption - that the causal relationship between the practice we will use and the result we will get, is known and knowable. It isn't.
The great Peter Drucker may not have known the dynamics of complex systems. But he said this famously and succinctly: "culture eats strategy for breakfast." Little differences make all the difference. What worked for them, CAN'T work for you. But.. you CAN use what you learn from their experience, and ADAPT it to YOUR culture and context.
The great Peter Drucker may not have known the dynamics of complex systems. But he said this famously and succinctly: "culture eats strategy for breakfast." Little differences make all the difference. What worked for them, CAN'T work for you. But.. you CAN use what you learn from their experience, and ADAPT it to YOUR culture and context.
The Single Biggest Mistake that orgs, communities, and politicians make, is in treating the truly complex AS IF it were obvious or technical.
Article: Urban regeneration: What recent research says about best practices by Rachael Stephens and Leighton Walter Kille, The Journalist's Resource, a publication of the Harvard Kennedy Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, January 29, 2015. Read the article here.
Bruce Waltuck, President, Freethink, LLC and Director, I-Open
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Author, Bruce Waltuck, M.A., Complexity, Chaos, and Creativity
President & Owner, Freethinc. . . For A Change, LLC-Services on Organizational Change, Employee and Labor Relations, Collaborative Dialogue, and Story-gathering for Insights and Action. Bruce currently serves as a Director, The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open). Box 15, Windsor, NJ 08561 Phone: 609-577-1584 Website: www.freethinc.com Now tweeting @Freethinc4aChng (C) 2014 Bruce Waltuck, All Rights Reserved. Non-commercial use granted to Betsey Merkel and I-Open, to be distributed under a Creative Commons license with attribution, for non-commercial use |
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