Embracing Complexity

This post is an excerpt from my book “Thinking Aloud.” The theme continues to present itself in my conversations with leaders: how to share complex information and challenging perspectives candidly and constructively. I hope you enjoy the essay – and perhaps introduce the questions below as a way to start conversations with your teammates. – CAW

Embracing Complexity

For several years, I taught ethics courses at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. I currently teach for Metropolitan State University, and present guest lectures in other MBA programs. Those students always seem to come up with interesting perspectives and concerns that I otherwise would not have paused to consider.  (Engaged students are pesky, but in a good way.)  Last week, we considered whether and how to talk to employees about job security, especially when their jobs are less than secure.  I went into the discussion with a firmly-held point of view, grounded in the idea that trust is both a primary ethical consideration and a powerful business driver.  Nothing builds trust like reliable candor and transparency, so these should be the principles that guide our actions.  As we talked it through, the students stressed other considerations, like the very real need to protect some key assets from some employees, and the likelihood that even a modest level of expressed risk would be taken with alarm.  They noted the weaknesses of prediction. The discussion complicated my perspective, by broadening it.  Other conversations have had similar effects.

The students generally stick with the discussion and embrace the complexity, but I can see that it’s uncomfortable for some of them.  That should come as no surprise: we business people are trained to revere simplicity, to reduce paragraphs to bullet points and conversations to elevator speeches.  This can be a matter of discipline.  Mark Twain and others have observed that a good, short letter takes longer to write.  We are taught to clarify, which often leads us to simplify.  Clarity is good, so simple clarity is better, right?

Not always.

Misplaced simplicity can lead us past clarity and into emptiness.  Some situations are complex, and to simplify their descriptions robs them of accuracy or meaning.  Of course, we sometimes need the discipline to focus and simplify.  Other times, we need the willingness to embrace complexity, and the skill to communicate about complicated things clearly, if not always briefly.

Yes, it’s hard.

I recall one in-class discussion concerning the ethical status of social engagement.  Starbucks touts its investment in environmental remediation.  Do they do so because they care about the environment or because they want to sell more coffee?  Does a company’s desire to benefit commercially from good works taint those works?  Do results count, or do motives matter more when we are making moral judgments that guide our commercial behavior (even at the latte level)?

To delve into these questions, it helps to tolerate complexity: we can say that our actions are driven by social AND commercial motives, and mean it.  Why can’t we act from both motives, truly and honestly, at the same time?  Perhaps we could do well to accept that our most important questions often have more than one right answer, and that best answers may be inherently complicated.

Conversation Starters:

Do not fear complexity.  Seek to clarify, and simplify only when you can do so without loss of meaning.

• What is the difference between brevity and clarity?
• Why do you think that business culture, in particular, has developed such a reverence for simplicity?
• How do you know whether you’ve simplified things enough, but not too much?

If you are interested in the full collections of essays the book is available in both paperback and eBook on Amazon.   Link to book on Amazon